dublin chinese classes

flybynight

Hi,

I'd like to take an evening beginners mandarin language course in the new year and have just started to research classes available in Dublin. So far I've found Languagewise (languagewise.ie) and The Sandford Language Institute (sandfordlanguages.ie) which both have courses starting in Jan/Feb. TCD also does a year long course but the next one doesn't start until Sept '08. Basically, I just wondering if anyone has any experience of taking these courses and if so how would they rate them? Alternatively does anyone know of any other similar courses?

Cheers in advance.

armada104

The Confucius Institute in UCD also run evening courses.

www.ucd.ie/china

Their website hasn't been updated in a while, but it would be worth giving them a ring, as they may be starting courses in January. Can't say anything of the quality, as I've not taken the class myself.

flybynight

Thanks for that. I just sent them an email, will follow up with a call in a day or two if I don't get any reply.

Anyone else taken the other courses I mentioned?

emdublin

I did TCD ones but not sure if they're still on.

I would highly recommend the podcast from www.chinesepod.com for free high quality audio lessons at all levels.

Supercell

I started the TCD course but abandoned it after about 5 weeks.

I tried really really hard but the content is awful. At week 5 we were still doing pronunciation tables and hadn't even learned how to say "my name is ~"

I'm sure the tables are great once you have learned how to speak a little but as a starting point they are soul destroying.

The TCD instructor is very nice and enthusiastic but the course feels like it was written in in deepest darkest China in 1917.

If you want to learn how to speak Mandarin then the TCD course is going to be tough unless you are patient and have no intention on travelling there for a few years when you might actually start to learn conversational stuff.

flybynight

Supercell wrote: »

I started the TCD course but abandoned it after about 5 weeks.

I tried really really hard but the content is awful. At week 5 we were still doing pronunciation tables and hadn't even learned how to say "my name is ~"

I'm sure the tables are great once you have learned how to speak a little but as a starting point they are soul destroying.

The TCD instructor is very nice and enthusiastic but the course feels like it was written in in deepest darkest China in 1917.

If you want to learn how to speak Mandarin then the TCD course is going to be tough unless you are patient and have no intention on travelling there for a few years when you might actually start to learn conversational stuff.

If the TCD course is too basic for you and you've already done some self-study you could try doing a post beginners course in somewhere like Sandford Language school, Languagewise, or UCD - since their courses are only 12 weeks long, going in at the post beginners level/level 2 the students won't be at a very advanced level but will have covered the basics such as pinyin pronounciation. Usually if you ask nicely they'll let you sit in on the 1st class before you pay so you can check the class isn't too basic/advanced for you.

zynaps

Supercell wrote: »

If you want to learn how to speak Mandarin then the TCD course is going to be tough unless you are patient and have no intention on travelling there for a few years when you might actually start to learn conversational stuff.

Hi,

I did the beginner's evening course in TCD some years ago and I understand your feelings. However, I stuck with it and realised near the end of the course that there was a relatively sharp learning curve starting midway through. Things move very slowly at the start because it's very important to get the basics of pronounciation and how to draw the character strokes down before moving on... some of the other students were still doing a really bad job pronouncing pinyin after a couple of months - typical Irish shy-ear syndrome I guess.

After that I was a bit disheartened, since I hadn't put in much work on learning the characters throughout the course. So I kind of abandoned the language for a couple of years, just learning a few of the basics from my collected notes and hand-outs. Then two years ago, I bumped into the teacher I had in TCD and she offered to teach me and another guy for a couple of hours a week very cheaply (I feel a bit guilty about that actually; she was too good to us)... we basically carried on where we left off, and things were much better.
However, with Chinese you have to do a lot of work at home to memorise the characters and sounds together - it's not like learning French where you can kind of scrape by just by turning up at classes. I've spent an hour a day, every day (well, I missed 3 days in the last year) studying and I only know 1500-2000 words and a lot of spoken Chinese I hear is still a blur.

So eh... in summary, remember that there can be a steep learning curve involved with Chinese classes because a lot of time is spent early on developing pinyin-reading/pronounciation/inflection/汉字 basics. Things accelerate quickly enough after that

Chenglin

Hi,lads.It's shocked for me to find so many of Irish are interested in learning English.I am from China,have been living in Ireland for 5 years. Why don't we do exchanging language,thus we don't have to pay any class.If you interested,email me,and decided how we're gonna do it.

zynaps

Chenglin wrote: »

Hi,lads.It's shocked for me to find so many of Irish are interested in learning English.

Most of us have quite good English already!

Chenglin

zynaps wrote: »

Most of us have quite good English already!

Sorry,I meant Chinese-English exchange.

heyyouie

A friend of mine from TCD started this meetup group a few months ago. I have been there twice and seems a good turnout of mandarin speakers and learners. My friend told me that they meet on a bi-weekly basis in Karma Bar, Dublin. Think it might be a good way to talk to people, well maybe a more natural way of learning a foreign language. This is a language interest group so it is completely FREE to join.

