Why not to start your Chinese learning in Taiwan

[Snooker]

I decided to make this post to give my perspectives on Chinese studying to anyone thinking about coming to Taiwan or going to China, based on my experiences studying in both places. In all, I studied Chinese at Middlebury College (L1), abroad in China with my college (L2), at Princeton in Beijing (L3) and ICLP in Taipei (L4).

I have come to the conclusion that anyone with less than three years of college Chinese under their belt, or four if you’ve not studied intensively (i.e. gone to China or another intensive school), you should avoid going to Taiwan, but at very advanced levels, Taiwan is a good place to be. (edit - I am mainly referring to Taipei here, since it’s where students from overseas tend to come to study Chinese. This post is also about Chinese students choosing whether to fly to Taiwan or to China, not people who have lived in Taiwan for a while, the experiences of which in learning Chinese will be very different.)

The crux of why anyone should avoid Taiwan at low levels is that it’s a really terrible environment to learn Chinese in. Even Middlebury, Vermont provides a far superior environment to Taiwan… and that’s an English speaking country! Most level 2/3 Chinese students I saw in Taiwan encountered a lot of the same language troubles I did, but instead of dealing with them, they were just overcome by them. Most younger people (under 35 or so I’d say) in Taiwan have some conversational ability in English, and most of them want to improve it (especially women). If you encounter any problems with your Chinese, most people’s first instinct is to switch to English. According to a teacher, hundreds of students in ICLP’s history have complained that when they talk to people in Taiwan, they respond in English. Local people have told me it’s because they think you can’t understand Chinese.

A good number of Taiwanese people with conversational English abilities seek out foreigners with the hope of practicing their English. For a number of students, this is a convenience, it allows them to have a “real” conversation, something level 4 students even reported. There’s 0 need to use your Chinese at all in Taipei, unless you are doing business (in which case the need is very real), so there’s no daily motivation to learn it. No one I came across from 4 different language schools in Beijing ever had a problem speaking Chinese in China, and feeling good about it - the people there appreciate your attempts at Chinese and are patient and supportive. However, a high-advanced Chinese student at ICLP recently confided to me, “I’m sick of this ‘fuck you, I don’t want to hear your Chinese’ attitude in Taiwan”. I’ve even met two people who said to my face, they’re going to refuse to speak Chinese to me because they can already speak English, why the hell speak Chinese to a foreigner?

As a level 4 student, I was able to talk about what we’re up to here, what kind of homework load there is, and I found my friends remarkably understanding. At the end of the day, Taiwanese people are very nice and hospitable, interesting and well-educated, but this is a society in which the status of strangers is pretty much zero. As an intermediate or even advanced student, that leaves you a fish out of water. Strangers often see you as a walking English practice opportunity, that’s what foreigners usually come to Taiwan for. I talked about this issue with people from ICLP, Zhengzhi University, and Shida and everyone I came across had serious problems, even very advanced students weren’t confident in their Chinese. A common criticism of ICLP students is their speaking proficiency is generally low, which is expectable - they never get a good chance to immerse themselves. If you want real language immersion in Taiwan, you have to really work for it, while in China it was always given, at least in the good Chinese programs. I had a really good study experience in China, and that set the bar for me in Taiwan, so I’ve been able to speak Chinese as much here as there, but the difference is in China you can speak very basic Chinese and people are happy to chat with you, while in Taiwan it took me the equivalent of 3.5 years Chinese in order to stay at the same level.

As a high level student, however, Taiwan is a good place to study. In Taiwan, you can have all the modern conveniences you’d get in, say, NYC, which you can’t get in China, as well as good health care. Moreover, with the free press, there’s non-communist newspapers available with a range of opinions, from Tian Xia (the World) on social issues, to Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly) which covers China without the censorship. There’s real TV available, in addition to the wacky communist TV you can get in China. People in Taiwan have varied opinions and knowledge, while people in China all pretty much seem to think the same thing- which gets old fast. If you can read a newspaper, Taiwan’s a great place to be. It has everything China does, and more.

But if you can’t read that paper, then learning Chinese in Taiwan is an uphill battle, compared to China anyway. Not only is it the hardest of the modern languages, but the local population just isn’t going to be receptive to your needs.

[Feiren]

[quote=“Snooker”]I decided to make this post to give my perspectives on Chinese studying to anyone thinking about coming to Taiwan or going to China, based on my experiences studying in both places. In all, I studied Chinese at Middlebury College (L1), abroad in China with my college (L2), at Princeton in Beijing (L3) and ICLP in Taipei (L4).
[/quote]

Great. You are probably right about your conclusions, but I’m going to question your reasoning in a few places.

