Frequently asked questions

No, we don’t assume any prior knowledge on any of our degree programmes. Some students may have visited China in a gap year before they start their degree, but most will be complete beginners in every respect, and the introductory modules are designed to give you all the information and skills you’ll require for the later stages of your course.

 

Back to top

The University has an excellent range of support services which covers a range of areas including health, welfare and study support. For personal problems which may interfere with work, you can always talk in complete confidence to your personal tutor or any member of staff with whom you feel comfortable. Tutors can help with a wide range of issues, and if they are unable to help with a particular problem, they will find you someone who can. 

Back to top

Not necessarily! It’s a very different language, given that it’s written in characters and is tonal, so your experience with French or German might not be very relevant. Chinese word order is quite natural for native speakers of English, there are few sounds in it that are at all difficult for foreigners to make, and it is not a particularly complex language grammatically when compared to e.g. Japanese, Russian, or Latin, so don’t be put off if you don’t consider yourself to be a star linguist. UK students usually find speaking and comprehending spoken Chinese the easiest part of language acquisition (in spite of the tones), followed by reading, with writing Chinese characters the most difficult skill to learn. Our Mandarin teachers understand this, and they pitch teaching and assessment tasks at an appropriate level to take account of it.

 Back to top

Mandarin classes take up nine hours per week in the first year on our single honours degrees. Modern languages joint degree students study mandarin for up to six hours each week and four hours per week in their final year. For 'with Chinese' degrees, Mandarin is studied for up to three hours per week either as a compulsory or optional module.

Back to top

We assess all students’ Mandarin levels to ascertain which class is most appropriate for them, and as we offer a number of Mandarin classes from beginners to advanced, there should be a class available to fit into your timetable.

Back to top

Nottingham offers a range of Mandarin language modules at 10 and 20 credits, as well as advanced options in translation, so it is possible to construct a single-honours degree course with a very strong language component, especially given the year you will spend in China. For joint-honours and ‘with Chinese Studies’ degrees, a substantial amount of optional Mandarin study is also available.

Back to top

Once you have done the compulsory introductory modules in Chinese Studies, you should be able to cope with any of our optional modules – provided, of course, that you do the required reading and attend lectures and seminars!

Back to top

No, your chances of getting a first or an upper-second class degree should be more or less the same, whatever your degree subject/s, and our students’ experience to date confirms this. If it takes you a while to get to grips with Mandarin, you might find that your language module marks are lower than your usual standard at first, but equally, once you do begin to be able to handle the language, you will find that those modules can provide some of your highest marks. This is because it’s very rare to be awarded as much as 80% for a piece of coursework, even one of very high quality, in subjects like History or Geography, but if you translate a piece of Chinese accurately or answer a listening comprehension test correctly, it is possible to get marks in the 80s or even higher.
Just in case you do find that Mandarin is not for you, most of our degrees make it optional after the first or second year, before the weighted marks can make a significant impact on your overall degree result. Most students find the interdisciplinary nature of Chinese Studies to be one the course’s best features, as it allows them to explore alternative approaches to questions and to look at familiar problems from a different angle. And interdisciplinary courses provide skills which you can use to market yourself to a wide range of employers. 

Back to top

Favourably! Twenty years ago Chinese Studies was still sometimes regarded as a minority subject, but now it’s becoming part of the mainstream. As the world realises China’s importance to so many aspects of our lives, so a degree which flags up your interest in and knowledge of China can only help to show an employer that you are a forward-looking, ambitious and perceptive person aware of international social and business trends and at home in a variety of cultural settings. Chinese Studies is still unusual enough, however, to help your job application to stand out from the pile of similar ones, especially when your Chinese Studies degree is from an internationally-respected university like Nottingham with a proven commitment to developing links with China.

Back to top

The single-honours degree gives you a full year in China, while most of the others either require or allow a semester to be spent there in your second or third year. Additionally, the three-week Field Course in China will offer you experience of trying out different research methods in authentic fieldwork settings in China.

Back to top

No, the curriculum there is run by The University of Nottingham, and modules are approved and monitored through the same academic quality-assurance procedures as for modules offered on the UK campuses.

Back to top

You can on some of our degrees, though not the single-honours course or the joint-honours degrees with French, German, Russian or Spanish Studies. For the others, both Academic Schools involved in your degree programme need to approve the modules you will be taking at the other institution, but there are plenty of universities in North America, Australasia, Asia and Europe which offer suitable Chinese Studies modules. Contemporary Chinese Studies staff can advise on the suitability of specific universities for a semester abroad.

Back to top