I'm told my pronunciation is pretty standard. So that's one good thing anyway, I can pronounce my tiny vocabulary very well.
Oh yeah, it seems that every town has its own dialect these days. I have a Beijing accent, by the way. So is your spoken Chinese good? I heard a while ago that the big English tutoring companies in Japan don't require foreign teachers to know a lot of Japanese, since the lessons are extremely scripted out. I left for Canada before kindergarten, so all my knowledge of Chinese/Korean/Japanese everyday school life comes from my cousins, movies and anime.
Teaching English is good and bad. When the students care, I can really do a lot to help them. When they don't, they just sit quietly. The school system here focuses on keeping your mouth shut and listening to the teacher, except with language majors who additionally do rote repetition. Getting people to volunteer and/or speak spontaneously is pretty tough. I probably know less than 20 characters in Chinese. :( I know pinyin thankfully (though I think I misspelled it). The hardest part of learning spoken Chinese is that most people you meet have a strong accent and dialect. If you travel around a lot like I do now sometimes even Chinese people don't understand each other. Hooray -_-
I'm Chinese, but I've been living in Canada since I was nearly 5 years old. Ah, so you're an English teacher? What's it like? I'm pretty much fluent when speaking mandarin, but my writing and reading skills are not as good. Wo de zhong wen hai xing.
Nope, not Chinese. I've been here for a couple of years teaching, looks like I'll be here for a while. What brought you to Beijing? Nide zhongwen hao-bu-hao?
I'm currently in Beijing. I'm leaving on the 26th though. Are you Chinese?
Nah, though I've been there. These days I'm in a small town in Guangxi province, not too far from Guilin. Why do you ask?
Beijing?
