Hi

My name is Lily and I am a very good Mandarin tutor!! ( i have references from my pupils)

if anybody would like to learn Chinese, I am happy to teach you at your private home. ( if you can come to my place then it is only 50 CHF per hour)

I speak fluent English and Mandarin, and I am originally from China. But i don't speak good german so I won't be able to explain in German.

PM me to discuss more details, such as your motivation, language level and time schedule , or arrange a meeting first.

Which Chinese dialect ? ( Hokkien, Cantonese, Mandarin etc. )

Hi,

I'm from Hong Kong speaking Cantonese natively and Mandarin fluently. If anyone like to exchange my languages with native English (improve conversation and pronunciations) or basic high German (I am absolutely new to German), please PM me. Thanks!

Daphne

For German (Hochdeutsch) you can also find a lot of penfriends
from the page of the Goetheinsititut.

http://www.goethe.de/INS/de/prj/brf/eur/deindex.htm
There is also a High-German speaking website where you can find partners
directly in Switzerland.

But both is for High German to recommend but not for the Swiss Dialect.

A friend from me is still in Switzerland, she is from Hungary and has no problems to communicate in Hochdeutsch in Luzern instead of Swiss German.

There are hundreds of dialects in China, if not thousands. But all mainland Chinese, as well as Taiwanese, hongkongese and overseas Chinese speak Mandarin to each other, in addition to their own dialect.

Mandarin is the official Chinese. It is called "standard language" in Chinese ( Pu Tong Hua).

When people talk about Chinese, they mean Mandarin by default. It is a bit like when you say German, you mean high german, not swiss german by default.

No they don't. Older people in HK don't speak Mandarin, neither do many overseas Chinese who left HK prior to around 1987, or who left mainland China a generation or so ago. There are quite a few Chinese in Singapore and Malaysia who can speak Hokkien but not Mandarin, for example.

But yes, when someone says "I'm from China and will teach you Chinese" it's going to be Mandarin.

Actually Adrian, all Chinese in Singapore (not sure about Malaysia) can speak Mandarin, and all Chinese Singaporeans can speak or at least understand one dialect (be it Hokkien, Cantonese, Teochew etc etc).

Its a pre requisite for them to learn Mandarin at school as their second language - the Malay population will learn Bahasa and the Indians will learn Tamil. How well they speak it, is a whole kettle of fish altogether - so you're partly right in that sense.

True, but I was really commenting on the "speak Mandarin to each other" part. Plus not everyone I know in Singapore is young enough to have undergone modern education there. My friend's parents for example.

I wish threads mentioning Singapore and nearby countries weren't being bumped while Basel drops down to -7.

Ah yes, thanks for pointing that out. I wasnt thinking of them when I typed the post. My parents generation didnt have the compulsory second language thing but for some strange reason, they are both still fluent, and can also speak English and Bahasa Melayu. Not so strange for mum, seeing that she's Peranakan (which is another whole new explaination altogether).

Thats what I love about Singapore. Its such a multi cultural hot pot - everyone I know speaks at least 2 languages and some dialects. A little similar to Switzerland except that our languages are rather useless outside Asia.

PS: Coming from a Singaporean: I'll take -7 over 35 degrees with 90-95% humidity any day.

Sorry for the hijack OP!

anybody interested in exchanging German with my Chinese ( Native)?

I speak Fluent English and Chinese. Curerntly I am learning German.

i live in Wollerau, at the bottom of Zurichsee.

I'm malaysian chinese currently living in winterthur, zurich.

excellent in mandarin chinese and interested to teach chinese but im still learning german so its a big deal breaker if you have no good base of english. when i mean good, it means real good, not those swiss youngster on the road using 1 min to think how to answer my question.

only interested to teach people in winterthur and cheap tuition fee ^^

Attitude much?

When that happens to me, I reflect that their English (imperfect though it may be) is still better than my German - or we wouldn't be having the conversation in English in the first place, would we?