Konall Culture Exchange

Konall was a great way for full immersion in the Chinese language. I decided on the home-stay to help improve my speaking and to find out what life is like for a normal Chinese family. The food was awesome and they were great about helping me learn more about the culture. I would call it my Chinese home. I stayed for 3 months, and wish I could have stayed for longer. The teachers were great at pushing your level of knowledge. I started with zero Chinese language ability and can now do everyday things and even write Chinese characters! The city will really force you to jump in and learn.

Once I decided to spend 1 year in Mainland China to get my mandarin up to a strong level (something that I wanted to validate with a level 7-8 on the HSK test - old version), the key decision to make was where to spend such a long time to guarantee full immersion. Shanghai and Beijing were obviously not an option. I went there many times in the past and I knew how frequently I would be forced to speak English there given all the foreigners flocking there. South of China was also not appropriate for my purpose given pronunciation issues. I soon narrowed down my choices to Harbin and Shijiazhuang as those cities combined the two advantages I was looking for: (1) clean Putonghua pronunciation and (2) very limited number of foreigners (especially in Shijiazhuang). Two additional factors made me choose Shijiazhuang instead of Harbin. First, it is just a 2-hour train ride from Beijing, making it convenient to go there once a month or so to spend the weekend. Second, Shijiazhuang is still not a very well developed city economically. Cost of living is thus very cheap. In Shijiazhuang, Konall provided me with the flexible structure that I needed. My qualified and friendly teacher frequently adapted the class structure to suit my needs. I was more adept of a newspaper-based approach and it was very easy to arrange my classes accordingly. I also often re-arranged my classes when an HSK test was coming up. In short, this structure was perfect for my purpose. What is more, I made friendships in Shijiazhuang that will last a lifetime. I am now attending a 1-year MBA at INSEAD in Singapore and this experience has been key to set the foundations that enable me to independently watch Chinese TV series on a daily basis and to prepare for the HSK advanced tests (level 9-11 of the old version).

Choosing Konall Culture Exchange was definitely the right decision. It has a great location where you are forced to practice your Mandarin and its small size emphasizes intensive individual learning. Having learned the basic foundation of Chinese beforehand helped quicken the rate of my improvement. I came to China without being able to comfortably recite a grammatically correct sentence. I can now bargain and hold conversations with my teachers and other locals in the area. The 1 on 1 classes are very much intensive, but your improvement, like everything, depends on how much you invest in your learning. Your teacher will push you, but it is necessary to take advantage of every day you have in this environment. The teachers always stay long after class and are very willing to sit down with you, whether you are their student or not. Lunch is served everyday at noon and everyone, teachers and students, eat together. This is a great way to socialize and practice the material you have learned in class. The people of Shijiazhuang are extremely nice and eager to speak with a foreigner. You will receive a lot of attention walking on the street. People will wave and say, Hello!, but will not know enough English to carry on a conversation. They will be interested in your Chinese studies and your reason for visiting. Taxi drivers and waitresses are a great source for practice. It will be rare to run into another foreigner and nobody speaks English, which is great for full immersion. You are forced to use the information learned in class to get around in the city, which is very much modernized. There is a small nightlife that consists of dining, karaoke, and clubs. This is also a great way of practicing. It is not rare to end the night with new connections. The last point I must emphasize about my trip to Shijiazhuang is its affordability. Compared to Beijing and Shanghai, Shijiazhuang is 2 to 3 times cheaper. Personally, the most expensive part of my trip was the plane ticket. A months worth of groceries amounted to about 30 USD. Bargaining in markets is also cost efficient as well as an entertaining way to practice your speaking. You will surely feel comfortable with the exchange rate. Overall, I ended this experience loving this city, its people, the school, and the teachers and students I met. I will definitely keep in touch with all of them. I had such a great time studying at Konall Culture Exchange and I truly wish I could have stayed longer. I met many great people, quickly improved my Chinese, and had a great time in the city. I strongly recommend Konall Culture Exchange.

Before I came to Konall I spent a year studying Chinese in a normal classroom environment at Tsinghua University in Beijing. I would say that studying one month at Konall, in a one student - one teacher, all immersive Chinese language environment, is roughly equivalent to three or four months studying Chinese at a top tier Beijing based university like Tsinghua. One of the problems I found with studying Chinese in Beijing was because there is such a large English speaking expat community and there are so many bright young urbane Chinese students eager to practice their English with you it is very easy to find yourself in an English speaking bubble; where although you are surrounded by Chinese people you don't have to use the language on a daily basis. I found that since Konall is in a tier two Chinese city where very few people speak any other language than Mandarin Chinese that you are forced to use the Chinese you learn in class on a daily basis. This daily practical application of the language is very helpful when trying to learn the language. I only spent a month at Konall in Shijiazhuang but it was a month very well spent. It greatly improved both my written and spoken Chinese. My only regret is that I did not spend longer than a month there. I plan to go back some time in the future for another month to further improve my Chinese.

Despite being ethnically Chinese, I grew up in an English speaking household and never had an opportunity when I was younger to study Mandarin. As such, I was very keen to be in an environment where I could improve as quickly as possible. My teacher was superb very patient whilst still pushing me to progress in each lesson. I had initially expected to stay about nine months to go from not speaking any Chinese at all to a reasonably high level, but I ended up only needing just over five. My five months at KCE were split into two parts the first lasting three months and the second lasting two. The first time I was here I stayed with a host-family that was very welcoming. The second time I stayed in an apartment organized by KCE, which was conveniently located very close to the school. The start and end dates and number of class hours per day are flexible (4 hrs day is the most common but I chose to do 3). You can always start off by organizing a few weeks of lessons and seeing how they go. You'll almost certainly progress faster than you expected, and may even decide to stay for longer!

I spent four weeks at Konall Culture Exchange and I wish I could have stayed for longer. It really is full immersion in Mandarin. You will not find other western people outside of the school, so you can practice your Chinese all the time in a city where everybody speaks standard Mandarin, unlike Shanghai or Guangzhou and many other cities in China. The staff and the teachers of the school are really friendly and have helped me a lot. I feel really satisfied because my Chinese has got a lot better. Apart from learning many new words I have also consolidated sentence structures and improved my pronunciation.

My stay at Konall Culture Exchange (KCE) was everything that I expected. The teaching was really good, and the teachers care about their students. By the end of three weeks of intensive classes (about 15 days of four hour classes) I was having short conversations with people in Mandarin. That came only after hard, frustrating work in class, and bold practice outside of class, but it was exciting. I am convinced that the best way to learn a language is what KCE does best: intensive, one-on-one, daily immersion in a distraction-free environment at a highly competitive price. And it is quite basic a simple building in a suburb of Shijiazhuang where no one speaks any English. KCE obviously does not spend a lot of money on modern office space and expensive furniture. Don't expect anything fancy. But who cares? They definitely pass that savings on to you in the form of much smaller fees. One final note: Konall is probably not for those who are looking for a really laid-back hostel/backpack environment. The atmosphere is pretty intense and focused on language alone. Likewise, the students at KCE are generally quite intense and serious about only Mandarin acquisition during their stay.