Why Study Chinese?
Welcome!Is Chinese difficult? No! Different is the word: non-Roman scripts, i.e. Chinese characters distinctively represent a new and unique culture for yourself.
What we offer:
Come and tackle it, let’s speak the mother tongue of a quarter of the world’s population, manage your daily life in the community, seize any business opportunity to join the booming economy!
Why Mandarin Chinese is not as hard as you think |
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From the range of options available here, I found Chinese the most appealing. I am now doing Chinese level 3 and to this day I haven’t regretted that decision. Studying Chinese not only opens the door to understanding the culture and history of one of the most fascinating places on this planet, but it is also surprisingly fun.The Mandarin Chinese language consists of 5 tones: high, rising, falling, falling then rising, and a neutral tone. Perhaps most notably to those who like me are used to express words in letters, the Chinese use characters (Hanzi) to write words. The only effect this has when learning the language, however, is that it effectively adds one more dimension to vocabulary revision. Instead of just having to learn how to translate a word the way you would between European languages, you also have to learn how to translate it into a drawing. For me learning to draw characters used to be something I feared, but soon become enjoyable. It certainly helped that over time you get used to the common components of characters, which makes learning them that much easier. Good news for everyone who wants to start learning it is that Chinese grammar is a lot of the time very straightforward and sometimes even more similar to English grammar than many European languages. Overall, learning Mandarin has been a great experience. The teachers here are friendly and approachable, but also make sure you stay on course with your studies. The atmosphere in the classroom is certainly a welcome change from my other lectures and I have made good friends among those who study with me.I recommend learning Chinese as an option outside or within your course to anyone who is interested in Chinese culture and seeks a new challenge in their time at Warwick. Justus Laugwitz LL230 Chinese 3, 2013/14; LL227 Chinese 2, 2012/13; LL130 Chinese 1, 2011/12 |
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I have been learning languages at the Language Centre for 2 years now, both Chinese 1 and Chinese 2. I decided to take the modules for fun as I have always been very interested in Asian Studies on the whole, especially China as it is the country with the highest population in the world! It is also a completely different language to English so it is more of a challenge!
It didn’t count towards my degree at all, but I still have tried my best, as it is a language I really enjoy learning. I found the workload very manageable, and have been given so much support from my two teachers, they were always passionate about the language, and even came up with fun ways for us to learn, even singing and dancing! Also, as a result of the weekly homework and online exercises I do, I have achieved well in the exams and even decided to do the HSK exam- which is the Official Chinese Proficiency Test. So it even has benefits for later careers if that interests you. I have made so many Chinese friends outside of class too as I can try and speak to them which is amazing - it shows the teaching has really been done well, and I now feel very confident in my new language!
Dan Poppa
LL227 Chinese 2, 2013/14
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