[snip]

The crux of why anyone should avoid Taiwan at low levels is that it’s a really terrible environment to learn Chinese in. Even Middlebury, Vermont provides a far superior environment to Taiwan… and that’s an English speaking country! Most level 2/3 Chinese students I saw in Taiwan encountered a lot of the same language troubles I did, but instead of dealing with them, they were just overcome by them. Most younger people (under 35 or so I’d say) in Taiwan have some conversational ability in English, and most of them want to improve it (especially women). If you encounter any problems with your Chinese, most people’s first instinct is to switch to English. According to a teacher, hundreds of students in ICLP’s history have complained that when they talk to people in Taiwan, they respond in English. Local people have told me it’s because they think you can’t understand Chinese.

Hmm…we hear this all the time. Many people, especially in Taipei, do speak English fairly well. You might try somewhere outside of Taipei rather than writing off all of Taiwan. But I do have to point out that I can’t see any obligation for people to speak Mandarin to you if their English is better than your Chinese. Local people are right–people with only a couple of years of Chinese study can’t understand Chinese. Even worse, native speakers can’t understand what the foreign student is saying–bad tones, mangled syntax, misusages, and ignorance of context are a lethal combination to communication. No wonder they switch to English.

While I can sympathize with the plight of the hapless Mandarin student in Taipei, perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here. There are many ways to learn other than insisting on speaking all the time. In fact many beginning and intermediate students of Mandarin would do better to talk less and listen more.

In any event, once you meet and become friends with people here, you will be immersed in Mandarin-speaking environment. They will want to speak Mandarin to their friends and not everyone in their circle will speak English or will want to. So I would say that you should relax about casual encounters on the street with people and avoid English Nazis rather than writing off Taiwan.

Having said that, I see two major reasons to study Mandarin in China. First, it’s way cheaper. Second, the government there, and even many ordinary people, think that teaching Mandarin is a something of a priority. Because of identity issues here, policy and social attitudes toward teaching Mandarin and ‘learning about Chinese culture’ are decidedly mixed at best.

Also, if you want to get lots of practice speaking, get a non-teaching job.

A good number of Taiwanese people with conversational English abilities seek out foreigners with the hope of practicing their English. For a number of students, this is a convenience, it allows them to have a “real” conversation, something level 4 students even reported. There’s 0 need to use your Chinese at all in Taipei, unless you are doing business (in which case the need is very real), so there’s no daily motivation to learn it.

Nonsense. This almost never happens to me. I am an obvious foreigner. No one tries to speak English to me. And I have lots of reasons to speak Mandarin in daily life.

[quote]
No one I came across from 4 different language schools in Beijing ever had a problem speaking Chinese in China, and feeling good about it - the people there appreciate your attempts at Chinese and are patient and supportive. However, a high-advanced Chinese student at ICLP recently confided to me, “I’m sick of this ‘fuck you, I don’t want to hear your Chinese’ attitude in Taiwan”. I’ve even met two people who said to my face, they’re going to refuse to speak Chinese to me because they can already speak English, why the hell speak Chinese to a foreigner? [/quote]

The truth is that they don’t want to hear your Chinese because your Chinese sucks. I don’t mean you personally, but that’s the hard truth for almost everyone at your level.

As a level 4 student, I was able to talk about what we’re up to here, what kind of homework load there is, and I found my friends remarkably understanding. At the end of the day, Taiwanese people are very nice and hospitable, interesting and well-educated, but this is a society in which the status of strangers is pretty much zero.

Hmmm… the trick may be to not be a stranger. Which really isn’t too hard in Taiwan.

As an intermediate or even advanced student, that leaves you a fish out of water. Strangers often see you as a walking English practice opportunity, that’s what foreigners usually come to Taiwan for. I talked about this issue with people from ICLP, Zhengzhi University, and Shi-Da and everyone I came across had serious problems, even very advanced students weren’t confident in their Chinese. A common criticism of ICLP students is their speaking proficiency is generally low, which is expectable - they never get a good chance to immerse themselves.

That’s because ICLP students spend way too much time in the classroom and way too much time writing characters. They don’t spend enough time in bars or cafes or hiking up mountains or just hanging out.

If you want real language immersion in Taiwan, you have to really work for it, while in China it was always given, at least in the good Chinese programs. I had a really good study experience in China, and that set the bar for me in Taiwan, so I’ve been able to speak Chinese as much here as there, but the difference is in China you can speak very basic Chinese and people are happy to chat with you, while in Taiwan it took me the equivalent of 3.5 years Chinese in order to stay at the same level.

One reason is that people have more time in China. Another reason is that a lot of people who do have more time (older folks etc) are mainly Taiwanese speakers.

As a high level student, however, Taiwan is a good place to study. In Taiwan, you can have all the modern conveniences you’d get in, say, NYC, which you can’t get in China, as well as good health care. Moreover, with the free press, there’s non-communist newspapers available with a range of opinions, from Tian Xia (the World) on social issues, to Yazhou Zhoukan (Asia Weekly) which covers China without the censorship. There’s real TV available, in addition to the wacky communist TV you can get in China. People in Taiwan have varied opinions and knowledge, while people in China all pretty much seem to think the same thing- which gets old fast. If you can read a newspaper, Taiwan’s a great place to be. It has everything China does, and more.

