Mandarin Training Center at National Taiwan Normal University?

Question

How much can one dedicated person learn in their 3-month intensive study program?

Anyone been here? How is it as compared to other schools?

Thanks a lot! :)

Answer 1

You don't really give an idea of your general level of Chinese so it's hard to say.  You also don't say why you want to study-your needs will be different if you are a regular school age student or if you're older and studying for business.

I studied Mandarin at ShiDa, which is the Chinese for NTNU, TaiDa (National Taiwan University-the "Harvard" of Taiwan), WenHua Da Xue (Chinese Culture University) and Taipei Language Institute (better known as TLI).  Out of those four TaiDa was definitely the best, especially if you have special needs (reading Buddhist texts, etc.) and you are a serious student.  

ShiDa is fine and has many college-age students. Alot of US schools allows its credits to transfer.  WenHua Da Xue is fine too but it isn't as prestigious as ShiDa although a bit cheaper.  99% of Taiwanese will assume you are studying at ShiDa unless you come from an elite school (Stanford, Berkeley, Harvard, etc.) which sends their students to their own program (ICLP) at TaiDa.  TLI is good, but better for those studying for business.  It's been around for almost 50 years and alot of diplomats, journalists, etc. have studied there.  

For a beginner and for only three months, any of those schools would be fine.  Realistically, at the end of it you would have the equivalent of a year or so of regular university study in the language.  You could do better but you would have to study hard and be very social with the locals.

If you give me an idea of how old you are and why you want to study Chinese I could be more helpful.