So im moving to Taipei from taoyuan city and am interested in taking chinese classes but i know i probably dont have much time to enroll so heres a laundry list of questions im hoping some people have any answer to. i have an apartment and a job but my mornings are free. i can also speak chinese somewhat already but its only been from private tutoring and language exchanges. so anyways…
what universities can i study chinese at in taipei?
id like to continue my classes into the fall and spring semester and potentially for a few years so if i want to have a degree proving my fluency (not fluent currently) in chinese eventually how long does that take? what places can offer that?
what is the difference with the classes at the language institute?
G’day
As I know National Taiwan Normal University is an option to learn Chinese! ntnu.edu.tw/ntnu-eng.html
Address-162, HePing East Road, Section 1, Taipei, Taiwan (10610) (02) 2362-5105
Just give them a call! they might have answers to your question!
Good luck!
Cheers!
Both Shida and Mandarin Daily News(near CKS subway stop) are very traditional, meaning the scent of rigid authoritarianism is everywhere and so thick in the air you can hardly breathe(i.e. study in a relaxing manner). This may be nothing new to an ABC, but for others it is an unpleasant first encounter that stifles their interest in learning.
If you are right off the boat, you should take private lessons at Pioneer or TLI. Buy a month’s worth and make sure they give you the records to extend your visa(if needed). Pioneer is across the street from Shida. The owner of Pioneer is the best teacher at Pioneer. TLI is around the corner from Shida. At TLI, my best experience was with an older kind of heavy(for a chinese) Hao laoshi. After that was ‘wang mama’ who can help your pronunciation. Wang mama is a typical chinese insofar as asking you about every personal matter which is none of her business but if you keep her on track, she’s very good. 3rd best there(imho) was a short woman. she was probably attractive 15 years ago and is still sure every foreign guy wants to date her. ignore this and you’ll find she stays on message and challenges and doesn’t let you slack.
Both Shi-Da and Mandarin Daily News(near CKS subway stop) are very traditional, meaning the scent of rigid authoritarianism is everywhere and so thick in the air you can hardly breathe(i.e. study in a relaxing manner). This may be nothing new to an ABC, but for others it is an unpleasant first encounter that stifles their interest in learning.
If you are right off the boat, you should take private lessons at Pioneer or TLI. Buy a month’s worth and make sure they give you the records to extend your visa(if needed). Pioneer is across the street from Shi-Da. The owner of Pioneer is the best teacher at Pioneer. TLI is around the corner from Shi-Da. At TLI, my best experience was with an older kind of heavy(for a Chinese) Hao laoshi. After that was ‘wang mama’ who can help your pronunciation. Wang mama is a typical Chinese insofar as asking you about every personal matter which is none of her business but if you keep her on track, she’s very good. 3rd best there(imho) was a short woman. she was probably attractive 15 years ago and is still sure every foreign guy wants to date her. ignore this and you’ll find she stays on message and challenges and doesn’t let you slack.[/quote]
I’m no fan of shi da but I have to disagree with your advice here. From the experiences that my friends and I have had at TLI and pioneer you are way better off at shi da.
At the very least you will get the same teacher for the period that you pay for. I had a friend who signed up at TLI for a couple of months and had a different teacher virtually every lesson.
I went to pioneer before and it was a waste of money for me. The teacher (who i’m sure is the short one you mentioned) had no idea how to teach and simply went through page by page following the AV books. We would go through a chapter in 2 hours and then she’d be amazed when the 40 odd vocabulary words weren’t burned into my memory after such a thorough class.
I’d say go to shi da. You’ll have to work to keep up with the classes too and you will notice the improvement more than with one on ones.
As has been said about a million times before, it all depends on the individual teacher you happen to get at any school (and what that individual teacher ate for breakfast, sometimes). They all share basically the same training (very little) and the same background (pure Taiwanese education system). For the most part, anybody with more qualifications has become a “proper” university teacher somewhere, or gotten into a non-language center situation. There are individual exceptions, of course, but the chances of getting yourself assigned to one of these are small.
Anyway – please stick to questions from the OP that haven’t been answered numerous times elsewhere…let’s not have this thread degenerate into another “Shida is great” “No it sucks” “What, it’s marvelous” thing.
As for the OP’s desire to have a “degree” in Chinese, that is not likely to happen in Taiwan for a foreigner. You could potentially take a whole lot of classes somewhere, become fluent, and then subject yourself to an undergraduate degree in Chinese literature, but really, serious body modification or maybe S&M would be a much quicker and easier way to suffer. Anyway, a bachelor’s in Chinese will get you precisely nothing. You won’t be fluent after a BA or BS degree (although you may have been fairly fluent going in if you did all those classes first) and IMHO you’d be better off holistically speaking to do a degree in something else and simply have good Mandarin in your pocket as an additional skill. Relying solely on your knowledge of Mandarin is a tough way to make a living, especially these days.
I will add my two cents. TLI’s materials sucks. Their materials are less than professional and writing by their owner/director. I think he wrote the book as a way to make more money. He didn’t even bother to pay someone to professionally edit the translations. He translates words into English that are incomprehensible. On top of that the explanations in the books are often lacking. So one can have a hard time preparing on their own. Not to mention that compared to the techniques used for teaching English, TLI’s techniques stink. TLI’s book is just a dialogs, vocabulary, and grammar exercises. They don’t provide songs, cultural blurbs or anything else. Not to mention that the book does not really allow students to use Mandarin in a creative way. It is just making sentences and memorizing the sentences in the dialogs. Of course I believe you may find this anywhere in Taiwan. Which makes me laugh when people tell me they are going to Shida to learn to be a Chinese teacher. I would rather earn an M.A. in TESOL in the US and apply what you learned from that program than study how to teach Chinese from Taiwanese professors.
Recently, I’ve heard good things about the Chinese Culture University Taipei Campus Chinese Program. The location, close to Taan Park, is also quite suitable, and the prices seem reasonable.
I have an acquaintance who is studying the Masters in Chinese Language at Shida. It is the first generation of a program open exclusively for foreigners. If the OP is truly interested, I recommend to visit the campus office -in the Gonkuan section- and listen in to a few classes, test the waters so to speak.
Anyway, a bachelor’s in Chinese will get you precisely nothing. You won’t be fluent after a BA or BS degree (although you may have been fairly fluent going in if you did all those classes first) and IMHO you’d be better off holistically speaking to do a degree in something else and simply have good Mandarin in your pocket as an additional skill. Relying solely on your knowledge of Mandarin is a tough way to make a living, especially these days.