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Koolio@hexbear.net

I want to take a Chinese class, but none exist in my area (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 year ago by booty@hexbear.net to c/languagelearning@hexbear.net

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Is there any good way to find like an online class or something that could recreate that experience? I do not want to try to self-teach a language, that sounds awful lol

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[–] Pluto@hexbear.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I took a great Chinese class back when there were Confucius Institutes in my area.

Then they shut them all down and, in a year, they were basically dead or dying (mostly dead a.k.a. gone from the scene).

It's... honestly kinda amazing what happened.

And nobody really talks about it, it seems.

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

I think about it a lot. as a naive, younger early career academic, the institute was my conceptual escape hatch. their offers for studying in mainland China were incredible and I thought, like a dumbass, "well if things really go teats up here with Bernie, I can make a play."

it was insane how rapidly they were severed from every R1 campus in favor of massive DoD grants and the institutional silence in the wake continues to fill me with dread.