Studying Chinese in Taiwan (not China)
I just finished my first semester of studying mandarin Chinese. I’ve been studying at ShiDa University MTC (Mandarin Training Center) in downtown Taipei, Taiwan. They have a pretty famous program and I really enjoyed my first class.
A couple of interesting things about studying mandarin in Taiwan, as opposed to China or somewhere else.
- Taiwan did not simplify the characters back in the 1950′s when China did (Hong Kong also did not simplify). So you could say the characters are more complicated to learn here.
- Taiwan uses a 37 character alphabet called BoPoMoFo, as an alternative way of learning how to speak mandarin. There are lots of different ways of writing chinese with english characters (mainly pinyin), but BoPoMoFo gets around the sounds that don’t quite match. Some people get really frustrated with writing chinese in english characters, so it’s a nice alternative. It certainly gets away from my own associations with the english alphabet. (See this somewhat funny and scary rant @ the U Michigan Center for Chinese Studies website)
- In Taiwan they don’t use the “RR” at the end of words nearly as much. This is part of the Taiwan Accent you get here, but I’m told it’s no problem to communicate with other mandarin speakers.
Finally, studying at ShiDa was great. They have a very well respected program with people from all over the world. I was one of two americans in my class of 8 and it was great to be with people from other countries.
The other interesting thing about my experience was taking the certification test. You can take tests to certify your level of chinese and there are 4 Levels:
- Beginner – 800 characters (est. 6 months study in Taiwan or 1 year study abroad)
- Basic – 1500 characters
- Intermediate – 5,000 characters
- Advanced – 8,000 characters
It’s nice that there is a standard here (and certification) that you can test and be able to put on a resume. I’ve heard that 2,000 – 3,000 characters is what you need to be able to read a newspaper. I didn’t come close to passing the Beginner test this time around (after 6 weeks of study) but I hope to be by the end of next semester (November). Wish me luck 
This picture shows how you say “Good Luck” or “Do your best” in Chinese. The literal translation is “Add Oil” (image courtesy this blog)
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