Forums > Study > Studying mandarin in Yunnan versus other provinces

@mr_woggle

hahahahaha yes the Yunnan undertone lol, they are so obsessed with it! It was even quite hard for me to understand at first.

@Cahzriel

Fair points on being forced to speak Mandarin in cities like Kumming, that would definitely help. This was also the reason that I chose Brisbane over Sydney/Melbourne for my secondary school (also my first 2 years in Australia), there are just way too many Chinese people hanging around in SYD or MEL.

Forums > Study > Studying mandarin in Yunnan versus other provinces

@mr_woggle

From my own experience of language learning, I would say that I was glad to spend 8 years in Australia, i.e. a native English speaking environment, 2 of which with an Australian family. For me being in a native English environment really helped me to figure out the accurate pronunciations, which is great as memorising new vocab became no longer mechanical ever since then. More importantly, every time after being taught in classroom, I slowly realised that I could understand others more and more during a communication, so I felt more comfortable to start speaking the language too.

I understand learning Mandarin could be a completely different experience for adult learners with a western background, so I wouldn't argue much if you tell me speaking with locals does not help much with Mandarin learning. After all with Mandarin (Chinese), knowing how to pronounce doesn't help much with getting to know the characters or the Pin Yin, and I can only imagine it would be a much more complex progress for starters.

So from my understanding I would only say that after you get to the stage where you can start to speak short sentences, phrases, maybe a more Mandarin-friendly environment would help, since you would also be more confident to practice what you learned from class.

Forums > Study > Studying mandarin in Yunnan versus other provinces

I agree with @kerb and @dazzer, and as a native Mandarin speaker, I think I can shed some light on this topic.

I was grown up in Zhejiang Province, I found that local people in Yunnan really stick to their dialect heavily. In Zhejiang we have our own dialect, which is even more different from Mandarin than the Yunnan dialect, however we don't use it as often as they do here in Yunnan. You would also find that people in Zhejiang, as well as in areas/provinces along the coastline, speak Mandarin a lot more better than the other areas of the country.

One of the reasons is of course that Mandarin was introduced based on the dialect in a place in Hebei (Luanping, Hebei), so it would be easier for the people live in areas nearby to learn Mandarin. However more importantly I think the violent growth in economy also helps areas along the Chinese coastline to better popularise Mandarin. When I went to school in Zhejiang back in the 90s, it was already regulated by the government that Mandarin should be the only language spoken in schools, so neither teacher nor students would be allowed to speak our dialect, and that really helped Mandarin to spread over the years, in the areas mentioned above (Guangdong being a exception, for that we can have a whole discussion on the power of Cantonese another day).

So back to the question, NO I don't think it would be a great experience to learn Mandarin here in Yunnan, especially for starters, the pronunciations and grammar could get really nasty here, after all learning a new language effectively is about submerge yourself in the right language environment. However it wouldn't matter too much for advanced Mandarin speakers, also in areas like Yunnan if you could learn to use a bit local dialect, it would help vastly for you to blend in the community.

Forums > Living in Kunming > Sub-letting

Yeah @sarawati I think your best shot would be finding a property on Airbnb, there should be plenty of landlords there willing to do 6 months rent, already pretty long-term for them. The price will end up higher, but considering the difficulty finding a tenant who exactly fits your timetable, I think the price will eventually be evened out.

If the airbnb landlord agrees, maybe you can go to a local real estate agency together and see if they are willing to issue a lease contract. If you pay the right money, I think they will do it for you. When you rent a property from them, in Kunming usually they charge a month rental apart from the rental you need to pay the landlord, so you have an idea of how much you are expected to pay.

If you do this each time you come back to Kunming, I think you will be good legislation-wise, as every time you will have the paperwork ready for the residence registration, nothing illegal about that :P

Forums > Living in Kunming > Sub-letting

Yeah I agree with @tiger, you would have to get the rental agreement with your name on it, in order to get the registration of residence done at the local police. So you have to be the one to sign the paperwork, or at least you need to be one of the tenants on the lease contract. There is no way around this, not without false documents. Sub-letting is on the other hand easier to deal with, as long as you can find the right tenant who fits your timetable.

I've taken several apartment rents since I came back to China in 2015, a few in Hangzhou and now the first one in Kunming, and in my experience, I don't think the landlord cares too much about who is living in the property as long as everything in the property is taken good care of. Sometimes you even met landlord who lives in a completely different area of the country. So there will only be the extreme cases in which the landlord lives in the neibourghhood, and he/she happens to be that cautious landlord who cares so much about the property that he/she wants to sneak around and see what's going on once a while, otherwise you will most likely be free to sub-let the property to a third party. Just be careful who you sub-let the lease to.