Hello everyone! I am hoping to move to Taiwan in a few months’ time and am looking at options to learn Mandarin.
Whenever I’ve learnt languages in the past, I know that online, weekly or bi-weekly tuition classes don’t work for me. Instead full time daily classes, in a classroom setting, with in-class interaction, tests and activities is what works.
So, I would be grateful for suggestions on schools with good teachers, not too big classroom sizes (maybe around 5-10) and that aren’t too expensive. Also, if they offer accommodation that isn’t shared, it would be a plus.
Am I better off learning traditional or simplified Chinese? I heard that traditional Chinese is what is taught in Taiwan, but it is harder to learn.
If you want to learn quickly. Go to NTU. It’s expensive but they will teach you.
Don’t go to NTNU, their classes are garbage.
If you’re moving here, traditional. Actually I find traditional easier to learn because many simplified characters look alike.
If you plan to live here, you will need traditional.
And, Traditional is easy to fall back to Simplified, but Simplified does not always translate well to Traditional.
If your goals are to live/work/do business in China, don’t come here. Learn in Beijing or Shanghai because the schools here are primarily traditional. You don’t want to be coming here, trying to learn simplified and not practising because everything is in traditional.
I think NTNU is fine. I’ve taken both their regular and intensive classes and enjoyed both. I was lucky to have good teachers and good classmates.
Regarding characters, they’re really only hard if you don’t spend time with them every day. Just put your words in Anki and don’t consider a word learned until you’ve learned how to write it.
Wasn’t someone raving about TLI? Seems crazy expensive to me (more than ILCP if you’re doing the same amount of time, if I recall), but I feel like someone on here was saying it was the best experience they’d had
iclp at NTU is the best intensive program, but its a full time commitment.
NTNU is ok, depends on your teacher and classmates. overall i had a good experience there (learning wise)
I know National Taiwan University has single, double and triple rooms (NTU Prince House) ,
I lived in the single room which includes the following facilities: bed frame without mattress, desk, lamp, book shelf, chair, and closets, bathroom, internet, telephone , Air conditioner and small Refrigerator .
sometimes there is a waiting list( international students) . Local students like to stay in the traditional dorm (cheaper) rooms that has 4 students per room
You can check more info about the rooms in the following link