I am an American guy who has played with studying Chinese. About 4 years ago I spent about 2 months in Dongbei on the mainland with one month intensive language school. I also spent about a year working in a Chinese speaking environment. I am at probably an advanced beginner level and ready to improve to a solid intermediate. I would love to use Chinese for proper business and know I need to greatly improve. I plan on coming to taiwan for about 2-3 months. If I can get a job there I would stay longer. I have goals of 2000 hanzi and 600 to 1000 verbs. I would also have an emphasis on business terminology. Anyone with suggestions for study or cheap accomomdations would be greatly appreciated.
Just ignore them. There is a weird subset of Taiwan elitist SJWs on Forumosa that believe mainland is a term that somehow hurts Taiwan. I guess they didn’t get the memo that basically everyone in Taiwan, including the government use the term mainland “大陸” to differentiate China from their country, you know, which is also called China…
Mainland is a physical and non political term that I have used there and in Taiwan as well as to Chinese speaking people in America. It can also differentiate it from Hong Kong, Singapore or other areas in Asia. I think it’s one of the most proper things that I can say. Anyway anyone that would like to participate in a language challenge or has ideas about cheap accommodations it would be much appreciated.
I am also interested in Teaching. It would really help with the cost of going and staying there. I don’t have a tefl yet but are looking to do that. I wouldn’t mind even teaching in a buxiben. I did a bit of volunteer teaching in Dongbei and liked it.
Focusing on memorizing a fixed number of verbs is probably not the most productive approach. I would focus instead on being able to have conversations on various topics and situations you encounter in daily life. You’ll find that much more useful when living and working here.
I agree with your suggestion of topical conversations. I also think that the best way to improve is to use your language knowledge to its greatest extent. Afterwards you both are motivated to learn more and know what level you have. I worked in an asian grocery store in the states for a year and talked in Chinese everyday.
Yes and you will learn even more when you are here and you need to go to the doctor, bank, buy a cellphone etc. Some of those vocabulary terms may not even be on your list but you’ll pick them up through experience. Focus on being fluent in those situations vs. a list of words and you’ll progress much faster.
Thanks the_bear. I have a topical list of verbs and plan on making phrases and sentences with them. I just want to codify what I know to get to a solid Intermediate level. I am self taught apart from one month of lessons. I can have hour long conversations using Chinese but by substituting way too many words to come to the same meaning.
I have a goal of 2000 hanzi. At 50 a day thats will take 40 days. I find that learning written Chinese is really helpful for relative vocabulary. In China I studied in an area where the Korean minority lived. All the signs were bilingual. I didn’t really learn Korean but the contrast was interesting to me. Some signs were just phonetic type of Korean pinyin, others used true Korean words.
I want to keep myself on track but also I just can’t wait to take a break from the shit work for nothing life here and just be in Asia. So I can climb a few mountains and walk some strange streets.
Not to “it’ll never work” you, but after passing Advanced-mid on the ACTFL OPI and WPT, I got very intensely into studying characters based on what I encountered in texts that I was reading or in my environment. I was over 9,000 new words (and significantly more characters) and still missing key vocabulary. Most of the words i learned weren’t even on the HSK or TOCFL lists.
As was said above, focus on communication.
Being able to know a certain number of words or characters is an ineffective benchmark at best. When I was going to learn at TMC, the first thing they did was send me a list with their levels and corresponding number of characters that needed to be known. Their top level only needed 5,000 and claimed that was “C1” in CEFR standards. Remember I learned 9,000+ words after reaching Advanced-Mid, which is C1. Yet the textbook, A Course in Contemporary Chinese 5, was not “too easy” for me. It has topics that I don’t have the language for and it’s perfectly fine for me to expand vocabulary on those topics. So please don’t base your language goals off of how many characters you know. It’s not particularly helpful. It’s even less helpful if you’re seeking to memorize x number of whichever part if speech. That’s not how language acquisition works. You’re learning a language, not linguistics.
I recommend checking out the ACTFL Can-Do Statements. Figure out where you fall in that and make a plan for how to get to the next level based on the topics you need to be able to talk about in order to get there.
No one has an issue with the English word “mainland” however, to claim that 大陸 in Chinese means “mainland” you are either very brainwashed by the KMT or CCP, or you have more to learn about the Chinese language.
It’s also funny that the first couple of replies claim that there would be people having an issue with the “m-word” and then went on all on their own without anyone to argue with them.
I am fine with other people insisting on using the term Mainland China, as long as they are fine with other people just referring to the two places just as Taiwan and China. I also think the way jimipresley asked to address China in a factual way is pretty polite and straight forward. I don’t understand the intense response.
Thanks everyone for the responses. They are very constructive for me. Nz what you said gives me some pause for thought and and I will look at the ACTFL statements. Possibly this will give me a bit of insight. I still plan on learning the 2000 hanzi and as I do it look at the connected vocabulary. I will put to memory what I think is interesting or useful. I do not think 3 months is too long to take this method. Staying there I hope to see how much of what I learn I can connect to my environment.
Like it has been said in the end comprehension and communication is the most important. It is motivational and lets me know both what I know and how I need to improve. I want to improve my command of both general and business related subjects. In particular Commercial, Real Estate and Import/Export terminology. It is kind of sad when I see the level I am currently at but this is life. I would love to use Chinese everyday for business but in the end it also about the shits and giggles that makes life worthwhile.