I agree with your basic point, but Tianxia and Yazhou zhoukan! Horrors. Those are hardly a ‘range of opinion’ but rather organs of the tongmei. But yes, it’s great that Taiwan is a free country.

[quote]
But if you can’t read that paper, then learning Chinese in Taiwan is an uphill battle, compared to China anyway. Not only is it the hardest of the modern languages, but the local population just isn’t going to be receptive to your needs.[/quote]

And there’s the key point. Why should they be?

[Mother_Theresa]

Well crafted essay and you’ve studied Chinese for longer and in more places than I have, but I completely disagree that Taiwan’s a bad place for a beginner to learn Chinese.

For christ sake, we’re surrounded by Chinese people here. In the small town where I lived back home, if you wanted to practice Chinese you’d have to go to one of the small handful of Chinese restaurants and, even then, chances are your server would be Korean or Thai (close enough for hiring purposes) or some California kid who never did learn to speak her parents’ native tongue.

Here you can speak Chinese with the grocer, the neighbors, the laundry lady, breakfast shop laoban, taxi driver, coworkers, girlfriend, wife, inlaws, random folks on the street, etc. Want to read Chinese? It’s everywhere around you, in books, newspapers, magazines, advertising, in the schools, workplace, etc.

I don’t buy one bit the old myth that locals won’t speak Chinese with foreigners because they prefer to practice their English. After 8 years here, my Chinese still sucks but it’s not for lack of people to speak to. In fact, outside of work (where my colleagues all speak good English), I’ve lived to a certain extent in my own world apart from the locals (not that I mind, it allows me to think), because most people can barely speak English and don’t want to practice their English, so I’ll speak a few rudimentary sentences in Chinese to get the job done, and then the conversation ceases. I am certain that if I could carry on a basic conversation in Chinese I’d find people everywhere who were happy to blather on all day with me in Chinese.

So, nice academic essay, but I don’t buy it at all.

Btw, Middlebury must be very nice. I visited New Hampshire and Vermont occasionally as a kid – clean, quiet, fresh air, rolling hills, beautiful trees that turn yellow and red in the autumn. If only it weren’t so damned far away from here, it would be a great place for a break from this city.

[Buttercup]

I this this from both sides, having learned Chinese in Taiwan for seven years, and nowhere else. I learned it because I’ve lived in Taiwan, not because I had a previous interest in learning Chinese.

When you are a beginner, your pronunciation is incomprehensible. It’ll get better with practice. Your teacher understands what you are saying because she listens to our mangled tones all the time, but others aren’t so tuned in.

As a teacher, I know what it’s like when you just aren’t in the mood to hear another mouthful of Chinglish. You order a sandwich, wholemeal bread, no mayo, no jalapenos, all in Chinese, you pay for it, then the assisstance shouts BAG! at you at the top of her lungs. It’s just irritating for me, but I can also see the assistant’s point of view.

Maybe she’s been hired because she said she could speak English and I am causing her to lose face in front of her manager by not speaking English? Maybe she hates working in a sandwich shop (I would) and just wants her day to be simpler.

As a more ‘advanced’ learner, I often have people saying to me; ‘Phew, you can speak Chinese, cool, my English sucks!’ People are interested in talking to me about my lifestyle, my country, boyfriends, my family, anything. Sometimes I don’t want to talk to strangers about my life.

Make friends with older people; they have a lot less attitude about the English thing. If people use English all the time, compliment them on how smart and accomplished they are and ask if they can help you become so great in Chinese.

I have no experience of learning anywhere else, but I’d say the things that slowed me down as a beginner were poor quality teaching and materials and a focus on writing from Day 1. But you get over that if you persevere. It’s been frustrating at times, but that’s part of language learning. You aren’t just learning the words, you are learning to communicate also.

[Icon]

As a foreign language teacher, I was shocked when I got here and the first thing the Chinese teacher said was that she had been teaching the same way for 25 years and was not going to change. This set the tone of future interractions in the classroom, with the teacher doing her thing, and the students dwelling in a different world.

In my experience, most instructors here have no idea on how to cope with a real beginner -someone who has never had any exposure to the language- as they usually get “false” begginners -Overseas Chinese, people who have studied abroad and go to a lower level to get better grades, etc.-. Hence, I support the OP’s argument that Taiwan is not the place to start learning Mandarin, as the system and the instructors are not capable to meet their needs, have no idea nor patience on how to deal with a real beginner, and will frustrate or mislead the student.

