Full Time Group Classes

Jean Paul and his homestay sister

11 weeks at LTL have flown by and it’s been a great experience that I’d recommend. If you are on the fence, just make the jump.

I decided to sign up for the Small Group Classes with some individual as well, at LTL Beijing. My Chinese lessons were great fun. I really enjoyed the group ones and the diversity of each teacher was useful for learning the language. Overall I had three different teachers. They were great and each excelled in their own little areas. The group classes I actually found more fun than an activity or learning. You build up strong rapports with your teacher and your classmates that it makes it genuine fun.

You learn about more than just the language as well. Culture is a big thing in China and you are taught that accordingly which comes in really handy in real life situations.

Lunch at the LTL Beijing roof top

This was useful for my homestay, you get to understand the differences between living in China and the west. It took me some time to figure out if he family were arguing or just conversing with each other! The lessons and day to day living mean you get to grips with this quickly.

There’s never a dull moment in China and I’ll be looking at coming back to LTL to try and achieve the HSK 6 in the future.

At LTL I chose the small group classes. It turned out to be a great choice for me. Before the start of the classes my level in Chinese was very low. I had some group classes (in very large groups of 20 persons) many years ago in Belgium. At LTL I was in a small group of four people. We were all at a similar level but from different nationalities and ages which provided for a great mix. There was one German, a Briton and an American. This made it really fun because we could compare how each person would say or do things in their own country, or help each other out when needed.

Each weekday we had a four hour class, two hours in the morning and two more with a lunch break in between. It’s perfect because you don’t feel too tired after each session. During lunch break we ate together and discussed some of the things we’d just learned.
The teacher follows a handbook to teach us the basics in Chinese which is exactly what I needed compared to my starting level. Besides that she also did a lot of preparations such as pictures, particular exercises and role-plays.

On Tuesdays and Thursdays we learned about the Chinese characters (structure, strokes, radicals,…). I really liked the stories behind some of them. For example, I’ll never forget the story behind the word ‘lake’. There’s the ‘water’ radical and the ‘moon’ radical in it referring to the ancient Chinese who went to the lake to watch the moon over the water.
Our teacher also made sure that there was enough room for personal accents and questions. For me it was definitely the pronunciation (‘b’ and ‘p’) so she made me repeat a lot of times and I finally got it right!

In general she really encouraged us to speak, read and write. After each class she gave us some homework. Most of the time it was to help us review what we’d learned that day.
So in conclusion I would say that I’ve made real progress. A lot faster than I would have in Belgium and on top of that learned a lot about the local culture and habits and met some great people as well. I can’t wait to go back for a second time. Thank you LTL and xiexie laoshi!

Previously, I had studied Chinese as an optional subject at the University for two years back home in Germany. After graduating, I wanted to go to China to improve my Chinese. In particular I wanted to work on my listening comprehension which was often neglected in my university course as there were more students, around 20 overall.

After my arrival in Beijing, my worst fears came true, I did not understand a word…! The pronunciation of the real Chinese is very different from the perfectly pronounced recordings I had learned at home.

Beijing Roast Duck in Beijing

I had chose the intensive course which included four daily lessons in a small group (with four Italians) and then two hours of private lessons. Looking back, I underestimated how tiring six hours of lessons are in one go (in such a small group or even alone). At the start, for the last few hours I used to be a bit tired and heavy-handed. Thankfully my teachers adapted to my pace of learning. I really liked that the lessons were entertaining.

I also had decided to take the exam for an official language certificate (HSK3) in Beijing. I feared the “listening comprehension part” of the exam and I toyed several times with the idea of giving up and resigning from the exam. Luckily, my teachers had a lot of understanding and faith in me. They rebuilt me and systematically prepared me for the exam. Although I walked calmly, but not very self-assured, I took the HSK test. For me, coping with the test anxiety was a big step forward. Unfortunately, I do not have the result of my test now, but I am confident and feel that it went well.

Franzi and her fellow students in Beijing

Working with native speakers has helped my listening skills both at school and in everyday life. I still do not understand everything spoken in Chinese (even if I have to know the vocabulary), but compared to the first day, my understanding has improved a lot.

In everyday life I can make myself understand one way or another. I’m sad that time has gone so fast. Here I had not only made linguistic progress but also met many nice people and made friends. I will continue to work on my knowledge of Chinese and, if time permits, I will gladly return to China one day.