Study Chinese in Beijing – Our guide

Peking University (Beida)

If you are planning to study Chinese Mandarin in China, you probably thought about coming to Beijing. The goal of this article is to help you to understand whether Beijing is the right destination for you or not. You’ll find out:

• The pros and cons of studying Chinese in Beijing.

• The best universities to study Chinese in Beijing.

• A short list of well-known agencies and private schools to study Chinese in Beijing (under construction).

If you’re interested in a more general overview you can read Study Chinese in China: What’s the best choice for you?.

The pros of studying Chinese Mandarin in Beijing

• Beijing is the capital of China: Even if China isn’t a centralized country, after living in Beijing for many years I’ve realized that the Chinese government is investing a huge amount of resources in order to develop the capital’s education system and cultural scene. In Beijing you can find hundreds of universities, including the two top Chinese universities, Beida and Tsinghua. This is probably the main reason for which most of the foreign students choose Beijing as their destination.

• Mandarin is based on the dialect of Beijing: Mandarin language (also known as putonghua, that is the official spoken language in China) is heavily based on the dialects of the North East China and, in particular, the dialect of the capital. If you go to Shanghai, Guangzhou or other southern cities you’ll realize that local people speak, among them, a dialect that is completely different from the standard Chinese Mandarin. Conversely, in Beijing you’ll live in an environment where everybody speaks a language pretty similar to the one you’re studying.

  Let’s put it on this way: do you think it’s a wise decision to study English in Scotland where, even if everybody is a native English speaker, people talk with an accent and jargon that is far away from the “standard” English that you find on movies and textbooks? If you head to the South of China (Guangzhou or Shenzhen, for instance) things get even worse because over there the main language is Cantonese. This is a bit like heading to Quebec to study English or to Barcelona (where local people speak Catalan) to study Spanish language.

• In Beijing you’ll feel the history of China: Beijing is a vibrant city where history and tradition still compete with modern China. In Beijing you’ll stumble upon every day in a monument, temple or gate that was build hundreds (or thousands) years ago. You can find a similar situation, even if with different characteristics, only in Rome, Italy. In my opinion Beijing is a unique place to learn about Chinese culture while you study the language.

The cons of studying Chinese Mandarin in Beijing

• Full immersion is hard to achieve: If you want to improve your Chinese level fast then full immersion is definitely the best way. The problem is that nowadays Beijing hosts a huge expat community, especially in Chaoyang and Haidian districts.
  Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/study-chinese-in-beijing-our-guide/