Furthermore, as the instruction is basically one-fits-all, being here or being abroad makes no difference. Very few instructors make the extra effort of designing extra material or bringing any example of the real world outside for the students. Hence, what goes on in teh classroom is completely detached from the environment. The student must hence be very proactive, and practice in real life situations by him/herself. depending on his/her luck, this can be a positive or frustrating experinec, and there may/may not be someone there to correct the linguistic mistakes made or explain the situation. Relying on Taiwanese friends is nice, but puts a strain on the relationship. It even ads extra preessure to BF/GF situations. And most of our friends are not professional language instructors.

As a result, learners get all these weak bases, and pronunciation problems become fossilized. Learning mandarin in this environment is stressful and leads to an unefficient allocation of resources.

If I go halfway across the world just to hear someone reading to me from a book, I would become very frustrated. If I had taught Spanish the way people learn Mandarin here, I would have been out of a job quickly because it is a competitive field and people try to make it as interesting as possible to get as many students as possible. Here, it is more like a canned hunt. Students are trapped without choice in terms of materials -one Holy book- and teaching systems are mostly obsolete. With a bit of luck, the avid learner will find a suitable instructors, but the students must still be more than proactive, even aggressive, to get all that the so called Taiwan experience is meant to be, at least in linguistic terms.

[Fox]

[quote]If only it weren’t so damned far away from here, it would be a great place for a break from this city.
[/quote]

And to learn Chinese.

[wix]

I must also disagree with Snooker. I have lived in Taiwan and China and studied Chinese in Australia. I rarely encounter any of the so-called problems Snooker complains about.

It is true that many foreigners live here for years without attaining any competency in the local languages. That is their choice, not because of any problems with the local environment for language learning.

I find that wherever I go people usually address me in Mandarin and expect me to understand, even before I open my mouth. I only rarely encounter people that insist on speaking English or want to practice speaking English.

It really comes down to your own attitude and the way you engage with the world around you. I think Taiwan is an excellent place to learn Mandarin.

[ironlady]

@Buttercup

If people use English all the time, compliment them on how smart and accomplished they are and ask if they can help you become so great in Chinese.

Brilliant. Probably the best approach to this common problem I’ve ever heard, and it’s so “Chinese” it will work, too.

[alidarbac]

I think if you replaced Taiwan with Taipei, you’d be much closer to the mark.

[Gao_Bohan]

Wouldn’t the best place to learn Mandarin be an area where a Mandarin dialect is spoken natively? Taiwan may not be the best choice for the same reason Guangdong province isn’t the best choice: the local dialects are not mutually intelligible with Mandarin.

[Dragonbones]

[quote=“Snooker”]I have come to the conclusion that anyone with less than three years of college Chinese under their belt, or four if you’ve not studied intensively (i.e. gone to China or another intensive school), you should avoid going to Taiwan, but at very advanced levels, Taiwan is a good place to be.
[/quote]

Hi Snooker, good post, but I’m afraid that like most of the above posters, I have to disagree with you on most points. I had a very positive experience after only one year or so of independent study, then moving to Taibei. There are zillions of opportunities here. Most people don’t speak English here.

Most younger people (under 35 or so I’d say) in Taiwan have some conversational ability in English, and most of them want to improve it (especially women). If you encounter any problems with your Chinese, most people’s first instinct is to switch to English. According to a teacher, hundreds of students in ICLP’s history have complained that when they talk to people in Taiwan, they respond in English. Local people have told me it’s because they think you can’t understand Chinese.

My experience is that the majority of people here, even in Taibei, are not comfortable with English and will not do this. Of course there are some, but you have control over whether you continue interacting with those particular individuals.

A good number of Taiwanese people with conversational English abilities seek out foreigners with the hope of practicing their English.

True, but a good number do not a majority make. They are but a tiny fraction of the population. It’s easy to pretend you don’t speak English, anyway. There are many Western countries out there, y’know.

There’s 0 need to use your Chinese at all in Taipei, unless you are doing business

Sorry, but I strongly disagree based on 13+ years of experience here. I need to use Chinese here the vast majority of the time.

“I’m sick of this ‘fuck you, I don’t want to hear your Chinese’ attitude in Taiwan”.

Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. Many people here are delighted to hear foreigners speak Chinese. Most Taiwanese here are also very polite compared to many of the Chinese I’ve met, so I do not believe that the experiences you report are at all representative. No one has EVER said anything to me even remotely approaching the rude words you cite, regarding language usage. As far as xenophobia is concerned, I was treated much worse in the communist nation across the strait.

this is a society in which the status of strangers is pretty much zero.

This doesn’t match my own perceptions of reality.

Strangers often see you as a walking English practice opportunity

There are many such people, but they are the minority. Furthermore, you are approaching everyone as a walking Mandarin practice opportunity, no? Let’s be fair.

In closing, I think Buttercup’s solution is an excellent one.

[Snooker]

Great. You are probably right about your conclusions, but I’m going to question your reasoning in a few places.

