ANDRE Halim is plodding through a mountain of papers preparing for the standardized national Chinese proficiency test, HSK. He will sit the June exam in Shanghai.

The 23-year-old Indonesian attends morning class to practice listening and speaking and afternoon class for reading and writing. He has learned more than 1,000 characters, a basic conversational level.

He was an auditor in Singapore for a year and everyone in his office spoke Chinese, so he decided to learn and hopes Mandarin will be his ticket to his success. He has been studying for three months in Shanghai.

"I'm going to start my career here after I pass the HSK test," he says. "I hope I can find a business job and see if I have any chance to settle down."

Chinese, at least intermediate to advanced Chinese, can be very difficult, but many expats are accepting the challenge, saying China is the future and speaking Mandarin is a must. So they enroll in classes, go to language labs, talk with locals and practice, practice, practice.

They read Chinese comic books, watch TV and movies - and, of course, finding a Chinese girlfriend (Western girls seldom have Chinese boyfriends) can help, but is often overrated since Chinese girls often want to practice their English.

In China, do as the Chinese do

When in China, do as the Chinese do. That's how Aaron Duff, businesses development manager of Mandarin House, became fluent. He says finding a Chinese girlfriend can really help and he is married to a Chinese wife.

Duff also immersed himself in culture, talked to everybody, like the guy at the noodle stand. He read children's comic books at first, like "Tom & Jerry" and "Tin Tin." Later he advanced to video games, movies and soap operas and dubbed Korean dramas.

"Foreigners have to think about why they are really here," he says. "The first four weeks are holiday, everything is exciting, but how can they survive after that?

"Hard work in the classroom is just half the way," Duff says. "Getting the local lifestyle is the key."

But classwork is essential for most people, especially if they want to take HSK (Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi), the Chinese Language Proficiency Test that approximates the English TOEFL. It is aimed at non-native speakers of Chinese. The latest test is on April 14 for Levels 4 and 6 in Shanghai and elsewhere around China.

In 2009 the initial 11 levels were condensed to the current six.

"It helps promote Chinese language and culture around the world, especially in the West," says Shi Xudeng, deputy director of the International College of Chinese Studies at East China Normal University. It has been holding HSK tests since 1994, one of the first universities to do so.

HSK features oral, listening and written tests. Levels 1-3 don't require knowledge of characters; questions are mainly in pinyin, standard romanized spelling for transliterating Chinese characters. Tests are usually held in foreign countries to raise interest in learning Chinese.

Tests for Levels 4, 5 and 6 are held in spring/summer and autumn on the mainland. Required vocabulary ranges from 1,200 to 2,500 to 5,000. They are usually for students and employees in China, Shi says. "The top level is quite difficult."

Those who pass are supposed to be able to communicate fluently with native speakers, read newspapers and magazines, follow Chinese films and plays, and be able to deliver a full-length speech.

Unlike other test papers, the HSK's test papers are not made public. After each test, the papers are reclaimed and destroyed at East China Normal University. "So those rumored test papers are definitely not real," Shi says.

Martin Hermanowski has studied Chinese for around a year in Beijing and Shanghai. This summer he goes to Hong Kong to begin an MBA course.

"China is the future of the world," the 30-year-old German says. "It's imperative to learn the language and culture as early as possible. I hope it's not too late for me."

Hermanowski reads road signs and street names while waiting for traffic lights and practices with shop owners and restaurant waitresses.

"It's not boring, it's fun," he says.

Swiss citizen Angelika Molnar says, "Chinese is such a beautiful language and unlike some European languages, it's very logical." She studied basic Mandarin in Switzerland and has been studying in Shanghai for 10 weeks. The 20-year-old graduate in hotel management hopes she can find a hotel job in Shanghai.

Stepping stone

The HSK certificate is a stepping stone in corporate advancement in multinational enterprises. Some South Korean and Japanese companies require expat employees to attain HSK proficiency if they seek promotions, while some European enterprises link it with an annual bonus.

Eric Mei, education supervisor of Mandarin House language school, has been teaching for eight years. Students have diverse backgrounds, including engineers, auditors, students, fashion editors and housewives. Mandarin House is certified by the International Association of Language Centers.

It compiles its own textbooks corresponding to HSK levels. Each lesson is topic-oriented - how to call a taxi, go shopping, see a doctor and celebrate Chinese festivals, for example.

"The best and quickest way to learn Chinese is to be local," Mei says. "I encourage students to be open-minded, make friends with Chinese and join local activities, instead of staying in the expat circle."

Tonal torment

Chinese is one of the world's most difficult languages, especially because of its tones. It requires extremely hard work, great patience and lots of time. Learners easily frustrated.

Take a break, Mei says. The best way to learn Mandarin is to have fun. Pictures, flash cards, games, sounds and gestures are good supplement tools for beginners, he says.

He hides his mobile phone in the classroom, then students ask where it is, practicing sentence patterns, such as "A is in/under/on B." When learning colors, they name colored items in class.

Mistakes can give everyone a laugh. One student meant to say, "Yesterday I attended my friend's wedding." However, he mistook hun li (wedding) for li hun, meaning "divorce."

Sun Haifeng, who has been teaching Chinese for five years, tells his students to be "nosy." He urges them to chat with street vendors, night club waiters, cashiers and passengers on public transport. He asks them to go shopping and then recall their conversation with vendors.

Idioms are tough. HSK questions involving idioms always cause stumbles.

Here is a classic question: A mother tells her daughter "Honey, let's get the thing done." Question: What thing are they talking about? Answer: The mother is pressing the girl to find a boyfriend and get married.