Will studying in China affect my English standard?

Question

I intend to study in Sun Yat-sen University after my High School. But I'm quite worried of the tremendous drop of my english standard as you can see, my english isn't really good.(In additional, I'm not a native english speaker)So,I wonder if studying in China will make it worse? One of my purposes of studying in China is to master bilingual.

I hope people here that has experience can share with me.

(By the way, I'm from Malaysia.)Thanks.

Answer 1

Yes, studies have shown that adults who master a language (which you seem to be fairly proficient in english) do show second-language deterioration when they are away from that language for extended period of time.

Chances are that you can find someone to talk to in English while you're in China, or can make calls to the US. This should help you to maintain your English proficiency.

Answer 2

Short answer: yes. If I take your question's phrasing as an indication of your English proficiency, I'd say it's your second language, not your first. Seeing you're from Malaysia, that's not surprising, so please don't take it personally (I'm from Singapore by the way, if you must know). I admit I have no personal experience w.r.t the English-Chinese bilingualism issue (as I am almost perfectly bilingual living in Singapore), but I'll try to help by being as honest as I can.

Now, the problem with your idea is that you're trying to master two languages through immersing completely in one, while trying to maintain proficiency of the other, when both languages aren't your strong suit. I'll use an anecdotal example to illustrate the problem - that of myself. I consider myself a proficient user of English (I score straight As in my General Paper exams, plus a 5 on the Advanced Placement English and Composition paper to boot), but after I returned to Singapore after spending four weeks in Japan this June, I noticed that even I had to grasp for words in forming my sentences. I also thought more slowly than before when using English, while my Japanese reading and cognition speed was much increased. If what happened to me applies to you as well, your Mandarin Chinese will definitely improve - at the expense of your English. Also chances are you won't ever be able to speak perfect Mandarin (as in Putonghua) due to your education background, but neither will you ever be able to speak perfect English - in the end you'll end up decently proficient in Chinese (but not its spoken form), marginally proficient in English (provided you keep practising it in China), with the overall result that you aren't exactly bilingual, depending on how strictly you define 'bilingual'.

There's a possible option: that is you go to Peking University, instead of Sun Yat-sen University. Peking University is without question China's number one institution - and I have heard anecdotes about how the students there speak perfect English with an American accent. Sun Yat-sen's level is probably not high enough to ensure that there is a pool of expert English users to keep your English proficiency intact - so it's a high-risk strategy you're taking.

I'd advise you to consider carefully before making a decision. Feel free to message me for more information.

Answer 3

Well, it depends on how much English you will speak in China. I studied abroad in a Spanish-speaking country only for a month to learn Spanish, and when I came back my English was noticeably worse! So if you are going to study a language, make sure you practice both the new and the old.

Answer 4

Well,I think it's depending on you living way.If you're living in China,it's unavoidable to speak Chinese.English is your mandarin,I think no matter how long you stay in China,it'll not affect your English standard.

Answer 5

Yea, i think your english will definately get worse since you will be surrounded by chinese speakers the majority of the time. Unless you have foreign friends who you can speak english with constantly.

My friend (Thai) who can speak english but not great, went to study in college in China, when he came back after 3 years his mandarin was better than his english. Since he never uses english there, his english was pretty bad after he came back. But i think if you keep up with reading english daily and watch english programs you should be ok.