Connecting people with high quality Mandarin tutors - seeking feedback/insight

Language Learning Chinese
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Hi everyone,

I hope folks don’t mind me posting here. I’m looking to gather insights and feedback on a new product dedicated to connecting learners with the highest quality Mandarin tutors.

My goal is to build a product to make it easier for people to find the best Mandarin teacher. I am of the opinion that the best and fastest way to learn Mandarin is through great tutors and 1:1 personalized lessons, especially for beginners.

The main challenge, as I’ve learned from my own experience and from many students I’ve spoken with, is finding a high-quality teacher who you really connect with.

In my discussions with students, a common theme is that while the ability to teach Mandarin is essential, the personal connection with their teacher is more important. Students often talk about the importance of a teacher’s personality and teaching style too.

Negative experiences often arise from rigid, impersonal teaching styles. The best learning happens with teachers who are flexible, personable, and easy to get along with - just like your favorite school teachers were.

I’m also very committed to making this product tutor-friendly. Current platforms often have high commission fees and overly strict platform rules, leading to dissatisfied tutors. And we all know unhappy tutors can’t make happy students.

A bit about myself: After seven years as a Product Director at Facebook/Instagram, I left to start a new venture. Along with my Co-Founder, a former engineering leader at Amazon and Airbnb, we’re focused on a product specifically for Mandarin teachers, suitable for both online and in-person teaching globally.

My time working in trust and safety at Facebook/Instagram, and my co-founder’s similar role at Airbnb, inspired us to create a company with a strong foundation in trust, safety, and authenticity. We believe in the importance of verification. In addition to building this platform, we wanted to develop a consumer product using the verification solution we’ve built.

Why am I building this product? I’ve wanted to learn Mandarin for both family and professional reasons, but finding a tutor I really connected with was really hard. My co-founder faced the same issue. Although there are plenty of Mandarin tutors available, the quality can vary greatly. I had several disappointing experiences before I finally found the right one. Creating this product is about addressing a challenge I personally encountered.

This is also an under-served market: Mandarin is the second most spoken language globally after English, and its demand is increasing worldwide. There are many language learning platforms - though they are often generalized or specialized in languages other than Mandarin. Currently, there isn’t a go-to destination for finding high-quality Mandarin tutors.

So far, we’ve focused on basic functionality – helping you learn about teachers and schedule lessons. We plan to add more features like personalized dictionaries, AI-based lesson notes, and easier ways to meet teachers, like drop-in sessions without scheduling. Of course, we’re also verifying the credentials, teaching styles, and quality of our teachers.

Feedback has been positive. Users appreciate the quality of our teachers and the platform’s simplicity. They feel a stronger connection with our tutors and report accelerated learning.

You can check out what we’ve built so far here: WisePanda

Your feedback would be incredibly valuable! To help you get started, I’m also happy to provide a $25 discount code for lessons. Just reach out, and I’ll send one over. The teachers will be paid in full; we’re covering the discount.

Also, I’d like to know about your experiences in learning or teaching Mandarin. How important was finding a good tutor for you? What challenges have you faced in learning or teaching Mandarin? This will help inform the next features we build.

If you’re curious about my background, you can find more information here: http://linkedin.com/in/samengland

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts and experiences!

Sam

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Who’s screening your tutors? What does that person know about teaching Mandarin to foreigners? What criteria are used to screen, or are you simply accepting any tutor who wants to participate and letting the students “figure it out”?

How is this all different from italki.com, etc.?

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The only people I’ve ever met who learned a foreign language fluently in a classroom setting were those who began studying said second language as children. I have yet to meet anyone who began studying as an adult and became fluent in a foreign language in a classroom setting. I’m sure they exist but how many times have you heard the refrain that ‘I studied X for three years at Y university and could barely speak a sentence when it came time to use it’?

I tried university and language center classes in Taiwan for years and made little progress. I tried tutors. Nothing really worked at my age until I ditched the classroom by hiring a chatty college student for 300 NT per hour and going out and about on the streets of Taipei with her and discussing everything and anything we encountered. I call this method “Street Chinese.” Only two rules were no spoken English and no getting too hung up on being able to put something into words the first time we tried if it was too abstract. Just move on to the next subject for discussion.

I made progress in leaps and bounds using this Street Chinese method. Plus it was fun. I, of course, covered all expenses like for coffee or transportation but those expenses were minimal given that there’s an endless parade of things to talk about for free on the streets and in the shops of Taipei.

The only issues I have now are with technical terms like in electronics or medicine but I have the ability to work around those problems. I also have an issue keeping up if I’m in a group of native Mandarin speakers who begin talking very quickly with one another. That’s the next level for me when there’s some time between my current projects.

I often think Street Chinese would be a good business model for someone. What’s key is finding “tutors” who are chatty, speak standard Mandarin, and ‘get’ the idea of being someone’s language guide in an entirely unstructured setting. The model would be to develop a stable of such ‘teachers’ and connect them with language learners anywhere, anytime, anyplace, even if only for a doctor’s visit or ?. Visitors to Taipei could hire such a freeform language guide for their visit to Taipei who would serve as both tour guide and fun, ad hoc language teacher . . . .

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Talking about everything except from the price LOL

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Right. A random university student to act as an interpreter for a doctor’s visit. What could possibly go wrong?

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That sounds very interesting. I’m curious what level your Mandarin was at when you started this method, and how long you did this until you felt like you were close/closer to fluent and how frequently you had this type of lesson. Were you also doing any other study/learning methods simultaneously (immersion of course, but other than that…)?

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I think the idea has potential. Language learning is big business especially in china. Now add some dating/hookup elements to it and now you have a lucrative idea since sex is a basic human need and people pay big bucks on tinder when visiting new cities.

Looking at the profiles on your site, it seems like it may head in the direction of dating/hookup mixed with language learning while exploring a new city. Anyways hopefully you have the team to execute on it. It reminds me of Tealit but their implementation is bad and they aren’t ambitious enough by constraining themselves to the Taiwan market.

Looking at the profiles on the site, I think price is subjective and would be based on the tutor’s skill, personality, attractiveness and some other factors.

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The first ten years I lived in Taiwan I used various classroom methods in a dogged attempt to gain fluency in Mandarin. I gave up abruptly one evening when I finally got tired of my tutor talking over me for the umpteenth time as I was trying to repeat what he’d just said in Mandarin, no matter how many times I’d begged him not to. I was functional in Mandarin at that point but far from where I should have been given the effort I’d put into learning in a classroom setting.

Using real world situations with a “tutor” who supported me in being an active participant in the communication process was like learning Mandarin on steroids. Being able to adjust my speaking and listening to all the different levels of Mandarin ability out in the real world was also a vital skill that’s hard to replicate in a classroom. One example was listening to and understanding a pharmacist’s instructions on how to take medication after a routine doctor’s visit. They’re speaking to you from behind a window and often their Mandarin isn’t very standard. Their instructions are routine though and meant to be understood by the average amah. Once my tutor walked me thru the process as an active participant a few times my speaking and listening attuned to the process and now I have no problem communicating with any pharmacist on when and how to take medications.

Another example in which “Street Chinese” helped me progress a lot was when doing banking business at a bank with no English speakers available. After being able to actively participate in the speaking and listening process a few times rather than being a passive participant it was like a light went on and I soon gained the ability to conduct routine banking business in Mandarin on my own.

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