Learn Chinese with Practical Mandarin
You can learning Mandarin towards Total Fluency here… with our team of Mandarin specialist teachers, we offer small group classes and private tuition each year to over 1200 graduates in Central London and online. Come and join the like minded Londoners to power charge yourself with our language and cultural training.
If you’d like to learn with a small group class, we would recommend you to book a trial lesson with us by filling the form on the right. Or if you prefer to learn with a private teacher, you should take advantages of our HALF PRICE trial lesson offer, click on the button below to book this lesson now.
Facts About Mandarin
Before you begin to learn the language, there are some facts it’s helpful to know about Mandarin Chinese:
Mandarin Chinese is the Most Used Mother Tongue
Mandarin is the most used mother tongue in the world, with about 1 billion native speakers. Most people who speak this language live in mainland China.
What Other Countries Speak Mandarin Chinese?
Mandarin is also spoken in Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia. It’s also used in Chinese communities around the world. Mandarin Chinese is also one of the six official languages used by the United Nations.
Borrowed Words from English May Sound Familiar
As you learn Mandarin, you may be surprised to hear words that you’re able to understand. With the increased exposure to Western Culture, the Chinese language has gained many loanwords (words borrowed from English).
Chinese Has the Most Similar Sounding Words
Chinese is filled with similar-sounding words. This can make the language a bit more challenging for non-native speakers. They have a difficult time differentiating between words and sound combinations. But you’re not to worry! At Practical Mandarin, we’ll help you learn how to tell these words and sounds apart. With practice and study, you’ll sound like a native speaker in time!
Chinese is One of the Oldest Languages Still in Use
The origin of the Chinese language was found with the discovery of the Oracle Bones. They are believed to have the earliest samples of Chinese Script. The bones date back to the Shang Dynasty (1600-1046 BCE). Over time, however, the language has gone through many changes due to wars, major cultural shifts, and more. Even so, the Chinese language has lasted for thousands of years and continues to grow.
Is Mandarin Chinese Difficult to Learn?
With our Chinese Classes in London, studying Mandarin is not as challenging as some may think. You’ll discover that Chinese is actually quite a beginner-friendly language, especially if you begin by focusing on its phonetics. Our school boasts over 10 years of experience in offering these Chinese language classes in London, and we have developed a high level of specialization and skill in teaching this language to both beginners and advanced learners who are already proficient in English.
Furthermore, we have dedicated considerable effort to crafting our Fluency coursebooks and Hanzi coursebooks, which are currently being written and prepared for publication. These resources are specifically designed to help our students navigate the Chinese language system effectively and gradually enhance their fluency skills through step-by-step lessons with us.
Many of our students come to us with some learning history. That’s totally fine, because Practical Mandarin is the only school that offers all 6 levels of Chinese lessons in the UK. If you want to know where your level is, take a quick placement test below.
Chinese Classes in London – 6 Levels to Achieve Total Fluency
Answers to 10 Questions you may have
Our Chinese Tutors in London help over 1000 students each year to speak Mandarin! We do know what you are looking for, and how to help you achieve your learning goal.
It’s easy to learn Mandarin as a beginner, as you will be learning the very simple phonetic system, which composes only 490 syllabi! That’s why our Beginner students are the proudest of the achievements of their 0 to 1 step in just 10 to 20 lessons.
In your future total language skill training, it gets more challenging. But we know how to help you get there in each step.
Good question! If you are taking a part time learning approach with PM, we say 80 lessons upon completion of Intermediate course to achieve daily fluency. That could be 80 weeks or shorter if you chose to start with intensive beginner courses.
For an independent speaker level of fluency, we say two years upon completion of Upper Intermediate course. Be a good student, and we will get you there!
You can find the curriculum of each course on the respective course page on our website or our brochure.
We are using guidelines of official Chinese Proficiency Test called HSK to design our course framework.
Each course level will target different language skills training, ie Beginners for confident introduction and survival skills, Elementary for daily conversing covering common subjects, Intermediate for storytelling to narrate events, Upper Intermediate for discussion and debates to explain your reasoning and thoughts, HSK 5 & 6 for in depth discussion of society, culture and literature.