Details can be found in :

http://www.meetup.com/The-Dublin-Chinese-Language-Culture-Meetup-Group/

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=47683461802

merlynthewizard

Why is there no classes in the north of the city,I live in Castleknock and don't fancy heading to UCD after a long days work .

Lanaier

Just wanted to chime in here and let you know there is a pretty good online resource here for laowai learning Chinese.
http://www.chinese-forums.com/

Setup by a foreigner here in Beijing a few years back, nothing to do with me mind you. Not a plug.

I also recommend downloading a free program called Dimsum Chinese Tools if you are learning at the moment.

zynaps

Lanaier wrote: »

I also recommend downloading a free program called Dimsum Chinese Tools if you are learning at the moment.

Dimsum is quite good, and even has a character recognition facility iirc. There are very good online dictionaries as well, though:

• MDBG (great for translating with annotation, although not as big a vocab as other dictionaries),
• dict.cn (huge vocabulary, sentence examples for basically everything - very useful!, and a few other tools but the interface for them is in (difficult) Chinese so... I tend not to use those),
• and finally nciku has a large vocabulary, lots of example sentences (with audio!), lets you choose to search specifically for pinyin, idioms or examples, search by radicals and handwrite characters in a little Java applet, and a few other tools I haven't tried. Very useful but can be a bit overwhelming when you just want to look up a simple word - I tend to use dict.cn and mdbg for that.

peanuthead

I would like to ask a question about learning Chinese and I hope I won't come off sounding too arrogant.

I would like to learn Chinese, but not really for any personal enjoyment. More because if what I'm hearing around me is true, we are going to pretty much need an Asian language in the future to be employable.

Now I know I'm not starting at a very good base - learning it because I HAVE to rather than WANT to, but I suppose this is my question - do I have to? Is it going to be pretty necessary in the future to have an Asian language.

Thanks and no disrespect meant to Chinese speakers re: me not actually WANTING to learn the language! (Its really down to the fact that it's quite difficult and I'm not disciplined enough to learn it for enjoyment)

zynaps

peanuthead wrote: »

More because if what I'm hearing around me is true, we are going to pretty much need an Asian language in the future to be employable.
[...]
Is it going to be pretty necessary in the future to have an Asian language.

Hi, I can only speak for myself, but I've never heard of this except in a joking sense, where people recognise that China is really a growing economic force that is opening up (in some ways) and interacting more with the world.

Honestly I don't think that English is going to be replaced by Chinese as the international "common tongue". The majority of people choose to learn the language because they either really like it or have connections to China.

poncho000

I have to disagree with the previous poster. I have been learning chinese for a year and have been to China. I've really learned a lot.

I recently spoke to a girl living in Peru and she told me that learning Chinese is almost a necessity there because so many companies are doing business with china. At the moment China has a firm grip on South America, and particularly Africa. I have seen myself that the Chinese government is determined to have people all over the world learn chinese. I do believe it is a long term goal of the chinese government to spread chinese language and culture worldwide, and chinese may eventually replace english as the international standard.

The confucius institute is one such initiative they have. There are 2 here, in UCD and one in Cork. It's a worldwide institute that teaches chinese language and culture. And there are now plans for an entire building in UCD purely dedicated to chinese learning.

And just look how many chinese people there are in dublin alone, chinese is the second highest minority nationality here, after polish. Even dublin has it's unofficially dedicated Chinatown(parnell street and capel street). Next time you are walking around pay attention. You will even see a lot of chinese and irish mixed couples around, even my own girlfriend is chinese.

These days companies desire candidates with chinese, i have heard this myself from an IT manager.

So it's no longer a joke. The threat is real(to english). Chinese is important. Learn it, or fall behind.

zynaps

poncho000 wrote: »

And just look how many chinese people there are in dublin alone, chinese is the second highest minority nationality here, after polish. Even dublin has it's unofficially dedicated Chinatown(parnell street and capel street). Next time you are walking around pay attention. You will even see a lot of chinese and irish mixed couples around, even my own girlfriend is chinese.

Mine too, but she speaks English, as do the vast majority of Chinese living here. I'd expect that more Chinese (even in China) speak English, than non-Chinese speak Chinese.

poncho000 wrote: »

So it's no longer a joke. The threat is real(to english). Chinese is important. Learn it, or fall behind.

I'd be interested to hear the perspectives of others on this - certainly interest in Chinese is growing, but probably due to personal interest or connections with Chinese people, rather than an imperative for finding work.

Sure, there are a few places where large Chinese companies have taken hold and it might be advantageous to speak the language, but that's the exception and not the norm. And even then, large corporations such as Nokia operate in many countries, but people aren't expected to learn Finnish (except in Finland... ). Do you have to speak Chinese to work for a Chinese multinational company outside China?

poncho000

I would say that I think this whole chinese taking over english thing is in it's early stages. I mean China hasn't been open to the world for too long.

But seeing as your in a similar position to me you should know how ambitious the chinese government is, their influence is already being felt in parts of the world(non europe/america affiliated countries) and certainly having the Chinese language as a main player is one of their objectives.

