Timeline for Can a english(non-chinese) speaker survive living in Beijing?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
11 events
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| Jul 17, 2016 at 10:14 | history | edited | Astor Florida | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jul 17, 2016 at 10:12 | comment | added | Astor Florida | I have edited my answer according to your advice | |
| Jul 17, 2016 at 10:05 | comment | added | Astor Florida | Have you been to Beijing in the past few years? I'd say at least 60% speak English, especially near Tsinghau. If the question was about moving to Fuzhou, you might be right. Even Fuzhou wouldn't be so hard for one who is interested in living in China, IMHO. ( I think this comment exchange is useful too, thanks.) | |
| Jul 17, 2016 at 9:22 | comment | added | lambshaanxy | The question was about language. And yes, I think most people would find it somewhat challenging to move to Madrid or Berlin without knowing any of the local language, but both would still be easier than Beijing: they have many more English speakers and share the same written script. | |
| Jul 17, 2016 at 6:53 | comment | added | Astor Florida | Will you say the same for moving to Berlin with knowing German? Or Madrid without Spanish? Beijing is an international, cosmopolitan city. The area around Tsinghua is filled with English speakers and foreigners. The greatest challenges of moving to a new city are finding an apartment and locating a grocery store. These things are generally easy for foreigners to do in Beijing in comparison to London, Paris, or Berlin. Also, Beijingers are also generally very excited to help people who are new arrivals. Have you had this experience in Paris? New York? Beijing is a relatively easy city. | |
| Jul 17, 2016 at 5:43 | comment | added | lambshaanxy | The OP asked if they will survive (yes, agreed, they will) and how hard it will be. And I'm leaning more towards "hard" than "no problem". | |
| Jul 17, 2016 at 1:55 | comment | added | Astor Florida | Ah! I guess you and I have different interpretations of the word "survive" and "get by". Those things might be annoying, true, but are they a big problem? I'd say moving to Beijing was much easier than moving to Chicago, even including all these annoyances. | |
| Jul 16, 2016 at 22:37 | comment | added | lambshaanxy | Like being unable to communicate with 90+% of the people you meet, not being able to read signs, not being able to reliably identify items in shops... | |
| Jul 16, 2016 at 13:41 | comment | added | lambshaanxy | "No problem at all": this seems little overly optimistic. Not knowing Chinese may well be a manageable problem, but it will definitely still be a problem. | |
| Jul 16, 2016 at 2:20 | review | First posts | |||
| Jul 16, 2016 at 14:08 | |||||
| Jul 16, 2016 at 2:18 | history | answered | Astor Florida | CC BY-SA 3.0 |