<p>Forgot to mention -- of the above programs, SFSU and UCD have International Relations BAs. Several of the other universities, such as UCLA, UCI, and CSULB, have International Studies majors . . . I don't know if that's like international relations...? (Sorry for my ignorance. I had thought this was mainly a graduate-level sort of degree.)</p>
<p>
UCI offers a free "Chinese Immersion" program to all students, if you think about it. :rolleyes:</p>
<p>kman1456: Ooh, thanks for setting me straight. Guess what I hear in Taipei isn't all true then. Though you'd think it would be.. considering it's Tai Da and all. Anyways.</p>
<p>purpleube: Well, I've never lived in Hong Kong so I wouldn't know. =) But the Hong Kong friends I have all speak Chinese and some don't know Cantonese. So.. <em>shrug</em>. As for Hokkien outside of Taipei, that's the ehh.. 'older' generation. The younger generations speak Mandarin Chinese.</p>
<p>Ray192: Big deal? If you learn traditional you can read both traditional and simplified. =) And communicate with Japanese by writing out the characters. And I'm definitely biased, but I have to say simplified looks so ugly. Okayokay so aesthics of the language is out of the question, but just my two cents.</p>
<p>Simplified makes little sense, but in a traditional character one can always make up a simple mnemonic to remember its meaning and components, many of which will aid the meaning. Furthermore, many components are part of Kangxi's radical system (the 214 essential building blocks), which means that most Chinese characters can be broken down into these simple elements. Since many characters were simplified wantonly some characters have lost this property; a good example was the character yue4 = 樂, containing a tree (mu4), white (bai2), and two coils (or tender) (yao1).
Therefore the doubly tender music of a white-wood flute endows happiness on the listener. (a simple mnemonic used to memorized the character).
Its simplification 乐 consists of pie3 (left-stroke), a weird stroke, and then a corrupted mu4 depicted as xiao3 (small). It has little connection with the original character.</p>
<p>Gourman Report undergraduate Chinese:</p>
<p>Harvard
Cornell
U Chicago
U Penn
UC Berkeley
Columbia
Stanford
U Wisconsin Madison
U Michigan Ann Arbor
U Hawaii Manoa
U Washington
Yale
Indiana U Bloomington
Georgetown</p>
<p>kman: Great explanation in English, I need to remember that. =)</p>
<p>I am currently attending the University of Pittsburgh, at the Oakland campus, and have found the Chinese program to be wonderful. Classes are composed of two lectures and five recitation classes per week. Expect to spend a minimum of 5-6 hours a day practicing. The nationally ranked East Asian Library holds one of the largest collections of Chinese language materials in the nation. The University of Pittsburgh houses one of a few federally funded Title VI centers for East Asian Studies in the United States. Hope this helps!</p>
<p>Oberlin has an excellent Chinese program.</p>
<p>Cornell arts and sciences-china and pacific studies (CAPS) major</p>
<p>[Title</a> VI/East Asia Centers, The Center for East Asian and Pacific Studies, U of I](<a href=“http://www.eaps.illinois.edu/resources/titlevi.htm]Title”>http://www.eaps.illinois.edu/resources/titlevi.htm)</p>