7 Chinese Study Tips For Success At The Beijing Language and Culture University

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In this post I’m going to share with you seven study tips that helped me get scores of around 90% in the exams at the Beijing Language and Culture University. These are the methods that I found to be most effective in improving my Mandarin and I’d like to pass them onto you.

If you have already studied Chinese in the past you may be familiar with the ideas found below. Otherwise, I hope it opens your eyes a bit to what I believe is going to result in you getting the most of your time at BLCU with regards to studying Mandarin. I’ve been working on this post all morning so I hope it’s been worth it. Enjoy.

1. Flashcards

I’ve already talked about using flashcards as a study aid for learning Mandarin in my post Building Good Study Habits At BLCU. The idea is to write the Chinese character(s) on one side and the English translation and pinyin on the other. Then you are going to simply work through the flashcards until you have committed them all to memory.

I guess you could say flashcards work on the same principles as the “look, cover, produce” system in which you are first examining the material, then you are covering it and attempting to produce it from your own memory. This forces your brain to make connections and I personally found it an excellent way to remember new vocabulary in Mandarin.

Every two or three days you will be getting a new set of vocabulary at BLCU so you will constantly have to be committing it to memory and going back over it if you don’t want to be left behind. You will also have to make time for revising old vocab sets as well as committing new ones.

Flascards will help with all of this by simplifying the process to a tried-and-tested system that a lot of the best students will be incorporating into their study routine.

They key to working with flashcards is to use them on a regular basis, even if the time you give to reviewing old items are only a few minutes a day it will help keep the memories and connections fresh in your brain.

Come exam time, all the effort you will have put into your flashcard work will begin to pay off and should make the whole experience less stressful. Which leads me onto my next point.

2. Take exams seriously

A lot of students at BLCU don’t do as well in their exams as they could do. This is partly down to a bad work-ethic but there are also other reasons. In the end though, if you want to get the most out of your time at BLCU, you should use the exams as a positive challenge and not something you just want to get out of the way. Take them seriously.

Although in the grand scheme of things, the result you get on your certificates might not count for that much after you leave BLCU, it WILL reflect how hard you worked and more than likely how much you learned. If you can pass the exams with scores of 90% and more, it’s definitely a good measure of your progress in Mandarin.

This may seem obvious, but a lot of people don’t look at it this way. They don’t see it as potentially the best time to make real steps forward in the language and really test yourself under controlled conditions. Chances are that the students who work hardest through the exam period will also remember more in the long-term. The more you put in, the more you will get out.

During my first semester at BLCU I didn’t consider the exams that important and failed a number of them. In the second semester I re-evaluated why I was there and decided I was just wasting my time by not stepping up to the challenge.

Today I’m still convinced that if I hadn’t made that change to taking exams more seriously I would have ultimately learned a lot less during my time in Beijing. Your attitude to exams is often reflected on your attitude to your Mandarin studies as a whole.

3. Study on the weekends too

I bet you didn’t expect to see this on my list, did you? You’re probably thinking I’m some kind of masochist by now. Well, before you jump to any conclusions, hear me out.

It’s tempting to have the weekends off, especially if you think you’ve done a good job throughout the week. And I don’t disagree with you. But what I will say is this: studying on the weekends is like throwing petrol on a bomb fire. The Mandarin bomb fire. Your progress is going to explode.

This is because consistency is key with your studies at BLCU and arguably with anything in life that you strive to succeed at. Ok, so not everyone is coming to BLCU with the intention of working so hard, but for those that are taking their learning seriously and really want to see big results, keeping a bit of study up through the weekends is really going to help you in the long-term.

If you can make it a commitment to do the same amount of study outside class EVERY day of the week, it’s going go get easier and more natural as times goes by. I guarantee that by keeping up the momentum you are going to see more results faster in your Mandarin.

So if you’re doing 4 hours of classes and 1-2 hours of extra study on weekdays, on the weekends just aim to get those 1-2 extra hours in like usual. You don’t need to do the whole 5-6 hours that you would normally get by going to classes. Now THAT would be masochistic.

4. Preview and review lessons

I don’t think I need to go into too much detail on this one as it should be pretty self-explanatory. In keeping with the theme of consistency in your Mandarin studies, by previewing lessons the night before you are going to make life a lot easier for yourself at BLCU.

