1 to 1 Mandarin

[travoholic]

Hi!

After a bit of research I'm planning on studying with 1 to 1 Mandarin. I've just arrived so nothing set in stone so I was hoping for feedback on this school. Had anyone heard good or bad things about them? Anyone studied there? Any advice would be great, even suggestions for other places. I'm thinking of 2 to 3 hours per day for about 5 months.

Thanks,

Kirsty

[hidden12345]

Their founder, a Thunderbird grad, posts here often. While navigating through his posts may provide some administrative insight, I feel you won't be getting the most unbiased of customer opinions by posting your inquiry on this forum.

[chinesemonkey]

I am currently studying full time in Beijing at a private school called 1on1 Mandarin. I have been studying here for 10 months now and I have to say that although Chinese will take a lifetime to learn, I am extremely pleased with my communicative abilities. I came to China not being able to speak an ounce of Chinese and now I can carry on conversations with locals with ease.

The strength of the school is 1 to 1 learning and custom tailoring the curriculum according to what the students want to focus on, be it Business Chinese, Newspaper reading, Conversational Focus, etc. As such classes may be slightly higher, averaging at about 100 RMB/hour, depending on how many students are in your class.

The school is flexible with start dates because programs tailor to the students needs, so you can come and sign up whenever you can. I think we have about 60 students taking classes at the school right now. They range from beginner to advanced level students. Most students invest 2 years of language study and rank at the advanced level; that is they are able to take the HSK examination and enrol in local universities.

The teachers at the school all come from the top universities of Beijing, like Peking University, Beijing Normal University, and Beijing Language and Culture University.

You can check out the website at http://www.1on1mandarin.com. Hope this helps.

[myann23]

The Thundergrad guy did not start 1 to 1 Mandarin. He started - http://www.1monthchinese.com.

[self-taught-mba]

Not a Thunderbird MBA. (Although it is a good school too)

People often confuse the two of us. 1 to 1 Mandarin also has posted here too.

They are a decent school (better than most) - even if the post listing all of their selling points seems planted. Joined yesterday, posted a similar recommendation in another thread --- link conveniently included in both of his posts.. Yesterdays post said he "will be studying this summer" today's says he has been here for 10 months. Oops.

Guerilla forum marketing aside they are decent and maintain standards of quality unlike a lot of places here. We are semi-competitors, but I call spade a spade. If a competitor is bad I say so; if good also say so. Worth looking into them.

[tester]

Good catch, will drop them an email.

[tester]

Er, and log out of my 'testing' account. Roddy . . .

[terryswift]

"If a competitor is bad I say so; if good also say so."

ok self-taught-mba, so which competitors do you consider good, which bad, and why?

[self-taught-mba]

1 to 1 Mandarin is pretty good. Others you can search to see some past insights. Mind you I get legal letters for my opinions here. Some companies are really aggressive about people that give their opinion and try to suppress information. Not that that scares me.

Most "I am so happy to recommend" posts are so blatantly fake it is funny. Being in the industry it gets easy to recognize after a while. And most places do it - even a few decent schools. (Even I had an over-zealous intern that was going to and I stopped him) There are several of them on this board. Some are getting more sophisticated at it over time (here and elsewhere). There is a concerted effort to influence online opinion and suppress anything negative. Google alerts and the way back machine make things easier to find but harder and harder. Boards like this and rating sites become useless as a way to gather objective feedback.

But don't have time for that kind of write-up. And it only invites them to attack me anyway - then when a pissed off customer goes on a rant they say "look it is our competitor".

If I do decide to quit this business someday it will be because it is so dirty and I will write a tell-all consumer's guide and an inside-the-industry write-up. Might even start a non-profit consumer advocacy to advise people. Can start a new thread about this later or someeone else can so we stay on topic.

--typed

[roddy]

There are several of them on this board.

And as the admin staff expend a surprising amount of effort trying to prevent that happening, perhaps you could point these out to us and save us some time. There are certainly cases where the benefit of the doubt is given - everyone can make their own mind up after all - but if there are cases where you know more than we do or as in this case just spot one we've missed, share . . .