I am working towards a B.Honours degree in Mandarin. Can anyone suggest a good international university that offers such a degree through distance education.

In South Africa - where I live - there is not a single institution that offers it.

Cheers

Honours is not a common option in Chinese universities, they all go for Masters degree. Just a word of warning if you write honours on your resume some people will only see the fact you don't have a masters. In the end a HSK certificate is probably all you'll need though? If you're going to study mandarin full time, living in China is the ONLY way to go!

I have very little knowledge of HSK. There are currently 3 institutions in South Africa that formally offers Mandarin and all off them only up to third year level (BA). (One of them also offers HSK)

Last year I finished my BA degree in languages and also 1 year of Mandarin. Currently I am enrolled for a three year degree in commerce law. My goal is to finish the next 2 years of Mandarin and in my third and final year of commerce law also complete a honours in Mandarin. In South Africa you are not able to enter a Masters degree without a Honours.

It seems to me that HSK is the same as TOEFL and rather test your knowledge than to academically qualify you in Mandarin? Am I wrong?

One of the South African universities plan to start a Honours in Mandarin in a years time. I asked them about the proposed entrance requirements. They told me level 3 BA + HSK level 4 (preferably 5).

Does that mean HSK level 6 is on the same level as an Honours degree in Mandarin and would enable you to enter a Masters degree?

From memory when I started looking at doing the HSK, its main practical purpose was for using when applying for courses at Chinese universities. I believe for Mandarin courses a pass at advanced level was required, and for other courses an intermediate pass was required where the courses were taught in Chinese.

I think the top level of the new HSK is somewhat watered down from the top level of the old one. From speaking to Chinese teachers here in the UK, my impression is that the standard of the HSK is somewhat similar to an A Level qualification in Mandarin, that is an advanced secondary school exam.

You are right that HSK is similar to a TOEFL in that it is aimed at language proficiency rather than a broader cultural background you might get from a good degree. However my feeling is that it's not as widely recognised as TOEFL, partly due to the jostling between the agencies that are responsible for organising it and the disorganised way that changes have been rolled out within China and worldwide.

I would say that your ability in Mandarin is more correlated with the amount of time you spend studying rather than the particular qualification you get. I suspect spending as much time as you can studying Chinese over the next two years (including with tools like Skritter), taking HSK, and then applying for a masters in law in China would be an interesting path. See http://en.csc.edu.cn/Laihua/ for details of the Chinese government scholarship program. If you use Skritter religiously at least an hour a day for two years, and do some supplementary study to improve your reading, listening, and speaking, you should be fine to do the HSK.

You might get better answers on chinese-forums.com, or by talking more to universities, private Chinese teachers, or any local Confucius Institute (孔子学院), which may be part of the university.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucius_Institute#South_Africa

The University of New England, in Australia, offers a wide variety of courses in Chinese by distance education.