Fieren, I think you raise legitimate points, but I also think your personal experience might differ from a Chinese student flying into Taiwan, and in some places might well reinforce my conclusions(!). Also, if you are already living in Taiwan when you start learning Chinese, you’re at a big advantage compared to someone who just flies in with a program, which is the group I’m really writing about here.

I’d like to reiterate that these were all issues that I confronted, but at a high level was able to deal with. They nonetheless made my Chinese study less easy, compared to China. I saw them totally overcome most every other non-advanced student, though.

Hmm…we hear this all the time. Many people, especially in Taipei, do speak English fairly well. You might try somewhere outside of Taipei rather than writing off all of Taiwan. But I do have to point out that I can’t see any obligation for people to speak Mandarin to you if their English is better than your Chinese. Local people are right–people with only a couple of years of Chinese study can’t understand Chinese. Even worse, native speakers can’t understand what the foreign student is saying–bad tones, mangled syntax, misusages, and ignorance of context are a lethal combination to communication. No wonder they switch to English.

While I can sympathize with the plight of the hapless Mandarin student in Taipei, perhaps there is a lesson to be learned here. There are many ways to learn other than insisting on speaking all the time. In fact many beginning and intermediate students of Mandarin would do better to talk less and listen more.

I read a number of evaluations of all the Chinese programs written by academics in the field before settling on ICLP. Cornelius Kubler in particular wrote a comprehensive one, and didn’t regard anything in Taiwan outside Taipei as being even in the same quality level category as those for-profit CET programs. The Yale light fellowship won’t give them credit, I’ve never heard them recommended or any term abroad programs sent there.

People in Taipei will switch to English with someone they don’t know if they perceive the possibility of any communication problems. In China, I routinely saw level 2 Chinese students handle all their needs using Chinese. At low level, you can speak. In Taipei, people just have little patience for it, in China it seems pretty unlimited.

[quote]In any event, once you meet and become friends with people here, you will be immersed in Mandarin-speaking environment. They will want to speak Mandarin to their friends and not everyone in their circle will speak English or will want to. So I would say that you should relax about casual encounters on the street with people and avoid English Nazis rather than writing off Taiwan.

Having said that, I see two major reasons to study Mandarin in China. First, it’s way cheaper. Second, the government there, and even many ordinary people, think that teaching Mandarin is a something of a priority. Because of identity issues here, policy and social attitudes toward teaching Mandarin and ‘learning about Chinese culture’ are decidedly mixed at best.

Also, if you want to get lots of practice speaking, get a non-teaching job. [/quote]

I think this is solid advice that foreign students should follow more. Remember, I have real Taiwanese friends who are very supportive of my Mandarin, but that meant writing off swathes of English nazis I met. For whatever reason, when moving to Taiwan as a Chinese student, those English practice people really find you. At the Zhengzhi University program, the students there told me that they had a ‘student ambassador’ program go to their school, which the local students used for English practice. Then, most of the students they met there would speak Chinese with you, and after making friends, switch over to English and refuse to go back. I did personally meet about 10 local Zhengda students at my visits to friends who also happened to be at that program, and found speaking Chinese with them to be a sort of combat.

Personally I’d met about 30 people and had good conversation with them, all of who were totally supportive of my Chinese learning. For some reason, I can’t find anyone else who did. Looking at the situation, I can’t recommend anyone come to Taiwan unless they’re both dedicated to making most of the environment, and can speak at an advanced level. Human nature is a big part of the program, if you go to China and do what’s natural in most of the good programs you’ll get a phenomenal result. Not so in Taiwan.

As for the non-teaching job, the student visas typically prohibit that, but all the people I met in China had phenomenal speaking skills.

[quote]Nonsense. This almost never happens to me. I am an obvious foreigner. No one tries to speak English to me. And I have lots of reasons to speak Mandarin in daily life.
[/quote]

If you consider your own position, you’ll find it makes perfect sense. When you speak to them fluently and without mistakes, they won’t speak back to you in English. This has been my experience; in the first week or two it was rough, but afterwards when they find I can speak Chinese, it all comes together. I don’t see that happening for a L2/3 Chinese student in Taipei, since they by default have troubles. In Tainan, Gaoxiong, Kending, and Taidong everybody used Chinese with me, no matter the case, but Chinese students from abroad typically go to Taipei.

The truth is that they don’t want to hear your Chinese because your Chinese sucks. I don’t mean you personally, but that’s the hard truth for almost everyone at your level.

Not people in China! As a level 3 student, with consistent mistakes, grasping for words, and more problems, local people of all sorts were just thrilled to talk with me. They were so polite and supportive, and interested, and willing to talk about so many issues I’ll just never forget it. Midway through level 3, I had a pretty deep conversation about Confucius, it wasn’t easy but they liked the cultural exchange.