If you turn up to class and all the material that day is new for you, it’s going to be like getting thrown in the deep end before you can properly swim. Keeping up with the pace and exercises will become quite stressful and certainly take a lot of the enjoyment out of the learning process. You will feel as though you’re falling behind when you can’t answer questions or read certain passages and this in turn will make you less motivated.

If you have, on the other hand, previewed the new class material the night before you’re going to go in feeling confident and already treating it as a revision session. Classmates are going to think you’re naturally good at Mandarin but in fact you’re just putting in the work. There are no shortcuts and anyone that thinks so is mistaken. It’s just about building productive study habits and finding a good work-ethic.

You should also be sure to review the material after class and keep coming back to it over the weeks and months that follow. This will make exams a breeze and mean that you don’t need to put in a lot of extra time when they finally arrive because you will have been studying consistently throughout the semester.

5. Find a study routine

Pretty soon after you settle in at BLCU and your classes start you should be trying to come up with a study routine that works for you. This means that it fits around your lifestyle and doesn’t constrict you from enjoying the social side of the BLCU experience and all the other great things that come with it.

For me, I got into the routine of working for a couple hours in the evenings and preferred to take the afternoons off to relax after class. I would also do a few hours over the weekends as I’ve already mentioned. This worked great for me and it might work great for you too, but whatever routine you settle on, it’s probably going to take some trial and error before you’re really happy with it.

So try to find a study routine that you’re comfortable with and you can commit yourself to over the long-term. Don’t overestimate how much you can do on a daily basis but at the same time don’t be afraid of a little honest work.

If you’re consistent in your efforts and can follow a study routine from day to day that works for you, you’re guaranteed to be successful in your Mandarin studies at BLCU. Taking a bit of a structured and disciplined approach instead of winging it the whole time will make all the difference. Just watch and see.

6. Electronic dictionaries

I’ve already talked briefly about using electronic dictionaries in my post Building Good Study Habits At BLCU but I think it deserves a spot on this list too.

Investing in a good Chinese-English electronic dictionary is going to make your whole experience of studying Mandarin so much easier. Every day you’re going to come across new characters you don’t recognise and so the ability to check what they mean instantly and from anywhere is going to become a very valuable tool for your learning. After you’ve checked a character a few times it’s going to start sticking and eventually you’ll remember it for good.

The reasons electronic dictionaries work so well is because they allow for you to write the character on the screen with a stylus and then check definitions. If you had to search for it in a conventional paper dictionary it would take ages and be nearly impossible unless you knew the method for doing so.

You may think you don’t need to buy an electronic dictionary and I would definitely agree with you IF you have an iPhone or iPod Touch or any other compatible smartphone (running Android, for example) that will allow you to download free Chinese dictionary apps such as Pleco or KTdict C-E. That is what I did and it offered most of the functions that a physical electronic dictionary would.

However, if you can’t get these free apps for your smartphone, investing in an electronic dictionary is going to save you a lot of time in the long-term and really aid tremendously in your Mandarin studies.

7. Don’t be shy

This is one trap that gets a lot of students at BLCU. They’re too afraid of making mistakes when talking in Chinese and so just do the bare minimum. Although I know it’s not strictly a study tip, it’s still something I have to mention in this post.

By not going out and talking with the locals and making an effort to engage with Mandarin outside the classroom on a day to day basis, you’re only letting yourself down. Don’t slip into bad habits with your oral practice as it should really be the most important part of your studies.

It’s all very well being able to read and write Chinese but that alone isn’t going to get you very far when you can hardly string a sentence together or your pronunciation is terrible. Work hard at conquering your shyness and embarrassment towards making mistakes in your spoken Chinese and instead strive to learn from every mistake in every situation.

If you’re not going to take advantage of living in Beijing when class is over, you might as well have stayed in your own country. You need to realise how valuable it is to be studying Chinese in China and that a lot of people would cut off their right arm for the same opportunity you have.

So get out there and get talking with those locals and make every day count. Leave BLCU knowing that you made a hundred thousand mistakes with Chinese but that you also learned a hundred thousand lessons about how to do it the right way. Your mistakes will teach you more than your successes and by embarrassing yourself in certain situations I guarantee that you won’t make the same mistake again.

So these have been my seven study tips for success at BLCU. What advice would YOU give to others to get the most out of their time? Please leave your comments and questions in the comments section below.

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