Chinese Language Academy of San Francisco

Completed the 4 weeks/16 hours crash course. Very comprehensive with conversation and writing, and an excellent instructor. It was a very good foundation to further pursue the learning of Mandarin Chinese. Besides the language, I also learned a lot about Chinese culture, which allows to a better understanding of certain expressions in context. The class is very well structured with relevant homework. We got to practice a lot in our small group. The instructor was very knowledgeable and enthusiastic. She was always very helpful with feedback and gave us many useful resources. I feel very motivated to continue to learn and improve my Chinese language skills. I tried other places before but I would always drop the classes. Not this time.

I took the Mandarin Crash Course at the Chinese Language Academy of San Francisco from Yue (Jane) Wang. She made the course an outstanding learning experience. I say that because she brought in relevant cultural ties rather that teach the language isolated from usage. There were a range of students in our class and she handled the challenge of helping students any every level. My wife hadn't studied Mandarin before but I had studied as a child. She helped each of us progress. You can't become fluent with just four weeks of instruction but she'll help you take a big step forward. She helped every student get their laptop set up to type in Mandarin and we used Google Docs for prepare a dialog in class. The four hours in class were tiring but she kept the class lively. I've taken Mandarin at the Y as a child, at Galileo High School, at SF State and I'd put Wang Yue at the top of my list for her helpfulness. -Tong Ginn

The teacher I had was very good, and the small class sizes ensured that everyone got opportunities to practice. Only negative is a majority of the students I was with were located in LA, so there weren't opportunities to meet up an practice speaking Chinese