I think Europe is a tougher nut for them to crack and that's ,maybe why we don't quite feel the influence here yet. But it's bubbling at the moment, they are campaigning hard to have Chinese on the Leaving Cert, and the chinese government have pledged money towards the UCD Chinese building(see it here: http://www.confuciusinstitute.ie/).

Don't get me wrong, I love chinese language, culture and people but it frightens me their rate of expansion.

booksale

zynaps wrote: »

Mine too, but she speaks English, as do the vast majority of Chinese living here. I'd expect that more Chinese (even in China) speak English, than non-Chinese speak Chinese.

I think once you live in the country, you need to learn the language of that country. Same as people who are thinking to live in Germany, then most likely they would learn German.

But funny thing is, a lot of 'Westerners' do not need to learn Chinese when they work in my home town. Usually if they come to work, they are in high positions. We all accommodate them by speaking English with them.

And it's always good to have a few languages.

Lanaier

Nah, Chinese is not taking over English anytime soon.

English is already the international language of business and there is no reason to change that to accommodate the rare Chinese businessman who can't speak basic English.

Why would they bother the monumental task of converting us to Chinese when they already have a vast reserve of English speakers, and when spending on English teaching has never been higher?
The future business generations of China will speak English as a second language, thats the way it already is.
Future generations of Europeans speaking Chinese as a second language?
Thats nothing more than an idea at this stage, a rumor.

Finally, I've lived and worked in China for over seven years now and while I need Chinese for day to day life outside of work...... the language spoken in the office is English.
So what I'm saying is that here, in Beijing, right now...people are speaking English in multi-national offices.

I'd like to also address Peanutheads comment:
It will be tough going to learn Chinese if you're already planning for no personal enjoyment from it, it's hard enough when you like it.

alexsmile

Hi, would u have some contact for this teacher please? I`d be interested in some private or small group classes. Cheers

OnBoard

@jbroaders
I'm interested

Supercell

Unless you are seriously motivated then learning Chinese is probably not for you.
It is hard, really hard. There is no comparison to learning western languages.

My wife is Chinese and I'm finding its taking at least four times as long to learn as German which I did for the leaving.

I have a friend that married a Chinese lady, he speaks Dutch, Danish and German and gave up trying to learn Mandarin...
Mandarin is just hard, damn hard, kudos to any of you that learn it, unless you give it 100% or are smarter than Einstein, you wont have much success.

alexsmile

Supercell wrote: »

Unless you are seriously motivated then learning Chinese is probably not for you.
It is hard, really hard. There is no comparison to learning western languages.

My wife is Chinese and I'm finding its taking at least four times as long to learn as German which I did for the leaving.

I have a friend that married a Chinese lady, he speaks Dutch, Danish and German and gave up trying to learn Mandarin...
Mandarin is just hard, damn hard, kudos to any of you that learn it, unless you give it 100% or are smarter than Einstein, you wont have much success.

I think its been quoted on wrong post, I was asking for contact number of teacher.
Anyway, I agree its hard, but u dont have 2 be Einstein, just very keen into this language. Im learning my self for 6 months and can speak some simple sentences ( like: When I was going to school,she was at home reading a book. or I want buy this, Im going to cinema with friend etc.) ,I can write(remember) 250 symbols. I had my phone recently upgraded for chinese language, so I can txt in symbols...so fun. Keep txting my chinese friend, but when she answers, I had to most of it put trought translator.
Only think is, u really have to learn every day...at least one hour.I wasw off 3 days, and when I got back to it, was like start from begining.
I just ordered new toy ..Besta MT 7000..http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4rCXrrnQ4Q
cant wait to get it, Im sick of caryiing book, notebook with words Im learning every day.
Btw, I was asking about courses in TCD, its all booked out for post beginners:-(

poncho000

if you want decent mandarin classes at a cheap prices then you should go to the confucius institute i UCD http://www.confuciusinstitute.ie/courses_main.html

maninasia

Learning to speak Chinese is not particularly hard, but you need the environment and to put in a bit of time. If you want to learn it properly you have to go to China or Taiwan. As for speaking English, sure in a multinational that might work, but it won't work if you want to work very well if you want to really understand what is going on, especially when dealing with Chinese companies.
One of the major markets worldwide is/will be China, it will pay to speak their language. You want to do services for them or market goods to them..speak the language and you'll do 5X better.
So it's not a neccessity but a competitive advantage, and getting a job and succeeding is all about competitive advantage. I deal with both buyers and sellers in China..sometimes I use English, sometimes I use Chinese. I can interact with no problem and very smoothly in any situation..that's my contribution to my company and got me this job. It pops up on my resume when people read it...it's a weapon and makes me stick out. Nobody can argue that speaking Chinese is not a useful and fairly rare asset. It also allows me to speak with my in-laws and enjoy my life here...that alone is worth the effort!

So you will see in Asia that many people learn English and Japanese or English and Chinese or English and Korean...one foreign language is not enough!