Hello. I am an Indonesian-Chinese who is planning to go to Taiwan for 4 months to study Chinese. I have previously learned Chinese when I was studying in an international school with a Singapore curriculum in Jakarta. The highest level I have reached was Primary 6 (based on Singapore’s curriculum) and I stopped because I was too busy with my final exams. Now that I am free and waiting for university admission result, I am planning to go Taipei to brush up my Mandarin, as well as getting some new experience in Taiwan ( I have always been very excited to go to Taiwan - heard a lot of good things about the food and place).
I have googled some programmes in mandarin departments of NTU, NCCU and NTNU (basically I have more or less set on going on either one of this three). I have been inclined towards NCCU since I have heard that it offers amazing programmes, its dorm is more available for students like me, and also I have been more than impressed when I saw the performances done by the students who enrolled there which are all done in Chinese. But my only concern is that since I also would like to explore Taipei during my brief visit (3-4 months) there, is NCCU to far and inaccessible from all these places? At the same time,however, my ultimate goal of going to Taiwan is still to improve my Chinese (writing, speaking and reading) so does NCCU being slightly further from the city centre provide a more conducive environment? Thank you and if you have any other interesting details about learning Mandarin in Taiwan, please share it too:D
NCCU has a great campus, the dorms are ok (better than NTU’s I’ve heard though I only stayed at NCCU’s) and a big plus is that Maokong and a lot of nice hikes are just around the corner. Also, Muzha (the area next to NCCU) is not a bad place to live in my opinion. That is, if you’re busy with work all day. As far as entertainment goes: there’s little around NCCU campus. No nice bars, pubs, nightmarkets, shopping areas. Life can get pretty boring up there, especially in the evenings. The bus to Gongguan takes about 40 minutes in the afternoon, 30 at other times of the day.
Locationwise NTU and NTNU are much more convenient. You got nightmarkets, lots of places for students to hang out, shops, very nice coffee shops, the list goes on.
Never attended classes at NTU but a friend of mine (rather high level of Chinese) and she’s now attending NTNU and says classes there are much better, taught in a more systematic way, she’s making a lot more progress, etc.
I also like the classes (Intensive) at NTNU better than the ones at NCCU. NCCU classes were not bad but I also feel I make better progress at NTNU. They emphasize a lot on conversation practice but at the same time force you to practise your writing (composition exercises, homework has to be handwritten (as opposed to NCCU)). They also have a system of daily exams (at least at my level) instead of mid-term and final exams (NCCU) which I think suits me more.
I am thinking that if I decided to go to NCCU i can just take public transport and go to town centre in the afternoon/evening to enjoy the night markets, etc. Do you happen to know their operating hours? If I am not planning to go back late at night, there should still have buses going back to NCCU’s dorm right?
And you mentioned that the intensive NTNU’s programme may be better than that in NCCU? I was considering that last time since some of my friends told me NTNU is rather more established and hence, their programmes may be well-organised etc but my only concern about studying in NTNU is that they specifically said that they will not be providing accomodation at their dorm? And hence won’t it be very troublesome to stay off campus? And there is definitely a plus point of staying at the dorm cos you get to interact with the locals more, no?
I’ve a similar question. I would like to improve my chinese over the summer (like 3 months) and I can’t decide whether I should go for CLD (NTU) or MTC (NTNU) or other centres. I should be in the advanced level, or at minimum would be intermediate since I’m not used to traditional chinese.
My priorities are:
Prefer to be centrally located so it’s easier for sight-seeing;
can socialise, hopefully with some cultural activities, the more the better;
centres with good facilities such as swimming pool, gym etc;
hopefully have free weekends so I can move around Taipei.
NCCU isn’t really that far away but it is much less central and kind of inconvenient.
[quote=“asomu”]Hi all …
I’ve a similar question. I would like to improve my chinese over the summer (like 3 months) and I can’t decide whether I should go for CLD (NTU) or MTC (NTNU) or other centres. I should be in the advanced level, or at minimum would be intermediate since I’m not used to traditional chinese.
My priorities are:
Prefer to be centrally located so it’s easier for sight-seeing;
can socialise, hopefully with some cultural activities, the more the better;
centres with good facilities such as swimming pool, gym etc;
hopefully have free weekends so I can move around Taipei.
[quote=“asomu”]I just don’t know if I should send an application to MTC (NTNU) since they require snail mail application. Why don’t they allow online application??
I wanted to apply to ICLP but it requires $100 non-refundable fee. I’m applying for scholarships so I can’t afford that.
Are both MTC and CLD the best in Taipei (for advanced level)?[/quote]
NTU’s ICLP is widely considered one of the best particularly for advanced levels, but given your priorities it’s probably not the right choice. By all accounts classes at ICLP are extremely intensive so unless you’re very serious about spending the time to really LEARN Chinese, I would go with one of the other language schools. ICLP also requires two reference letters (three for the academic year program), your college transcript, and an application essay so the admissions process itself is quite a bit more work. It’s also more expensive than the other programs, but class sizes are smaller and ultimately the tuition is peanuts compared to the opportunity cost.
Yeah … I thought ICLP would be a bit too intensive. Actually I don’t mind, I would love to be at a professional level. But I would also like to visit and explore Taiwan, hence I prefer not to go ICLP.
I can understand chinese TV series without problems, even 非诚勿扰 I can understand almost 98% if they use a bit of chinese accent. But I’m very slow in reading chinese novels because I almost never read mandarin. And typing chinese too, I’m very slow in it because I don’t know ZhuYin. I’ve no problems in speaking chinese.
Hopefully I’m able to secure some kind of scholarship to sponsor my trip.
