Chinese@unimelb

[jerald_morre]

Hi everybody.

I am considering doing the Diploma in Languages (Mandarin) however I am not a native Mandarin speaker. I have abosolutely no knowledge of the language.

Would it be difficult for me to get a high GPA for this subject?
And how often do people with chinese background take this subject to increase their general GPA?

[dc302]

They will put you in a stream suitable for your level so I don't think it will be too hard. In fact, it may be harder if you DID speak chinese, because there are often many international students in the same class as you (if you were in an advanced class), which would make getting a high mark very difficult.

People with chinese background are not allowed to enroll in the beginners level (although some pretend they don't know any chinese and take it) so you should see very few if any.

[jerald_morre]

What if say you have spent 2 years living in China in your early childhood years and your parents are from china where Mandarin is spoken?

If you can speak but not read/write (never taken lessons) that well is there any chance for this sort of person to be put in the beginners stream?

What if you're Australian and were born here?

[dc302]

If you speak at home, you have no chance of being placed in the beginner class. You will be put in the advanced class and if you cannot read/write then you're screwed

If you're ABC but speak chinese at home then the same thing applies. If you lived in china but you're not chinese, they will put you in a class depending on how good you are.

[spammy]

I'm an ABC, but i don't speak Mando at home, but did Chinese VCE second language, and I was placed into a class which I considered was quite a challenge 

Also, there are quite a few people who pretend that their chinese isn't very good, but they clearly speak it at home etc etc

Although, if the class is too hard, the subject coordinator will likely let you switch classes, or in some cases, if the teacher sees that you're chinese ability has well exceeded the class you're in, they will tell you move up.

[Richiie]

If you can, i recommend you get into Chinese 3A minimum, as I went to Chinese 2A. I haven't studied Chinese in for a while, and I still thought Chinese 2A was easy (Stopped before VCE level Chinese). Chinese 3A is a good start for you I'd say.

[Ken]

I'm an ABC, I speak cantonese at home. I did VCE Chinese second language, got 31 raw and enrolled in Chinese 4A. It's not that hard, u just have to be very consistent throughout your studies. I know people that got high 30's and low 40's raw in chinese VCE second language and they struggled with 4A to the point where they dropped back to Chinese 2E. You're there to learn, every class you go to, you're expected to make up sentences on the spot once you learn new vocab or new sentence structure. It's really not that hard, just like everything else, you still need to put in the time and effort, the amount you put in varies with individuals. I can understand why it's competitive since you get people that can speak Chinese brilliantly but just can't read/write, everyone has a weakness. Those that can read/write can't speak well while those that can speak well can't read/write. It's definitely a great subject, you will love Gao lao shi for his jokes. I did Chinese 4A 2 years ago and yet I still look back at the notes that I've used, it's still valuable to me.

[dc302]

The difference between 3 and 4 is pretty ridiculous I hear. 4a is supposed to be the background speakers stream, and you can see why a non-chinese person would probably die in 4a (I died in 4a too--couldn't read/write anything, so I switched to Japanese 4a heh).

[Ken]

The difference between 3 and 4 is pretty ridiculous I hear. 4a is supposed to be the background speakers stream, and you can see why a non-chinese person would probably die in 4a (I died in 4a too--couldn't read/write anything, so I switched to Japanese 4a heh).

Not quite, 4A is for those that have completed VCE Chinese and want to take Chinese to the next level. 5A is for native speakers. From experience, 3A is equivalent to VCE level while anything below that would be the beginners level.

[dc302]

The difference between 3 and 4 is pretty ridiculous I hear. 4a is supposed to be the background speakers stream, and you can see why a non-chinese person would probably die in 4a (I died in 4a too--couldn't read/write anything, so I switched to Japanese 4a heh).

Not quite, 4A is for those that have completed VCE Chinese and want to take Chinese to the next level. 5A is for native speakers. From experience, 3A is equivalent to VCE level while anything below that would be the beginners level.

Maybe I wasn't clear, I said you are put into 4a if you speak chinese EVEN IF you didn't do VCE chinese, or any chinese for that matter. ie me.


edit: for those of you wondering about more information, here is the handbook guide: https://handbook.unimelb.edu.au/view/2012/%21105-AA-MAJ%2B1009

Notice that a 'non background speaker' who completed VCE is supposed to do 3,4 (the equivalent of 2) whilst background speakers must do 7,8 (equivalent of level 4a/4b). @Ken, this is why I say the jump is big--the first is for non speakers, the latter for speakers.

[jerald_morre]

they seem to be a bit more strict for mandarin (beginners, post-VCE, background speakers).

in the other languages they only have beginners and then post-VCE.

so, in this situation if you are australian and but your parents are born from the country in which the language (not mandarin) you want to study is spoken and you speak a little bit because of exposure to them speaking, can u still go onto the beginners stream?

what if you can't read/or write? do all the languages have tests that you can do to determine which stream to be put in?

thanks

[jerald_morre]

also, of all the languages that you can do?

which does everyone think is the most beneficial for an Australian?

you'd expect probs one of the asian languages...jap/mandarin/indonesian

what does everyone think?

[dc302]

You mean if you speak a little bit of a particular chinese dialect, that's not mandarin? They give everyone an interview so in that case I'm not entirely sure. If I were you I would just say I couldn't speak chinese, but if you show you can read literally nothing from the text, then I'm sure they will put you into the beginners stream.

Also, in my opinion mandarin is the most beneficial (but I hated chinese, did Japanese instead)

[appianway]

The most useful languages, in my opinion, would be chinese, french, spanish, indonesian, portuguese and arabic.

[MageBot]

The most useful languages, in my opinion, would be chinese, french, spanish, indonesian, portuguese and arabic.

I would probably remove Arabic, Portuguese and Indonesian from that list and add German. Sure, they have a high number of speakers, but I highly doubt they will ever become useful.

I don't see how Australians would ever need to use Arabic. Portuguese is like poor mans Spanish and Indonesia while rising in economic power is still extremely poor so I can't really see the point of learning it because by the time it's useful we will all be 60 years old already.

I would say Chinese is a priority language. If you know English and Chinese your basically set for anywhere in the world.

Spanish, French and German are what I would call surplus languages. Most our high schools still teach French and German most commonly despite the fact that Chinese is already far more important than those 2. Australia has basically nothing to do with France and Germany. Unless you go on holiday to those countries or something it's useless.