Silk Mandarin's Online Chinese Course

I began learning with Silk Mandarin in July of 2022. I had been living and working in China for around 5 years, but had just been using apps to self study. After reaching a level slightly above HSK3, I found it very difficult to improve with self-study.

Taking the HSK4 course with my teacher, Jessica, I found that my reading, speaking, and listening abilities all improved quickly. Jessica was able to quickly identify my language level and then target learning needs within my zone of proximity to challenge me in ways that would push me to learn, while simultaiously maintaining my engagement and boosting my confidence.

My learning experience was done virtually, but I found the application and learning materials quite useful. Silk Mandarin provided me with a course textbook, workbook, and vocabulary flashcards. The learning app we used during class, Classin, never had any problems, was very user friendly, and the teacher was quite efficient in her abilities to use the technology. What's more, the school produces daily social media posts, as well as host many group events, so even though my courses were online, it was easy to feel as though I was part of the community.

Cannot overstate how happy I've been with my experience!

Why I gave 5 Stars:
- very good, qualified teachers
- nice atmosphere
- both online and on site courses possible: they are very flexible in changing (also during lockdown)
- different tools to keep learning and learn in different ways: homework with listening task provided on the website, specific courses in the APP Quizlet to learn vocabulary, an online Platform for online Courses with all tools you need to cooperate, ...
- small classes or individual courses
- they also teach you to read or write (via computer not handwriting) Chinese characters --> I didn't expect, but it is an big advantage to be able to read characters.

I've tried self-studying and online classes before but never made any significant progress in my Mandarin learning until Silk Mandarin. Sarah is a great teacher and does a wonderful job in mixing up lessons to keep your learning fresh, you can tell she has plenty of experience in teaching Mandarin as a second language and can identify specific areas that need more focus. Silk Mandarin also provides a number of useful supplemental tools so you can continue to learn outside of class. I highly recommend Silk Mandarin to anyone looking to take the next step in their Mandarin learning journey.

I took the opportunity this summer to start my Chinese learning journey. As I had the time in July, I signed up for the intensive course of 20h per week for one month. It was supposed to be a group class but it ended up being individual as there was no-one else with the same level. I appreciated that Silk Mandarin went ahead with the course regardless. My teacher was Christina. I felt that she was very knowledgeable on her subject and she showed great patience allowing me to practice and create rudimentary sentences with the vocabulary I was learning. As a language teacher, I also enjoyed the fact that I could ask Christina more language and grammar related questions. I highly recommend this school and this course to kickstart your learning.

I just completed 100 online classes with Teacher Christina and had an amazing experience. Each class was both very entertaining and also covered exactly the knowledge I wanted to learn. I was able to see real progress in both my spoken and written Chinese skills and was pushed out of my comfort zone in a way that still allowed me to succeed. It has been four years since I lived in China and this course was perfect for refreshing my language skills. I definitely recommend this course, school, and teacher to anyone who wants to improve their Chinese!

Teacher Christina is a great chinese teacher! Always kept a smile during our lessons and positive attitude. She is patient and funny while teaching. She helped me develop my pronunciation & intonations for HSK1,2 & 3, I also got to develop my foundation, my fluency in speaking and listening is great and my accuracy while reading has gotten way better. She would give me homework for every lessons and give me good feedback’s on them. Overall the online learning experience has been a excellent. I would highly recommend her to future students.

This course has greatly helped me in learning chinese and my two online tutors Christina and Jennie have provided ample material and homework while also helping me learn chinese greatly. They are both excellent teachers to have for an online course. They also were able to help me in learning 汉字 which is my weakest part in learning chinese given the difference of the chinese charecters and the english alphabet. They provided multiple sources of revision and methods of remembering the various differnet charecters.

As a first time language learner, I naively thought I could teach myself Mandarin using mobile apps, books, flash cards and tutors. But my progress was slow and my weakest skills were not improving. I concluded I needed help from a professional Chinese teacher. I came across Silk Mandarin and met the director, Amy. She gave me a free consultation over the phone to gauge my Mandarin level. Afterwards she assessed my strengths and weaknesses and, with great accuracy, identified the skills I had been struggling to improve. She demonstrated Silk Mandarin's slow motion technique, and then prescribed a training program to help me improve. I signed-up for a couple 1on1 demo classes, where I meet my current instructor Sisi. Sisi is a specialist at teaching foreigners Mandarin, a true professional teacher with the qualifications to prove it. She is patient, accommodating of my schedule, and even creates additional study materials tailored for my specific needs. Hopefully documenting my experience here will help the next person save time and energy. If you're serious about learning Mandarin, I recommend you start with Silk Mandarin. Cheers!