1 on 1 Mandarin - comments?

[travoholic]

Hello,

I'm heading to Beijing for about 6 months next April-ish and plan on studying Mandarin while I'm there. I'm not too keen on taking a uni course and locking myself in for a semester for loads of hours per week... I'm looking for something a bit more casual I guess.

I found the website for 1 on 1 Mandarin and it looks good to me. My timing means I won't be able to do a proper full time course but will have to buy individual hours in bulk and go from there.

I was thinking of doing 5 hours 1 on 1 and 10 hours in a class of 4. I'm not expecting miracles and am looking to be able to learn enough to be able to get myself around and to have very basic conversations. Do you think 15 hours a week is enough to achieve this?

So I'm looking for comments on http://www.1on1mandarin.com/Schools/index.html from anyone who's taken a course there or heard anything about it, good or bad. I'd also appreciate recommendations for any other non-university courses.

Thanks!

Kirsty

[myann23]

I've heard good things about 1 on 1 and was thinking about choosing them. I instead decided on TLI (do a thread search on their school). TLI's prices are about the same. I'm doing 3 hours a day of 1 on 1, and each hour I have a different teacher. The teaching quality is generally high. The only problem I have is that the pace of the classes is a bit too fast for me. I'm learning about 40 vocabulary words (pinyin) a day. I'm making good progress though. They have their own books which are well structured. Their website is

http://www.bjtli.com.cn/web/bjtli/c13092.asp

I'm sure the teaching quality is similar in these schools. WHat made me choose TLI over 1 on 1 was their materials.

[terryswift]

i think 1 0n 1 mandarin's location is in wudaokou, but they now also have a second location , which i believe is near the canadian embassy. its actually in a teahouse, and if i am not mistaken they are offering a discount - atleast for july and august signups (not sure about the details).

[cdn_in_bj]

they now also have a second location , which i believe is near the canadian embassy

To help out the original poster, that would be near the Dongzhimen subway station. Assuming the info is correct, that is (I don't know anything about 1 on 1).

[roddy]

There's a bit of info on this school on here, try searching for 1on1 - they've kind of shot themselves in the foot as they're sometimes known as 1on1 Mandarin, sometimes as 1 on1 Mandarin, sometimes as the Language Center, etc.