I came to Beijing knowning zero Chinese.
Unable to communicate with the locals at all.
Started at Culture Yard with a few private lessons then continued with a (small, 4 people) group class.

Each lesson proppelled my chinese forward and was very relevant to staying in China.
My teacher was perfect, and the staff were extremely friendly.

I enjoyed the many class options that suited my specific needs in regards to knowledge level, times of day and days of week.

I liked the diverse teaching methods, use of technology and enjoyed the extracarricular activities (Movies, food and more!)

I highly recommend visiting Culture Yard, whether if planning in being in China for a short period of time, and even more if planning on living in china.

I love how Culture Yard is professional. I owe my gratitude to Culture Yard for improving my Mandarin and actually teaching me from the basis. Also the environment is fun, teachers can handle distractions and go back to teaching environment if we get distracted and out of path because everyone is so nice! We even went together for a meal after class and studied together. Teachers are available to every question and Culture Yard encourages students to come back with offering discounts.

I was part of a one month program in which we studied 3 hours a day. With breaks and all it was 2.5 hours a day. Personally and because of my ability to study long I would change it and make it a 5 hour studying program per day. That would be better and perhaps will allow to focus extra and more on characters