Mandarin ability needed for job opportunities

Hi there,

Do you think i should study Chinese as a major in a double degree alongside a commerce degree or just as a minor within one commerce degree? the minor only teaches it up to a “pre-intermediate developing” level, whereas the major teaches it up to “advanced developing”. Just doing it as a minor has some advantages. Firstly it reduces the rest of my uni time to only 2 years rather than 3, which would be the case if i studied it as a major within a double degree.

Is it worth doing it as a major or am i better off just studying the minor?

I also think its worth mentioning that for family reasons im planning to work in Taiwan after i graduate and i will obtain a valid work permit through that way. I wonder what level of Chinese will be required to get a job, even considering i will have full work rights and a permit. Im doing a finance major within my commerce degree.

Also, i have no choice but to learn simplified Chinese, will this be a problem for me?

Sorry if my writing is a bit sloppy, im in a bit of a rush.

I hope to hear some good advice from you all soon,

Thanks in advance :smiley:

Its definitely helpful in the job market. Doing it as a minor and getting proficiency from living in Taiwan sounds good to me

I interned in a small investment firm in Taipei back when I was in uni and all paperwork, e-mails and what have you, were all in English. Despite everyone having overseas experience and degrees, we all spoke Chinese in the office and phone calls with clients were also in Chinese. Now, I’m not sure every financial corp office operates like this, but that’s how the office I worked at it.

I did a econ major with a minor in information tech. Most of my Chinese learning came from interacting with the family, Taiwanese shows on Youtube and spending summers in Taiwan. If you already have family in Taiwan, I would spend your summer vacations there and learn while immersed in the environment. If you already have a work permit waiting for you at the end of the road, that means you have connections and your guan xi is good. Use that guan xi to get yourself some summer internships there and you may pick up the language quicker than in a classroom back at uni.

Nonetheless, it really depends on how you approach the learning process. In another internship I did hear, my co-intern was a white dude, who had better pronunciation and vocabulary than I did! Why? Despite being in the states when he learned, he immersed himself in the language and culture. Another good example is, @okonomiyaki , guy has better Chinese than I do and he learned it 5-8 years ago whereas I have lived the language since I was born.

Sorry for the novel. To answer your questions:

Conversational level with knowledge of specific terms in your field of work would be helpful. Conversational level as in, being able to hold a full conversation with no English words.

Maybe and maybe not. I’ve always heard that if you know traditional, simplified isn’t too hard. However, I still have issues with figuring out simplified because I grew up learning traditional.

No personal experience with that one either. However I think it is true because going from Traditional to Simplified is a one to one mapping, but it’s a one to more mapping the other way around, and that mapping will have to based on context.

This is how I would rate the difficulties of each task

Traditional to Simplified:
Reading: 1
Converting text with a computer: 1 - This one is super easy. It requires so little intelligence, a simply script could do this fairly well. It’s getting the terminologies right that becomes the difficult part, but then it has nothing to do with the script itself.
Writing by hand: 8 - It’s one thing to read simplified, another trying to remember how to write them by hand.
Writing on a digital device: 1 - Again, super easy.

Simplified to Traditional:
Reading: 3 - Reading is ok. You can always guess from the context.
Converting text with a computer: 7 - Think auto-correct getting things wrong, and you have no idea how to fix it. Until Neural Network is really every freaking where, this one will remain somewhat. Since currently, AI can’t do a perfect job at this, without learning traditional, you would be unaware that difference characters are required in a different context.
Writing by hand: 10 - Yeah, even more difficult.
Writing on a digital device: 7 - Like 6, you’ll have to re-learn about the context and character pairings.

The upside is if neural network really becomes prevalent, we probably can just get the devices to type out the right characters by speaking to it.

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It’s unlikely there would be an enormous difference in your actual Mandarin proficiency between doing a minor and doing a major. Either way, in 99% of cases you aren’t going to be fluent when you get out. I’d do the minor and then plan to take time in Taiwan to become more fluent and proficient. There’s a big gap between what’s taught in the typical college Mandarin course and the kind of Mandarin you need to do a job in Taiwan (or live in Taiwan, for that matter).

Take a closer look at the Chinese major requirements. You will likely have to take one or two years of classical Chinese, lit, poetry, etc. If your focus is practical application of language studies, and not because you might want to go on get a master’s or PhD in Chinese, then consider whether your time would be better spent on business courses (or going to Taiwan to immerse yourself in the environment). Depends where exactly your interests are.