Again; this is a comparison between China and Taiwan. As a L3 student, the Taiwanese person thinks, “Your Chinese sucks, I don’t want to hear it”, but the Chinese person is happy to chat. Even my roommate, a L2 student, was winning over friends. A BNU student even told me he thought he was a really cool guy, despite he could only communicate like a 4 year old.

There’s social forces behind that, there’s no doubt, but the bottom line is, go to China and people will support you, go to Taiwan and they won’t.

That’s because ICLP students spend way too much time in the classroom and way too much time writing characters. They don’t spend enough time in bars or cafes or hiking up mountains or just hanging out.

ICLP uses the same teachers as Middlebury LS did (they have a summer exchange), widely regarded as the best Chinese school outside China. I can’t say Princeton was better, because it wasn’t, nor does anyone coming from IUP say it’s better. The difference is in the environment. Even Middlebury students come out with better speaking proficiency than ICLP students do, and PiB students finishing level 3 speak like level 4 ICLP students do, but the ICLP program is better than PiB.

[quote]One reason is that people have more time in China. Another reason is that a lot of people who do have more time (older folks etc) are mainly Taiwanese speakers.
[/quote]

I am not so sure about that one. I never talked with those old folks. The first person I met in China was a bilingual Chinese Verizon executive, and her first attitude to me was “I’m going to help this guy speak Chinese”. Despite having lived in the USA she was just overjoyed to talk with me in Chinese, a language I could barely speak at the time. Think of that, an executive taking that attitude. Chinese people’s level of support for my Chinese consistently blew my mind.

And there’s the key point. Why should they be?

I write not so much about ‘should’ but ‘is’. People in China are just going to be 10 times as hospitable, and supportive, and understanding of you as a Chinese student. You don’t even have to ask this question about China, you just need to go there. I think educators in the field have already voted with their feet by mass-relocating programs to China.

Personally, ICLP is a great school for me at the advanced level. I get everything in Taiwan as I do in China, and I encourage others to take the same path I did. But looking at all the foreign students I see here, it’s kind of like seeing them fall into a trap. I can’t imagine Taiwanese people would defend this trend as much, since they seem to think they’re better than the mainland - but I can’t safely generalize.

I think, unless you want to learn really advanced Chinese, you simply must go to China.

[Snooker]

[quote=“Dragonbones”][quote=“Snooker”]I have come to the conclusion that anyone with less than three years of college Chinese under their belt, or four if you’ve not studied intensively (i.e. gone to China or another intensive school), you should avoid going to Taiwan, but at very advanced levels, Taiwan is a good place to be.
[/quote]

Hi Snooker, good post, but I’m afraid that like most of the above posters, I have to disagree with you on most points. I had a very positive experience after only one year or so of independent study, then moving to Taibei. There are zillions of opportunities here. Most people don’t speak English here.

Most younger people (under 35 or so I’d say) in Taiwan have some conversational ability in English, and most of them want to improve it (especially women). If you encounter any problems with your Chinese, most people’s first instinct is to switch to English. According to a teacher, hundreds of students in ICLP’s history have complained that when they talk to people in Taiwan, they respond in English. Local people have told me it’s because they think you can’t understand Chinese.

My experience is that the majority of people here, even in Taibei, are not comfortable with English and will not do this. Of course there are some, but you have control over whether you continue interacting with those particular individuals.

A good number of Taiwanese people with conversational English abilities seek out foreigners with the hope of practicing their English.

True, but a good number do not a majority make. They are but a tiny fraction of the population. It’s easy to pretend you don’t speak English, anyway. There are many Western countries out there, y’know.

There’s 0 need to use your Chinese at all in Taipei, unless you are doing business

Sorry, but I strongly disagree based on 13+ years of experience here. I need to use Chinese here the vast majority of the time.

“I’m sick of this ‘fuck you, I don’t want to hear your Chinese’ attitude in Taiwan”.

Sorry, but that’s ridiculous. Many people here are delighted to hear foreigners speak Chinese. Most Taiwanese here are also very polite compared to many of the Chinese I’ve met, so I do not believe that the experiences you report are at all representative. No one has EVER said anything to me even remotely approaching the rude words you cite, regarding language usage. As far as xenophobia is concerned, I was treated much worse in the communist nation across the strait.

this is a society in which the status of strangers is pretty much zero.

This doesn’t match my own perceptions of reality.

Strangers often see you as a walking English practice opportunity

There are many such people, but they are the minority. Furthermore, you are approaching everyone as a walking Mandarin practice opportunity, no? Let’s be fair.

In closing, I think Buttercup’s solution is an excellent one.[/quote]

I would like to clarify I’m mainly writing about the experiences of other Chinese students I saw in Taiwan. I will agree with anyone here that, if you approach Taiwan right, it’s a great place to learn mandarin. After all, haven’t I already posted that it was my experience? But from what I have seen, most Chinese students just don’t click with Taiwan, but I didn’t meet any Chinese students in China who didn’t find Beijing to be totally receptive to their needs. Hence, I conclude that if you to to Beijing, the average Chinese student will be much more immersed than if he went to China.

