Mandarin Lessons in Harbin

[bickcam]

Hi - wanting advice on the best options for some Mandarin lessons. My family and I moved to Harbin for my husbands work, I have some spare time coming up and really want to take advantage and learn some Mandarin mainly for communicating and getting around. I would prefer in home lessons with resources but am prepared to travel if the school comes highly recommended, we live on You Yi Lu in the Daoli district so close to home would be good. Does anyone know a school or organisation that have private tutors? I have approximately 6 weeks (before I have to fly back to Australia to give birth) but was hoping to fit in about 60 hours of lessons. I'm only free between 9am-3pm Monday - Friday while my 2 children attend kindergarten.

Any thoughts or advice would be welcome

Cheers Beck

[abcdefg]

In the summer of 2008 I took one-to-one Chinese lessons in Harbin at a small school located in the Daoli district where you live. Was well pleased with their instruction and support services. They are honest, flexible and eager to please. Here's their website (below.) Contact them for more information. The owner speaks English and can help you arrange things on the phone.

http://www.1to1mandarinworkshop.com/

Search the Harbin thread of this forum for more comments on Harbin options. This school was a good one when I attended, but they are not the only game in town. Please note that my information is not current, but it may still be of use.

Here's a map of their location so you can see whether or not it's convenient to your part of You Yi Lu. I no longer remember the bus routes and stops.

http://www.1to1manda...op.com/map.html

[bickcam]

Wow that's pretty much across the road from my kids kindergarten and a 5 minute walk from home, thank you I'll look into it.

[kdavid]

I haven't hired a private tutor since 2006, so I'm not familiar with the going rates. The link provided above quotes 80 RMB/hour. Though I may be out of touch with current prices, this seems a bit high.

If you're interested in doing this "on the cheap," you can contact your local university's registrar and get a list of students who do home tutoring, which is what I did when I was in the market. The last time I did this, I set up interviews with four different students and chose the one I felt was the best fit. I paid 20 RMB/hour.

Of course, my tutor didn't have the same experience that someone as someone linked to above. If money isn't an issue, abcdefg's suggestion may be the most convenient for you.

[imron]

I don't think 80 RMB an hour is expensive if you are getting a teacher experienced with teaching foreigners and who will be able to provide a set of planned lessons and so on.

[abcdefg]

Even in Kunming I now pay 100 an hour for one to one, though one could certainly hire a university student for informal teaching for considerably less.

If the Original Poster is a beginner just starting out, I think getting a good foundation from an experienced teacher is extremely important. Later down the road it's easy enough to supplement classwork with informal coaching for a smaller hourly fee. At that point, teaching experience is less critical.

[bickcam]

Thanks for all the advice, I'm happy to pay the 80RMB/hr (my husband's work pay for the first 60 hours anyway) to get some structured learning. I've contacted the school and they are going to meet with me to talk me through the lessons and show the text books they have available which is what I'm really after as well as I want to be able to go over and restudy what I'm learning at night.

I hope to be able to pick up enough for now to get around and chat to locals and then pass this on to my husband and I think a student may be a good idea later down the track once I've cemented what I've learnt. Although I've sent my 21 month and 34 month old kids to Chinese kindergarten to make Chinese friends and hopefully pick up the language so maybe they can tutor me later on!

[roddy]

We've got a decent amount of info on 1to1 Mandarin Workshop going back a couple of years, largely thanks to the always excellent efforts of abcdefg. If you could post any experiences in that topic to keep everything in one place, bickham, that'd be great. There is also Bincai, not sure that's such a good fit though.

Enjoy Harbin.

[bickcam]

Hey no worries will do I start on Monday so will be sure to update on the appropriate thread after a couple of weeks, so far though so good they were super friendly but I've found most people in Harbin are nice to me

[abcdefg]

#9 -- Like you, I found Harbin to have lots of friendly and outgoing people. They were easy to talk to and helpful. It was not unusual when I went out for supper alone, for strangers to invite me to their table or sit down at mine and just want to chat. I've never had that happen in Kunming, even though most Kunming people are warm and kind once you get to know them.

[roddy]

That's a month - any chance of an update on how your Mandarin progresses, Bickham? Smoothly and with great speed, I hope ;-)

[bickcam]

Well the school were wonderful however I am terrible at Mandarin! I am blaming my advanced pregnancy and 2 toddlers for my inability to remember anything I was taught. I had planned to take 4 weeks of classes but only managed 2 the school were fantastic and straight out offered a refund for the hours that I was unable to use. I am hoping to resume lessons at a later date.