| English help travelling in China | |
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| Jun 14, 2006 13:06 |   |
 | Hello All, I am planning to travel in China this August. I will start in Beijing but have not set my itinerary yet. I would like to get out of the large cities to see some of the country side and natural wonders of China. However, I do not speak Chinese, I speak only English. Is it possible to hire English speaking tour guides outside of the large cities? Does anyone have any recommendations on finding English tour guides. I would prefer not to take an organized tour but rather travel on my own and hire a guide in the places which I choose to visit. I would appreciate any suggestions you can provide. Regards, Adam |
| Jun 14, 2006 16:15 | #1 |
| hey dude. You have plenty of time to learn a good deal of spoken Mandarin - get started right away! Find a book and tape/CD combination, theyre very very good. I going in two weeks and have to also learn a year of university work for my exams in a week, so I havent been doing much Chinese. If you start now though, you can really learn quite a lot to be honest |
| Jun 14, 2006 17:01 | #2 |
| Hi Rockeleven. I hate to rain on your parade but, while "learning" Chinese from a book and CD is a really good start, it's not going to help as much as you think. The cd will give you some basics on standard Chinese, but it's a whole new ball game when your actually here trying to communicate. In China some people speak Mandarin, some Cantonese, some Mandarin with a Cantonese accent, some with accents from their own home towns, some with completely different dialects. Plus, most of what you can learn from a CD is very polite formal language, not the everyday language that most people speak. I have lived in Shenzhen for over a year and a half. When I first came here I "learned" Chinese from the Pimsleur CDs which didn't help me much in everyday communication. Since then I have taken several structured courses in Mandarin, I have been taking private lessons for more than 8 months and I still can't even come close to doing something like going to a travel agency and buying train/plane tickets - and I live in one of the major cities. If you haven't been studying Mandarin for several years you WILL need help from a native speaker when you leave the big cities for the small towns and villages. |
| Jun 15, 2006 10:58 | #3 |
| Hi there, Been here over three years and I didn't learn much in my first year but I could buy bus and train tickets and do my basic shopping and travlled half way across the country solo getting a little assistnace every now and again. I 've since had lessons and self study using a variety of mediums including Pimsler(not bad) and I buy my own air tickets and still travel on my own when I have to. Each of us learns in different ways and at different speeds. You may need to engage a guide in a larger town to get to the more inaccessable places where you may not find anyone who can speak English or Mandarin well. Just depends on where you go and what your budget is. Have a good trip. |
| Jun 15, 2006 15:52 | #4 |
| Adam, I just got back from 2 weeks of traveling in the countryside (in the south) I am Chinese-American, and am fluent in Mandarin, but I quickly realized that I needed a guide (for myself as well as my two Caucasian friends who spoke no Chinese). I could have gotten by, but the Szechuan dialect spoken in the south, I only understood sixty percent of what was being said to me. But besides that my guide helped me negotiate hotel, rides, boat rides,etc. for one tenth what I would have been charged. Especiallly since we were in the countryside a lot, most people just didn't speak Mandarin. I had a wonderful time, and was able to stay with farmers in rural china, what an experience! If you can find a helpful guide, it will well be worth paying him-it will save you a lot of time and misunderstandings with the locals! best, miranda |
| Jun 15, 2006 20:29 | #5 |
| Hi, I work in an international school of Wuhan of Hubei province. If you like to travel here, just contact with me, I can translate for you for free, I'd like to be helpful to your August trip, because when I was traveling alone in new places, most of the local people are kind and nice to me. By the way,I'm available only at weekends. Have a nice trip! |
| Jun 15, 2006 20:37 | #6 |
| Hi,Adam, I think you don't need a tour guide in most main cities,and most tourist places have english tour guide. If you wann go to the countryside,and some places weren't easy to reach,I think you can hire a tour guide. Good luck! |
| Jun 15, 2006 20:59 | #7 |
| Hi, ADAMOL I think find an English speaking guide in big cities is not difficult, but you said you don't want to visit big cities, but country side. They are right. Most people in country side who can't speak Mandarin, they just could speak their dialect. You could see, for them, they even can't speak Mandarin, how they could understand English? So it would be difficult for you to find an English speaking guide. But people in country side are very friendly, if they could understand what you want, they would help you. I believe. If they can not understand what you want, I'm afraid you would be in trouble. Unless you could bring an English guide with you. As for learning Mandarin, if you can, I think you could have a try. Little is better than nothing. Good luck! |
| Jun 17, 2006 11:22 | #8 |
| Hi,my name is Mickal,a driver and guide in Chengdu,if need car rental or some help when trip to here,please contact me: yahoo.com|csm028 |
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