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I think it's vitally important for people going to study Chinese at the Beijing Language and Culture University to understand that their progress in the language will not just be defined by attending classes.
Speaking with the locals is key to your improvement while at BLCU, both in terms of listening and speaking skills, but particularly speaking. Don't waste this valuable opportunity to make huge strides in your Mandarin by not bothering or being too shy to interact with them.
From my experience, the locals will always be happy to speak Chinese with you and are very generous in their compliments of your ability in the language - even if your just starting out. It's a very encouraging experience!
Listening
You may be going to class every day and listening to your teacher talk, but what you have to realise quickly is that he or she is talking to your level of Chinese learner. They are not talking as they would out on the streets or with their friends outside the classroom.
To get this real brutal exposure to the Chinese language as it is really spoken in Beijing, the best place to start is with the locals - especially the ones with the broad accents that are hard to follow. Being able to understand what they are saying will become invaluable.
As Chinese has so many different accents, it can be a massive challenge for learners to be able to follow what a local is saying in their thick tongue. Beijing accent is no different and understanding it takes time.
The teachers you encounter at BLCU will not have especially strong accents compared to the likes of taxi drivers and other Beijing workers. If your teacher is the only person you listen to speaking Chinese on a regular basis, chances are that when you go further afield from the university you'll be surprised at how little you understand of what the locals are talking about.
The point I'm making here is that you should spend as much time as possible interacting with Chinese people OUTSIDE the university campus. Learn the nuances of their accent and imitate it as best you can. This will be the real test for how well your Mandarin is coming along, and being able to pull off a strong Beijing accent is always impressive!
When I moved off-campus during the summer of my year stay there and rented an apartment privately, I found it incredibly difficult to understand what my landlord was saying. I had no one to help translate (except if I was really struggling I could call up a friend at the university) and so it just came down to getting by as best I could, but I think it helped my understanding of the Beijing accent a lot.
Beijingers speak very quickly and with a slightly different tongue positioning than speakers in the rest of China. The men particularly can be hard to understand because they often speak with more slurred pronunciation and deeper vocals that seem to make it even more difficult to pick out the individual syllables.
Whether it be with your landlord, taxi drivers, people at markets, waiters at restaurants, or whomever else you come into contact with on a daily basis, always listen actively and try to engage with what they're saying. Make it your goal to be able to understand everything they're saying and always ask for them to explain in simpler words if your unsure.
This real exposure will often be just as beneficial - if not more - as the time spent in class listening to your teacher. Don't just stay in your comfort zone all the time: push your limits and your listening skills will improve much faster.
Speaking
Being able to listen to a speaker in Chinese is all well and good, but can you hold a proper conversation with a local beyond the broken attempts at basic sentences and one word answers to questions? If not, you need to look at why.
The reason your listening is probably better than your speaking is because you don't engage with the language enough in terms of your own attempts at producing it. It's not just about remembering grammar and new vocabulary - you also have to get out there and use it!
If you are not speaking Chinese with the locals and native students on a daily basis, you are throwing away the most valuable part of studying somewhere like BLCU. If you're just finishing class and then hiding in your room for the rest of the day, or spending all your time with English speakers (or people who speak the same language as you), you're speaking level is NEVER going to improve!
As with any university, just doing the bare minimum (i.e. attending classes) in and of itself will not take you very far. Most of the strides I made in spoken Chinese during my time in Beijing were because I was open to speaking the language with others - regularly. I even had a few close friends there who barely spoke a word of English, forcing us to communicate in Chinese whenever we hung out. And I don't mean language partners, I mean genuin friends.
Having some Chinese-only speaking friends is a good tactic and I would definitely recommend it to learners of the language. It forces you to engage with it at a level that you might not if they also spoke your first language.
Make an active effort to reproduce the accent you hear in Beijing as you'll never be in such a rich environment for learning this 'classic' style of Chinese again. It's considered very pleasant on the ears by Chinese all over the country and really authentic Mandarin.
Lastly, when you're speaking with Chinese people, don't be afraid to make mistakes. Make a conscious effort to listen to how the locals use the grammar and structure of sentences and then attempt to reproduce it yourself - particularly in their presence so that they can correct you when necessary.
This will compliment your in-class studies greatly and making a habit of it will make you a far more competent speaker of the language, without just being able to listen!
Sometimes I really don't understand why people bother with tutors and, to an extent, language partners during their time at BLCU. You can get just as valuable practice by getting out into the hustle and bustle of Beijing and speaking with the locals. Doing it this way doesn't require you to pay for their time or exchange English conversation in return!
I hope you keep this in mind and make the best use of your time at BLCU! What are your thoughts on taking this type of strategy? Wouldn't you agree that it produces results faster than any other way of learning the language?
One last thing...
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