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About learning Mandarin, I first studied Mandarin in London on an intensive one year university post-grad course that taught us to read, write, speak and translate Chinese. About half the class dropped out. We had two teachers, one from Beijing and the other from Taipei, so we learned both simplified and traditional characters. It was a full time university course and after the third term we were doing newspaper and scientific translations. We knew the most complicated characters and of course learned how to use a Chinese dictionary. So for me, a full time intensive course is the best way to learn.

I followed that with a BACS scholarship that offered me to study in either China or Taiwan for 3, 6, 9 or 12 months. I chose 12 months and had all my fees paid as well as money for living expenses while I studied at the MTC in Taipei. The MTC is where many diplomats and language experts have studied over the past several decades.

Mandarin is far easier than most of the Chinese dialects but I really recommend learning it intensively if you want to be independent. I studied it almost 35 years ago, and each time I visit China, HK or Taiwan it comes straight back. Of course I'm not very good at reading and writing any more, but my conversation in Mandarin is always good. In one year of intensive study in the UK I reached a very good level and from living a year in Taiwan I became pretty fluent.

So if you plan to live in Dalian, I'd take intensive Mandarin lessons. I cannot really imagine exploring markets, speaking with cab drivers or in stores without being able to converse in Mandarin.

Malaysia is not really such a good place to learn Mandarin, firstly because all Malaysians speak English, and secondly they prefer to speak Hokkien or Cantonese rather than Mandarin anyway. But I find the environment in Malaysia is not very good for learning it unless you are a child learning in school over many years.

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I very much appreciate it.

Maybe I need to practice Mandarin a little more.

Regards

Trevor

Haha...I'm sure once you move there you'll pick it up quickly. Maybe if you can remember some commonly used phrases now then it will be big help.