<p>As the title suggests, I've kicked around the idea of majoring in Chinese. I really like foreign languages and do quite well with Spanish right now (my school doesn't offer Chinese). I'm in the Honors Junior Spanish class, and I'm only a sophomore. Chinese also seems to be, out of all the foreign languages, the one that's going to be the most useful in the future as China rises in power. And China's quite fascinating in its own right. But here's the thing: I do not know a WORD of Chinese, and I am extremely white. Is it going to be difficult to major in it with no prior exposure in college, especially considering how (from what I understand) difficult the language is? I feel like I should do something to begin to submerge myself in it, such as Rosetta Stone or taking a class at the local community college? Can you do that? I guess another question is what I should do to prepare myself for that?
This is my first post, as you can tell, and I really appreciate the help!</p>
<p>Some people are going to tell you Chinese is useless because Chinese people worth dealing with speak English.</p>
<p>They are dead wrong.</p>
<p>I’m from China. Less than 1% of the population can hold an English conversation or read basic English documents.</p>
<p>Chinese companies looking to expand overseas need people that can tell management, who don’t know English, about the status of their projects, which employ people who don’t know Chinese. That’s you. As foreign companies expand into China, they need people who understand the local culture, as well as understand western management styles. That’s you.</p>
<p>Go for it. You can do anything, and Chinese is one of the few employable foreign languages in the 2 largest economies in the world.</p>
<p>You can start Chinese once you get to college.
If you wanted to start studying it sooner, however, you have several options:
- As you mentioned, you can use language training software programs.
- You can see if a local community college offers courses.
3.On the internet, you can find many free language learning resources, e.g., the BBC offers some online lessons. [BBC</a> - Languages - Real Chinese](<a href=“http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/]BBC”>BBC - Languages - Real Chinese) - Sometimes, there is a Chinese school in your community. These are often set up for Saturday lessons for Chinese-American students whose parents want them to learn Chinese. However, classes usually are open to students who are not of Chinese heritage.
- Check out the STARtalk programs. These are federally-funded immersion summer programs in various critical languages, usually for high school juniors and seniors, but some programs are open to younger students. If one is not offered in your state, I believe you also can apply to programs in other states. Scholarships are available. If one of these programs interests you, you are coming right up against application deadlines, especially if you want to apply for funding. A couple of years ago, my daughter considered these programs, but the application deadlines had passed for most of them, except for a newly-funded program at U Mississippi. She decided not to apply, but IIRC, the program was designed to provide intensive exposure to Chinese equivalent to the first year of college Chinese. Later, U Miss started a Chinese Flagship program and I think they were interested in trying to recruit students from the STARtalk program.
[STARTALK</a> - Chinese Student Programs](<a href=“http://startalk.umd.edu/programs/search?sort=name&participant-type=student&language=Chinese]STARTALK”>http://startalk.umd.edu/programs/search?sort=name&participant-type=student&language=Chinese) - Check out the National Security Language Initiative for Youth program. This is another federally-funded program for youth up to age 17. It involves living with a host family in a country where the language of interest is spoken. Programs are available for summer, a semester, or for an academic year. Admission is competitive as a number of students apply. Based on conversations with people who have applied, the selection process for the summer programs leave a lot to be desired, as my impression is that at least some selected applicants applied just to go abroad without much regard to where they went, while other applicants with a genuine interest got rejected.