Let me try to use a very simple no jargon explanation – PM method focus on input, immersion and output.
You might find many language classes out there or learning apps only try to give you input, explaining how the language works to you, but at the end of the day, you felt like you learn something, but still can’t speak the language. At PM, each class is designed with a mix of learning, assessment and fluency skills output training modules. These training modules are unique here at Practical Mandarin, and are tested in many classrooms for targeted results.
You can see more details here.
On our website. We publish and update new courses on a monthly basis. Navigate to Group Courses on the top menu, find your level, and see all the available courses listed on the page, click the BOOK button to see all date / venue details. You will need to make tuition payment upfront in full amount to secure your place in the course. Our courses get booked out quite often as class size is limited, so please book the course as early as you can to avoid disappointments.
Our main center is in the City, close to Monument station by the river, where our headoffice team works from. We hold 70% of our classes for all levels here, as well as cultural events and workshops.
The other venue is on Charing Cross Road, it’s within an office building, where we use their comfortable boardrooms for evening classes. We hold beginner to Level 4 classes there.
We run group classes Monday to Thursday evenings between 6:30pm to 8:30pm, and all day Saturdays.
If the timing for our group classes do not suit you, you might like to consider private tutoring. We have tutors available seven days a week.
Our lessons are priced at £30 per two hour lesson, each course is either 10 or 12 lessons, you do the math. Advanced HSK 5 and 6, and Business classes are priced at £36 per two hour lesson.
It’s a course subscription model, ie we don’t accept pay-as-you-go, you will need to subscribe to a term of the course, either 10 or 12 lessons. If you join an ongoing course after its start date, you just need to subscribe for the remaining lessons.
We know sometimes your schedule gets jammed up. So don’t worry, with any group classes that you missed you will be able to attend a FREE mark up lesson with a different group (subject to availability), for up to two make-up lessons per term.
Alternative options would be private make up lessons online or offline with your teacher, or home study with teaching material provided. What’s more, our online platform is open for students with all learning material all in one place.
3 Ways to Get in Touch
What’s the Best Way to Learn Mandarin?
One of the best things you can do is to work with a professional Mandarin tutor in London. In addition, it takes commitment, along with daily studying and practice. We offer effective training programs for professionals and companies, with four ways to learn Mandarin with a Mandarin tutor.
Group Class
Our small group classes offer an affordable way to learn Mandarin. These classes are on weekday evenings and weekends. You learn progressively towards total fluency. Our classes have 4-10 students to make sure each student gets an optimal amount of speaking time and personal training. At the same time, the group is also dynamic enough to have great interactions and fun learning together.
Our group classes go from:
Level 0 to Level 7-9, along with an Advanced Business
Online Lessons
Our online lessons are available 24/7 for students to learn remotely, to top up in speaking practice, or to make up lessons, starting from £30 per hour.
Private Tutoring
We offer private tutoring to learn the Chinese language that’s available 24/7 with a flexible scheduling service. Learn intensively and effectively toward your goal, starting from £45 per hour.
You can choose from the following private lessons with a Mandarin tutor London:
“Great Chinese class in London. Fantastic teachers, small groups, interactive classes, reasonable price. I have taken classes since August 2017 and they really helped improve my Mandarin level. Return on investment is amazing so don’t look any further!”
“The classes offered by Practical Mandarin are simply exceptional! No amount of textbooks or apps can replace experienced professional teachers guiding you through well structured coursework.”
“I have just completed the Intensive Entry Beginner class and I was very impressed by the standard of teaching. Natalie is an amazing teacher who kept us fully engaged in the classroom and made it a very enjoyable experience!”
“Really outstanding Mandarin course – brilliant teaching ability, consistently great feedback and top level course materials. Natalie is a pleasure to learn from and as such I look forward to the lessons every week. Highly recommend to anyone looking for a challenge!”
“Signing up for the Beginner level class at Practical Mandarin was the best thing I did, it has been worthwhile and a great experience.My teacher ensures she engages all students and is very attentive to each students needs but at the same time keeps it fun and interesting. I have thoroughly enjoyed the experience and learned so much that I have signed up for the intermediate class. I look forward to each class and I’ll definitely be continuing!”
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