If you’ve never been to China to study, then I imagine coming to Taiwan is something like a McDonald’s hamburger, while China is a five star chef’s filet mignon. The latter is clearly in a class way above the burger, but for someone who has lived only on McDonald’s will probably tell you, the burger ain’t bad. As someone who’s done both, I want to point out that China is just so much better for it. That’s the five-star option.

As for buttercup’s solution, I have two concerns. First, it doesn’t sound like buttercup ever had Chinese immersion, like I saw in China or at Middlebury, which is what makes those places superior to Taiwan - you can be immersed from the get-go. Second, the experience of living in Taiwan for 7 years is completely different from flying here and arriving with little understanding of your surroundings, not knowing a soul in the city. While everyone is right to say that someone living here for 7 years should have no problem, and that someone really dedicated (i.e. me, you) can have immersion, it’s just not what happens to the average student, even ones at the bets schools, are going to experience. Moreover, spending 7 years in Taiwan to self describe as a rather poor speaker of Chinese doesn’t seem to me much like the environment was very good. IUP and ACC regularly take intermediate speakers and make them very near-native in 12 months; a lot of people here sound like they spent years in Taiwan to master it. As for you & me, I think we’re exceptions among Chinese students; the ‘average’ experience should be accounted for, too.

And I think that if someone deciding between flying to China and flying to Taiwan isn’t told of the problems he’ll face, I think he’ll be disappointed on coming here, or if not his experience won’t be good as in China. I have met a LOT of disappointed and frustrated students here; none in the mainland.

My post is all about saving that frustration. A lot of posters have disagreed that Taiwan is a bad place for studying Chinese, but my point is that it’s inferior to China. If I concede that Taiwan is a good place to study Chinese as a beginner/intermediate, then that makes China an amazing place to study it, and you should still go to China.

[Snooker]

I should also add that I’m not suggesting Taiwan is any worse for that it’s not a good place to learn Chinese. Aside from the whole language learning thing, Taiwan is a great place to visit. People here are genuinely nice and open, and friendly. As an American, people in Taiwan will give you more respect than just about anywhere else. In China, they do get huffy about what the US is doing in the world (free Tibet?! YOU PEOPLE DARE INTERFERE IN OUR INTERNAL AFFAIRS?!). Not so in Taiwan. Strangers will help lost tourist-looking people. The whole using English thing is actually designed to help you; most foreigners don’t speak Chinese, students are a rarity. They use Chinese if you speak it for a reason, the English thing is a courtesy. Nobody’s out to cheat you, like they are in China. Cabbies are genuinely friendly. Maybe 20% of them have just given me a discount of 20 or so NT after chatting with me in Chinese. The ones in China will try to triple your fare.

This stuff makes a difference. It’s why I came to Taiwan - but only after studying with PiB at 3rd year so I could be really ready for the experience. My only wish is that other people would have the same experience as me, but I’ve yet to meet one person who has.

[Dragonbones]

@Snooker

First, it doesn’t sound like buttercup ever had Chinese immersion, like I saw in China or at Middlebury, which is what makes those places superior to Taiwan - you can be immersed from the get-go. Second, the experience of living in Taiwan for 7 years is completely different from flying here and arriving with little understanding of your surroundings, not knowing a soul in the city. While everyone is right to say that someone living here for 7 years should have no problem, and that someone really dedicated (i.e. me, you) can have immersion,

I flew into Taiwan after a year of self-study, and was immersed here “from the get-go”, as you say. I arrived here with little understanding of my surroundings, and didn’t have any trouble finding the immersion experience. Most people I encountered either couldn’t or didn’t want to speak English, and I learned very rapidly. Just sharing my own experience here.

[Mother_Theresa]

@Snooker

. . . it doesn’t sound like buttercup ever had Chinese immersion, like I saw in China or at Middlebury, which is what makes those places superior to Taiwan. . .

I admit, I’m just a beginner at Chinese, but my English is fairly good and I’m baffled by the above statement. Much as Middlebury sounds like a great place to live, I don’t see how it is possible to be more immersed in Chinese in Middlebury, Vermont (with fewer than 2% asians) than in Taiwan (with 99.9% native Chinese speakers).

@Wikipedia

The racial makeup of the town was 94.27% White, 1.09% Black or African American, 0.28% Native American, 1.87% Asian, 0.02% Pacific Islander, 0.66% from other races.

Sure, you can speak Chinese with your classmates, but once you leave the classroom you’re back in white, English-speaking America. Or did you not leave the classroom?

[Buttercup]

@Snooker

. . . it doesn’t sound like buttercup ever had Chinese immersion, like I saw in China or at Middlebury, which is what makes those places superior to Taiwan. . .

