I am still in dis-belief that I can speak Mandarin!

My experiences have been excellent. I arrived in Shanghai March of 2010 and had a few false starts by working with "friends" who thought they could teach me Mandarin. Finally, I decided I needed a school. I have been in one on one classes since I started in July of 2011. Chen Laoshi was my free trial teacher and has remained my one constant teacher, she is excellent. She has always been one step ahead of my knowledge, gently moving me forward. (I do not have a gift for language, but I am persistant!) During my time with That's Mandarin, I have also had other teachers, all but one have been excellent. You do not charge me for the one day of bad experience. Li Laoshi was also one of my teachers, she was also excellent.

I greatly appreciate the flexibility you have had with my schedule.

In the year and eight months that I have been studying, I have passed HSK II (97.5%) and am now studying for HSK III. I am gaining confidence in my speaking ability and studying very hard on my hearing ability. I have just started reading Hanzi and have learned almost 300 characters at this point. I am amazed!

My biggest difficulty is my schedule and consistancy in learning.

For the previous survey, there are two items that I was not qualified to answer. I have my own housing so I marked that with a 1. And I have not had time to participate in the social activites, except one, so I marked that a 5. I don't want these to skew your results.

I am very pleased with your program and highly recommend it to my peers.