[13hearte]

hey everyone,

has anyone attended or heard of reviews of the chinese language courses with the new asia - yale branch of CUHK?

i was checking out the site and the cantonese courses seem like it would definately be a good foundation.

the photo gallery, however, didn't impress me much. most of the student photo's looked really old and boring. yes, a bit judgemental but am i correct?

i'm looking for a very intensive language school with a mix of primetime, serious yet fun loving students in their 20's and 30's.

is CUHK the way to go or are there any other suggestions for language schools?

thanks peeps.

[chocolatekisses]

hi! i was just wondering the same thing! i'm thinking of enrolling there this June. thinking i might go out there to check out the school in person

[er2]

Hi Guys,

I'm a PhD student at CUHK and take Cantonese Classes at the CLC. Of course this wouldn't be the course you're taking as I'm getting grades and stuff for my program, but as it is the same personnel and to my knowledge the same course personnel, I think I can vouch for that at least.

I'm pretty happy with the course, the vocabulary is chosen in a more helpful way than other courses I had (where you learn how to buy a pencil and how to marry but nothing that you can use socially). They have a good focus on patterns instead of teaching you tons of nouns, measure words or verbs you could look up yourself. Also, the Yale romanization is imho the best for western speakers. Cantonese supposedly has 9 tones, Yale reduces these to three. But since most natives speakers cannot tell you whether a certain word is spoken in a rising or low rising tone, I'm quite sure it doesn't matter that much. I'm just in my second term and I think that after that I'll have a foundation good enough to build up on. Only downside is that I would appreciate if the teacher would tell me straight if my pronunciation is lousy - but I guess it is foolish to expect anything more sever than "You can still work on your tones"....

One note on the side - they don't teach the chinese characters in my course.

[wontun]

I'll give you guys some insiders information. I work in CUHK and if you plan to study in CUHK you could also make use of the service which the Independent Learning Centre (ILC) provides. This centre is free of charge for enrolled students and staff and offers a wealth of resources for improving on English and Chinese skills through the aid of interactive instructor-taught workshops, elearning materials, one-on-one consultation service and also offers a Language Exchange Programme. The latter is a service to help you find a suitable native partner/friend to practice your target language with where both students benefit from each other.

I sound like an ambassador to them because I work in the centre and I can tell you that it's a hidden treasure. I know a lot of international students who study in the CLC and comes to us to use our services. I would recommend you enrol.

[er2]

Hidden indeed - you left out the information on where to find you

[wontun]

Originally Posted by er2

Hidden indeed - you left out the information on where to find you

Haha....sorry, the URL to us is Welcome to ILC. We're in the United College of the University.

[chicagolife]

I am in the Putonghua class at Yale-in-asia language center through CUHK. So far things are going rather well. The book that they provide sucks and is really unoragnized though. Only 2 weeks into the class so I can let you know more once the course has progressed.

[13hearte]

thank you all for your replies, its helping me figure out where i'm gonna end up in hk!

[afarr]

I spent a year studying Catonese full-time at CUHK. It's an incredible course but incredibly intensive and you can't afford to take one day off or not listen for a second in class... so you have to be committed!
You'll also experience the Chinese type of learning which has a lot to do with quizes (tests), tests and exams (written and oral). Of course that's because they are accredited by the University.
I spent most of my time after the 3 hours of classes each day speaking Cantonese to fellow classmates. Anybody and everybody. You have to because in term 2 you'll be making weekly speeches! That's how fast you learn and some weeks you'll be learning 80 new words of vocab as well as preparing 3 sections of comprehension and ten new grammar points. You might also be revising the previous 8 weeks work at the same time. Oh, didn't I say that you have to prepare the whole of the week's lesson in advance... you can't turn up not knowing the vocab!
Classmates are lovely - mainly young priests and nuns, a few Westerns (not that many).
I recommend it but it's serious stuff and not for the faint hearted!
Good luck!

[PROVENTUS]

I studied there before for beginner course. It's not so bad.