<p>Is it hard for a non-native? I'm actually Indian (born in America), but I think Chinese would be super useful to learn...</p>
<p>Is the course really hard?</p>
<p>A friend of mine took it last semester and he was born and raised in Iowa with no prior experience. My impression is that he studied for it a lot but did pretty well.</p>
<p>Really?
I’ve known three people who took it. One was a native Japanese speaker and she did fine, the other two complained constantly that it was the hardest thing they had ever done. One perservered until Chinese III, the other quit.
Of course, the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”, and I’ve never taken the class myself, so make of it what you will.</p>
<p>Oh wow - what about Japanese, then?</p>
<p>My S took honors Japanese in high school for three years. Hardest class he took, but it is usually believed to be a slightly easier language for westerners to learn than Chinese, because the pitch accents are not as subtle, as least that’s how I understand it. He mastered the speaking aspect but struggled with the writing system.</p>
<p>I speak both languages proficiently–Mandarin and Japanese–and what I can tell you is Chinese will likely be a more challenging class for westerners by virtue of the language’s complexity. In Mandarin there are five “pitches”, and every word has a “pitch”. Therefore, if I say “ma” with a high to low to high pitch, I am saying “horse”. If I say “ma” with just a high pitch, I am saying “mom”. So as you can see Mandarin kind of requires a trained ear to pick up the subtleties, and the writing system is likewise considered more difficult than Japanese. The Chinese use standardized “characters” as a writing system, and you must therefore memorize every character. There is no such thing as “sounding out a word” when reading in Mandarin. Japanese, on the other hand, has two syllabary alphabets (hiragana and katakana, used in different circumstances) and also uses a handful of Chinese characters. Overall though, I would say Japanese is easier because there are no tones/pitches and you can sound out parts of sentences. I hope that helps</p>
<p>Chinese 1 is fairly easy if you’re willing to put in the work. 3 and 4 are brutal.</p>
<p>How about the Intensive Chinese classes (Combining 1/2 into one semester)? Has anyone had any experience with these?</p>
<p>I had a classmate in Chinese 3 who’d done 1/2 intensive, and said he’d struggled to make it through the semester, though I think he was also taking a full load of classes at that time.</p>
<p>Of course, in my own experience, Chinese is the type of language where to learn it, you really have to go there. Thus if you’re really serious about becoming fluent, it may be worth your while to take a leave of absence to do a program like ICLP in Taiwan or IUP in Beijing. That’s something that in retrospect I wish I’d done.</p>
<p>Yeh i think the 1/2 intensive would be a little to intense for me on top of filling in some premed requirements and stuff of the sort. </p>
<p>But yeah i definitely want to go abroad if i study chinese. Is one program better or worse than the other (regarding ICLP/IUP)?</p>
<p>As I’ve said before my host said chinese I was the hardest class he took, but he got an A after lots of work</p>
<p>well for the students who said chinese classes are really intense, were they native speakers or non-native?</p>
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<p>Non-native. Native speakers generally get placed into upper level classes, and if you are a native speaker, you’ll probably find the intro class boring.</p>
<p>There are also lower-level classes geared toward heritage learners, which emphasize grammar and writing, since you’ll probably already know most of the vocabulary.</p>
<p>Do you think chinese vs. spanish would compare differently to a medical school adcom? would the adcom look more favorably upon spanish than chinese since it is more relevant, medically speaking, in the US? Any thoughts?</p>
<p>^If there are no other factors and if you’re starting from scratch, I would probably go with Spanish, since as you correctly pointed out, it will be more useful on a day-to-day basis. However, I doubt it would make much difference for a med school adcom.</p>
<p>Well i wouldn’t be starting from scratch in spanish, just japanese. Do you think that if i picked up from where i left off in spanish, i’d be able to become fluent (considering i’d probably go abroad)?</p>
<p>Acceptd – Did you get elementary japanese advising class??? I signed up for it but i didn’t get it!! 
I wanna take it hahahaha</p>
<p>No man, i wish i had, but i actually got my 8th choice advising class, where people who got Host and didn’t include in their rankings got it as their advising class. I’m not sure how that exactly happened (where Host was my THIRD choice as an advising opiton) but whatever, we’ll just say that Tuft’s pre-med advising system (which i heard has minimal influence as it is), is inherently flawed.</p>