Easy Mandarin Chinese School — Local services in Shanghai

Obviously, if you're planning to travel half way around the world to study Chinese, a little research on language schools pays off. Thankfully, EasyMandarin proved to be more than I had anticipated.

The school is located in Jing'An, a stylish, well-featured downtown area, and it overlooks the stunning temple. So that sets the mood well from the offset. Staff are professional and genuine. Class sizes are small and attended by ambitious, interesting people from all walks of life.

Lessons follow good work books and are structured well. My teacher (who I won't name as I've not asked her permission) was upbeat, possessed an impressive command of both English and Mandarin, displayed a high level of patience when my jet-lag was at its worse and provided a very enjoyable, and above all, effective week of learning.

The litmus test was my first conversations with Chinese friends on my return. Mission accomplished. Ok, still a long way to go!

Shanghai is something else and I would without a shadow of doubt recommend...

Before choosing Easy Mandarin, my friend and I checked out other language schools in Shanghai but after the trial class we chose Easy Mandarin. My overall experience with Easy Mandarin is great. All the teachers in the school have certificates to teach Chinese. I love our teacher. She speaks perfect English and that makes things easier. I had a Chinese teacher who didn't speak English well, so learning and understanding the nuances in Chinese was difficult. And our teacher is really patient and she does push us to learn Chinese but not in a way that you could hate the language. And also, while she is teaching Chinese, she explains some words or phrases in relation to Chinese culture which makes us easy to remember and make sense of it. All the staff in Easy Mandarin are also very helpful and if you have any problem, they do whatever they can to help you. I highly recommend Easy Mandarin to everyone. And for money wise, their prices are relatively cheaper than other schools...

Yis at EasyMandarin helped so much in getting my wife and me set up in Shanghai. Without his help I don’t think we could have visited for so long (3 months) or had such a cool experience. We had a stellar time learning Mandarin at his school.

We loved our instructor Ella! She was a fantastic teacher. Our class didn’t seem like the typical classroom one expects to find; instead, it was more like a little family. We loved Ella's short “cultural education” presentations (slide shows about Chinese cities, festivals, food, etc.). They served as a great break during class. Our evening classes at EasyMandarin were probably the highlight of our China trip so far.

After 3 months of study, our Mandarin is good enough to make us self-sufficient in Shanghai, which feels awesome. :)

Now we're off to Bangkok and then Bali for about two months, but we expect to return to Shanghai in February so we can resume classes at...