I’m confused as to what you mean by immersion, having lived here for seven years.

I consider myself ‘functionally fluent’, by which I mean that that I can do whatever I need/want in Chinese; watch films, read newspapers (slowly…), fill in forms, visit the doctor, talk to my friends. But for me, that’s the ‘problem’; I have little motivation to study, these days. I don’t really want to be a translator or read Tang poetry, so I get lazy. Sometimes I go through spurts of interest, but I’m more likely to work on my other languages than Chinese, these days.

With Chinese, I find the more you learn, the more you realise you are not much good at it.

btw, seven years is not a long time. It took fourteen or fifteen years to reach competency in my native language, and I’m still refining that.

[Buttercup]

Moreover, spending 7 years in Taiwan to self describe as a rather poor speaker of Chinese doesn’t seem to me much like the environment was very good.

Do you mean me? I didn’t say that.

[Feiren]

@Snooker

Fieren, I think you raise legitimate points, but I also think your personal experience might differ from a Chinese student flying into Taiwan, and in some places might well reinforce my conclusions(!).
[snip]

Actually, I did fly into Taipei years ago after 2 years of studying Chinese fairly intensively at a US university although I was not in a program. I did eventually study at Shida though and had a great experience.

I’m beginning to think that your program is part of the problem. Zhengda students–especially ones in student ambassador programs–are in much the same position you are except with languages reversed. What beginning students in Taipei need to is spend that two hours in class every day and then head over to Fubar to spend a couple of hours chatting up Yao-yao.

ICLP uses the same teachers as Middlebury LS did (they have a summer exchange), widely regarded as the best Chinese school outside China. I can’t say Princeton was better, because it wasn’t, nor does anyone coming from IUP say it’s better. The difference is in the environment. Even Middlebury students come out with better speaking proficiency than ICLP students do, and PiB students finishing level 3 speak like level 4 ICLP students do, but the ICLP program is better than PiB.

Chinese teachers are the same everywhere (expect for my wonderful Taiwanese teachers Rose and Grace). Best Chinese school…yadda…yadda…it doesn’t matter. It takes years to learn Chinese and it doesn’t really matter where you study as long as you actually study for a couple of years. Forget about programs and start living.

You shouldn’t dismiss the Mandarin programs in places like Hualien, Kaohsiung, or Tainan. They are a wonderful resource and are accredited by the Ministry of Education.

I am not so sure about that one. I never talked with those old folks. The first person I met in China was a bilingual Chinese Verizon executive, and her first attitude to me was “I’m going to help this guy speak Chinese”. Despite having lived in the USA she was just overjoyed to talk with me in Chinese, a language I could barely speak at the time. Think of that, an executive taking that attitude. Chinese people’s level of support for my Chinese consistently blew my mind.

It sounds like you didn’t talk to a lot of folks. And why should your executive support your study of Chinese? Don’t you find it a bit creepy and ideological? One of the great things about Taiwan is how all the ‘Chinese culture’ has disappeared and you rarely here people saying ‘We Chinese’ and constantly carping on about the differences between ‘Us’ and ‘You westerners.’ OK I still hear some of that in English but I think it’s weird when I do.

[snip]

You don’t even have to ask this question about China, you just need to go there. I think educators in the field have already voted with their feet by mass-relocating programs to China.

Mmm…that’s a complicated issue. China is after all China, and people who want to study Chinese quite naturally want to go there. And it’s cheaper. Many of the programs moved there because the Taiwanese government stopped subsidizing them and because Taiwanese institutions insisted on running the programs themselves after Taiwan became a developed country.

[ironlady]

[quote=“Snooker”]
If you consider your own position, you’ll find it makes perfect sense. When you speak to them fluently and without mistakes, they won’t speak back to you in English. This has been my experience; in the first week or two it was rough, but afterwards when they find I can speak Chinese, it all comes together. I don’t see that happening for a L2/3 Chinese student in Taipei, since they by default have troubles. In Tainan, Gaoxiong, Kending, and Taidong everybody used Chinese with me, no matter the case, but Chinese students from abroad typically go to Taipei.[/quote]

So demand that your teachers use methods that will build fluency, not a rote knowledge of words that means you are groping for words and structures.

Oops, in a ‘prestigious’ program you may have some difficulty with that one…and you yourself probably wanted to choose a program that ‘covered’ a lot of ground/chapters/books. The problem is that when you ‘cover’ you don’t ‘acquire.’ (cf interminable posts and arguments in ‘Learning Chinese’ about this issue.)

I speak (seriously) crap Taiwanese, but I’ve never have problems ‘making’ folks speak Taiwanese with me in Taiwan when they themselves were able to speak Taiwanese. And that’s a dialect that is sometimes seen as an “in-group” language, where the speakers have something of a stake in keeping outsiders from learning it.