- When I first came to China I was 17 years old and ready to embark on the journey of college life.
In the beginning, it was very difficult. My plane landed in Beijing and I remember sitting in the bullet train heading from Beijing to Jiangsu province where my university is, there was a young chinese child sitting next to me and started speaking to me in Mandarin. His parents must’ve seen the confusion on my face and started laughing and probably told the child not to bother me. That’s when it hit me. Uh Oh, I’m not gonna understand anything anyone says to me from this point untill I start learning Mandarin!
I got to a hotel room and there it was again, utter confusion. Im so lucky to have found a fellow expat who was welling to help me during my first couple of days, he spoke mandarin perfectly.
The next day I got to my dorm room, my dorm manager spoke English to some level which was incredibly helpful. I started learning Mandarin from that day, sitting in my room and using my tablet to look for a good website to teach me few sentences. The first word I learned was : Ni hao (hello).
After that the Mandarin classes in the university really helped me improve my speaking and writing skills. Right now, 6 years later, I hold a Mandarin language certificate and I’m currently studying for the next level of the certification.
- Here are -in my opinion- some certain words/phrases that would be outstandingly helpful during your first few days in China:
你好 Ni hao – hello
谢谢你 xie xie ni – thank you
请问 qing wen – excuse me/may I ask a question
再见 zaijian – goodbye
酒店 jiu dian – hotel
对不起 dui bu qi – sorry/ excuse me
我不会说中文 wo bu hui shuo zhongwen- I can’t speak Chinese.
听不懂 ting bu dong – I can’t understand
- Remember to come ready. Mobile phones are equipped with online translation apps, I would recommend (Baidu translate). It works perfectly in China and the translation is very comprehensible.
Zaijian.