Program Reviews

I studied three weeks in Beijing and one week in Chengde with LTL this summer, staying with a homestay family in both places.
The school is great and the combination of the two cities was a great way to see two very different parts of China. My last week in Chengde was the most intense language wise but also where I progressed the most.
Teachers and homestays great, service fantastic, I had a great time. I would strongly recommend LTL for anyone who wants to seriously study Chinese.

I loved Beijing and LTL. The school is very nice and has a great student community. It was a lot of fun and Beijing is an amazing city. Go to China guys!

I studied five months individual classes with LTL in 2011, four hours a day.
When I got to Beijing, I did not know a word of Chinese. When I left talking was not really a problem anymore. I came to China with the aim to learn some basics, as I have never been good in learning languages. Today I can write emails in Chinese (with not too many mistakes) to our business partners in Shanghai, have no problems chatting to people in Chinese (for most topics at least) and my progress has by far surpassed what I had expected.
I think that had a lot to do with the school and especially my teacher. Four hours a day is pretty intensive but she made it fun and obviously loved her job.
Living with a family who did not speak any English (like really none at all!) was tough for the first few days, but in the end I think helped me a lot with the language. They were great people also.
Organization wise LTL are excellent, I found them very trustworthy and nice to deal with and overall am very happy.
Will be back if I manage to get the time off again.

I studied at LTL for five weeks last month and I loved it. It was my first trip to China and the school felt a bit like a family away from home, in a city that did not feel very much like home. I made friends with several of the staff there (all Chinese - got a lot of free classes in the evening) and still stay in contact.
I miss you guys!

I study Media and PR and was looking for an internship in China in my field and hired LTL to help me to find an internship for me.

Internship: After several interviews I chose to do an internship with a Chinese PR company for five months. It was an amazing experience. I was the only foreigner working in the company and my Chinese colleagues came to me very frequently to help them when there were any cultural differences they had trouble understanding. Together with my manager I was in charge of the BMW account, which was very interesting. I did two business trips to Shanghai for meetings with BMW and we organized a big event for them in Wuhan. I think in China you get the opportunity to do a lot more as an intern than you would do in other countries, because even though I didn't really have any work experience, they saw me as their only "foreign" staff which meant I was asked to do quite a lot of things. Never had to make coffee for anyone.

Beijing: It is a great city, miss it a lot still. Exciting, big - very different to home. I will definitely go back.

Service: LTL was great. First they found me a great internship, but they also helped me a lot with sorting out accommodations, Chinese classes etc. I think after one or two months in China you dont necessarily need that anymore, but in the first few weeks, I dont think I would have survived without them.

I can recommend them. My teacher was not only nice but you could tell she had learned her job. The staff are nice, they are incredibly organized (when does one say that about someone in China...), the accommodation was great.

I have been studying Chinese for a while, first at university and then at different schools by myself.
I did the Chengde Full Immersion Program with LTL and have to say it was probably the best Chinese study experience I have had.
For me the problem was always that I spoke too much English even when studying in China and was looking for a full immersion experience.
The program was great for that, I lived with a retired lady who had a lot of time on her hands, so we spent a lot of time making food together and talk. She is a real "Chengdenese" and has lived there her whole life and obviously enjoyed showing the city to a foreigner.
She did not speak any English, which was what I was looking for, but I guess for a complete beginner that would have been difficult.
The classes were good too, but I have had similar experiences at other schools. What really made the program great was my host mother and living in Chengde, which feels much more like a "real" Chinese city than Shanghai or Beijing.
For LTL, the thing that mostly stood out was the organisation, from the course organisation to the airport pick up everything worked perfectly.

Would definitely recommend for someone who wants to see real China and have a full immersion program.

I had studied mandarin for a semester at a university in Beijing and while it was fun, we really did not learn a lot in terms of language and had very little contact with other non-foreign students. I heard similar stuff from other students at universities in China so chose a private school for my three months course this time.
I cannot compare them to other private schools, but I would say I learned in those three months a lot more there than I did in a full semester before. The organisation was a lot better, the teachers more motivated and the environment far more pleasant.

I studied at ltl in 2011 for a month and it was fantastic. Especially liked the social program and our teacher was great, even though I probably wasnt the best student always....
I would recommend the homestay option.
Hope to be back in China soon.

I have been studying at LTL for three months so far and will continue to do so for another six months.
The teaching quality has been excellent, but what I like most is the individual attention given to each student. You are not treated like a number but like an individual. This can be quite important in a country with a culture as different from Switzerland as China.

I staid at a homestay family for the first three months and this has been a great experience. Moving into an apartment of my own for the rest of the course now.