Dongying

A native Mandarin speaker, I have studied and worked in both China and the UK. I'm familiar with the challenges faced by language and cultural barriers.

Having worked as a bilingual journalist, writer and translator for more than two decades, I understand the barriers concerning the learning and use of a foreign language.

I have previous experience working as a sustainability professional, and worked in business strategy and management, with a rich experience in cross-cultural communications.

The main reason for my career transition from a journalist, then an environmentalist to a language tutor is the great joy and passion I have found in language education through my hands-on efforts in teaching my Chinese-British daughter and raising her bilingually.

I have thus established a family-run business and created a website with a special focus on offering Mandarin language training for learners of all ages & helping people better understand Chinese culture.

Our business website has become very popular among both Chinese and westerners. This is partly because we post articles and blog regularly to share our insights concerning the most effective ways to learn Mandarin Chinese. In particular, we explain Chinese language and culture, through photos and videos taken over several years, idioms, festivals, customs, tourist attractions and some home recipes of Chinese food.

I look forward to making friends with people like you, who are interested not only in studying the standard Chinese language but also learning more about the Middle Kingdom. I hope our resourceful website, language club plus teaching expertise will help my potential students set out on an enjoyable journey to explore the oriental culture.

Tutoring Experience

Private Mandarin Chinese/English lessons

Tutoring Approach

Teaching Mandarin Chinese in a fun, engaging and inspiring way.

Using well established teaching methods and highly-valued materials and tools; combining the most useful and practical methods to develop and improve learners' ability to communicate successfully in Chinese.

Aims to help each student study not only new languages and new cultures, but also help individuals recognise and explore their own learning and communication abilities.

Learning a language is for communication, not just for listening, speaking or writing. That said there will be a strong emphasis placed on vocabulary, sentence structure, tone and character.

Students will be taught to both speak and write Chinese by participation and interaction, and understand the logic and structure of Chinese sentences whilst building upon their vocabulary.

For young students, learning is encouraged through play and action with toys, songs, games and dance. Accompanying parents will also benefit by picking up a little basic Chinese.

Private courses are available at a time to suit students with lessons tailored to individual needs, be it for business or pleasure. Lessons will also offer an insight and understanding of China, the Chinese culture and its language. Private courses may also be conducted online through Zoom or Skype.

I am also available to offer lessons to a group of people and companies which plan to expand their business in China.

Note: prices listed are negotiable.

About Mandarin Chinese:

Spoken by more than a billion people Mandarin Chinese is fast becoming the second language after English. Whilst there are many dialects, standard Mandarin is spoken by most people in Mainland China.

Mandarin Chinese should not be confused with Cantonese which is mainly spoken in Guangdong Province, Hong Kong, Macau and by many Chinese emigrants to Western countries.

Initially, learning Mandarin Chinese may look daunting. Chinese writing after all comprises of a series of complex characters. However it is not immediately necessary to learn the character to successfully communicate in Chinese. Using pinyin, a method to help read and pronounce Chinese words by displaying them in a romanised alphabet, students will grasp the basic pronunciation before moving on to forming sentences and becoming proficient at communicating in Chinese.

One of the biggest hurdles is tone. In Chinese tone is used to differentiate one word or character from another.
There are four tones in Mandarin, a high even tone [first tone], a rising tone [second tone], a falling & rising tone [third tone] and a falling tone [fourth tone].

Thus for example the word 'ma' can be pronounced in four different ways and its meaning would be different if pronounced incorrectly. So ma1 or mā [妈] means mother, ma2 or má [麻] hemp, ma3 or mǎ [马] means horse and ma4 or mà [骂] scold.

Don't worry though, use of tone gets better with practice, and context often helps out many foreigners who pronounce every Chinese word with a flat first tone!