Full Time 1-on-1 Classes

One on One Classes at LTL School

This is the last week of my standard individual course at LTL. I was very satisfied with my teachers and found both the classes and the school very professionally and well organized. I made great progress with my Mandarin during the course and really enjoyed the school activities, especially the BBQ at Andreas’ house. Everyone at the school is very friendly and I felt very comfortable during my time here.

I hope I can come back for another course at LTL later this year.

Malte, Germany

Having never taken a formal mandarin course, I was a bit apprehensive about taking an intensive Mandarin course. I really had no idea whether the quality of the teacher or the quality of the course materials would meet my expectations.

Andy Liu and his teacher in Taiwan

That being said, I decided to give it a shot with LTL and was pleasantly surprised by the experience. The teacher was an experienced teacher who came prepared every day, demonstrated strong competency in teaching Mandarin, genuinely interested in my ability to learn, paced the progress not too fast and not too slow, and made the learning process enjoyable.

Four hours a day seems like a long time, but it went by very quickly because of the rapport I had with the instructor. Because I was also hoping to personalize the experience beyond just the coursework, my teacher also assisted me in learning my business presentations in Mandarin. This was very helpful and even though it was a bit outside her profession, she was very eager to assist. There is no doubt that my reading, listening, and speaking improved quite a bit. I attended several dinners and meetings throughout my time in Taipei and I felt my ability to communicate improved significantly. My family and friends also mentioned, without my prompting, that my Mandarin improved immensely. I can’t recommend LTL any more highly.

I am an Economics PhD student in the UK conducting research with a partial focus on China. I have previously lived in China and studied Mandarin in my spare time since, but wanted to push my language skills to a higher level and be able to discuss more technical topics relating to my PhD research. I therefore decided to spend some of my summer this year studying part-time in Beijing.

LTL Students studying Chinese

Having previously studied Mandarin in a range of environments, I was careful to ensure I would get the most out of my lesson time in Beijing. I have had some fairly inefficient studying experiences, getting stuck in large classes or without teachers who really understood how to teach Mandarin as a foreign language, and really wanted to avoid these. I chose LTL because of their flexibility and their reputation for teaching students at an advanced level. I’m really happy I did so. The teachers are all really well trained in teaching Mandarin to foreigners, and friendly and fun too. My teachers never spoke English is lessons, but tried to expand my vocabulary by explaining everything slowly and clearly in Chinese. They all have really good standardised accents, and strong English skills. They developed a tailored curriculum for me discussing news articles related to the topics I requested. After six weeks I feel like I have become a lot more confident in speaking and writing, and am far more fluent in discussing the economy/global affairs in Chinese now. I have also witnessed how fast new students learn at LTL – and wish I had started off this way.

The school is also a really nice community, and so I felt like I had a network of friends in Beijing from studying there. Overall I would recommend LTL for those looking to improve their Mandarin quickly or to push through their fluency ceiling and get to an advanced level. Even though it’s a bit more expensive, it’s worth the premium for the speed at which you will improve.