<p>My son is planning to take the exam coming Nov.
Does anyone out there know what comparable level HSK(this is like chinese TOFL) is to this test?
We are not chinese, so listening would be pretty difficult. My son is aiming for 800. How should he prepare for this exam? Does anyone know of any prep books for this exam . We would really appreciate your advice. Thank you
Oh, my son has been studing the language for 4 yrs but his school has very weak chinese class.</p>
<p>i took it with no preparation whatsoever and got 780. and my written and reading sucks, even though it's my mother tongue. looking through the format of the exam will help, because the instructions can get confusing (especially on the listening part).</p>
<p>Thanks lightfish
In the listening part some said it had Taiwanese (?)pronunciation and was different from the mandarin. what about you when you took the test, was it in mandarin? was there a mix?
thanks</p>
<p>Taiwanese pronounciation? no way i don't think so. it was all in Mandarin - you won't have any taiwanese dialect suddenly cropping up. I thought the mandarin accent was VERY mainland Beijing-like.</p>
<p>a lot of my classmates are all native speakers and got 800 without any study, so i'm not sure how easy it'll be to get full score with 4 years of learning the language. even though i learnt 4 years of french, i'm sure i won't get full marks on the SAT II french. so jia yo to your son!</p>
<p>thanks lightfish</p>
<p>Probably HSK L4 at maximum.</p>
<p>Taiwanese in and itself is a dialect of Chinese based off other dialects from the southern part of china.</p>
<p>Guo wu is Putonghua (Mandarin) with a taiwanese accent. Pinyin and Zhuyinfuhao is still the same as it would be in mainland china however there are a few minor grammatical and vocabulary differences.</p>
<p>Grammatically for example Taiwanese often use "hao" (good) in place of "hen" (very) in emphasizing a subject verb--
Very expensive?
Hao gui ma? - TW
Hen gui ma? - CH</p>
<p>In vocab the Tiawanese don't tend to follow the mainland conventional use of the "er" additive final
Where are you going?
Ni qu nali? -TW
Ni qu nar? -CH</p>
<p>There really aren't all that many differents and for all intents and purposes you could probably learn them in a day or so.</p>
<p>Then theres a Taiwanese accent in and of itself which is tends to make "sh" sound like "s," but from my experience even in Taiwan they teach a standard Mandarin accent so I would guess the listening aspect is spoken in a Mandarin accent.</p>
<p>If he isn't a native, I wouldn't go for it...unless he is REALLY good.</p>
<p>thanks alot for your knowledge jpburton</p>
<p>see glucose's comment
it's because all the natives take it, so the curve is basically, no curve. lol</p>