Chinese Studies

Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

What Our Students Say

We asked some of our students what it's really like to take Mandarin Chinese at Dal. Here's what they said:


Kate Dalgleish
Co-founder of the Dalhousie Zhongwen Society for students who study Chinese.


It's not as hard as it seems at first. It is a truly foreign language, in that it's really something new, fresh and interesting. You just need to get your head around the idea of the characters. There's really nothing that relates to it in European languages. Also, it's a very useful language to learn; China's on its way up as a superpower. One fifth of the world's population speaks it already.


Christopher LeFort


It's amazing. The teacher is a really good prof, and the course is a lot of fun. I first decided to take Mandarin because I went to China recently. But there are many more reasons to learn Chinese. China is booming right now; eventually, there's going to be a lot of job opportunities in the region. It makes sense to learn a few different languages; I think if you can speak Mandarin, Spanish and English, you're set.



Sheena Shen


The teacher is really entertaining. She uses things like current news, music videos, and historical video clips to bring the class to life and make it fun. I'm Chinese, but I grew up in Canada. I'm taking this course to improve my Chinese because I'm not very fluent. I'd like to be able to communicate better when I go to China.