[NSLI-Y</a> Language Programs](<a href=“http://exchanges.state.gov/youth/programs/nsli/progdetails.html]NSLI-Y”>http://exchanges.state.gov/youth/programs/nsli/progdetails.html) - Check the Confucius Institutes at various US universities. These Institutes are funded by the Chinese government to promote the Chinese language. Some of them offer languages courses to students and adults in the local community, and some offer online language courses, e.g., [CI-MSU</a> Online Chinese Courses](<a href=“【amazonギフト券買取】優良店の即日高額現金化比較サイトおすすめランキング”>【amazonギフト券買取】優良店の即日高額現金化比較サイトおすすめランキング)
Some Confucius Institutes also sponsor summer programs for high school students in China (Chinese-Bridge Summer Camp). Some scholarship assistance is available.</p>
<p>Chinese is a difficult language and it requires several years to reach proficiency. Think about your level of commitment and your goals in wanting to learn it. You indicated you would like to major in it. If so, there are a number of colleges and universities that offer majors in Chinese. Alternatively, you might consider whether other types of programs suit your needs just as well. These would include an interdisciplinary major in East Asian Studies; a minor in Chinese; or just taking courses in the language without a formal major or minor. If you decide to study Chinese in college, I’d strongly recommend considering one of the Chinese Flagship Programs. [The</a> Language Flagship - Chinese](<a href=“http://www.thelanguageflagship.org/chinese]The”>http://www.thelanguageflagship.org/chinese) You can decide all this once you get to college. </p>
<p>In the meantime, consider that your continued study of Spanish could turn out to be just as useful to you. [The</a> Twelve Most Useful Second Languages for English Speakers - a knol by Dominic Ambrose](<a href=“http://knol.google.com/k/the-twelve-most-useful-second-languages-for-english-speakers#]The”>http://knol.google.com/k/the-twelve-most-useful-second-languages-for-english-speakers#)</p>
<p>Wow, thanks for your help!</p>
<p>My d is Chinese , already studying chinese . Which colleges would you suggest to continue Chinese</p>
<p>Wumbologist, as someone who majored in East Asian studies I would really suggest you choose an East Asian Studies degree and highly discourage you from just Chinese. I studied Chinese in high school and my teacher who happens to be Lucy Lee the woman who designed the AP CHinese program vehemently was against any of us purely studying a Chinese major (I wanted to go to a school where I could double major in Japanese and CHinese but both my Japanese and Chinese teachers sat me down separately for a couple of hours and told me to study east asian studies instead of a pure language degree). If you are really passionate in this an East Asian studies major will take you farther, it is a blend of all the humanities and social sciences as well as intensive language study (I currently live in China and worked for a Chinese company where Chinese was the only language used and I can say the other classes in my EA degree have served me very well). Chinese is a very unique language because its history is tied to the language and unless you understand the history through history classes and perhaps a classical chinese course you are going to be at a severe disadvantage. You do not need to know Chinese and to be honest its better to start from scratch at a university because you go through their entire teaching methodology. I started in 3rd level chinese (I am white just like you) and it took a lot a lot A LOT of effort in the class because what I knew was different from other kids some stuff I knew and they didn’t and other stuff they knew and I didn’t know which made me have to buy the older textbooks to learn everything. If you have excellent grades and scores look for schools I strongly encourage you to apply to top 20 universities and top 10 LAC (usually they have stronger programs in general in the humanities) and if possible look for ones that are members of the IUP Beijing program. Its the best chinese study abroad you can ever ask for but its very selective unless you belong to one of the member schools (Uchicago Stanford Yale Princeton Berkeley UCLA Brown are some) Its good to look for a school that have their own Chinese abroad programs like JHU Columbia Duke Amherst Middlebury because the method of teaching really is like a ladder and the higher wrung you climb the more you will learn by having the same teaching method.
If you haven’t been persuaded into doing East Asian studies the schools I suggest you apply for for chinese are.
Washington Seattle
Michigan Ann Arbor
Wisconsin Madison
UCLA
UC Irvine (crudely known as the University of Chinese Immigrants its East Asian Languages and Literature department is quite big and with the large Chinese population there you can learn outside the class as well)
UC Berkeley
University of British Columbia
University of Toronto
University of Hawaii</p>
<p>LAC
Williams
Swarthmore
Amherst
Middlebury
Wesleyan
Hamilton</p>
<p>Top Tier
HYP (Princeton only does East Asian studies but you can concentrate on a language track)
Stanford
Johns Hopkins (For East Asian studies they don’t offer language majors)
Columbia
Upenn
Georgetown
University of Chicago
Cornell
McGill</p>
<p>Mid Tier
George Washington
NYU
Washington University in St. Louis
Oberlin
University of Texas Austin
Rice University</p>
<p>I forgot to add Pitt u has a famous Chinese program. The flagship programs are good but due to the recent budget I feel they will no longer be as strong as they once were</p>