Hello!
To your opinion, what’s the best school in Taipei, when one wants to learn Chinese ? TLI ? Pioneer ? Another one ? Of course, like everyone here (I suppose), I’m looking for a school recognized by Taiwanese government as an official language institution.
Thanks
You might want to have a bit of a search through the archives - this question’s been gone over and over and over a number of times.
FWIW, Shida (National Taiwan Normal University) seems to be the most popular choice.
TLI is a typical Chinese business. Eleanor, the boss, will lie to you and trick you out of your money if she can. I had a friend new to TW who paid a ton of money up front for lessons. When he was underwhelmed with the quality of instruction, he asked for a refund admitting he should pay for the classes already attended. In the Chinese tradition, Eleanor wanted to keep all his money and only after World War III did the student get a refund. Eleanor will tell you anything if she thinks it will cause you to give TLI money. And, she will be very rude if you decide TLI is not for you. If TLI takes a vacation day or typhoon day they will expect you to pay for the teacher’s day off even though you are there to pay for chinese lessons(not the teachers to take a day off). The positives are that at least they try to think about how to teach and the older teachers teach the newer ones. They have their own books published more than 40 years ago(not kidding). They will never update them. They have a few good teachers which you need to search for by trial and error and I made good progress there until I outgrew them. The teachers, like most Taiwanese, are culturally hypersensitive and you must always praise everything related to China and Taiwan or else you will get into some side discussion which is not relevant to learning Mandarin. Customer Service in China/Taiwan is not what it is in the West so even with these many deficiencies, TLI is still one of the the best private schools in Taiwan simply because the competition is even worse.
I’ve gone to Shida and this place Mandarin Daily News.
I didn’t like TLI’s attitude when I went to check them out, but I’ve never taken classes there. I’d only recommend Shida if you were planning on getting a scholarship (thus not paying), otherwise I’d go to the Mandarin Daily News.
We really need to get a sticky put up about language schools or something.
yes please.
I am really keen on going to formal lessons, but want something afterhours (7-9pm or something).
Most of the websites I have been to are absolute shite regarding info, and I haven’t had much luck in getting responses by email. What I have found, is places like the TLI that have lessons from 1-3pm or something like that, which isn’t much good for those of us working.
There must be good night schools here?
Even better would be something at one of the Taoyuan Universities, but I think that would be pushing it.
I started classes at The Mandarin Daily News again this week. Straight from the link in my previous post:
There are twelve terms in a year. Every term starts on the first day of each month and it lasts for a month. Each class is fifty minutes, students will have two classes daily.
The morning periods are: 8:10-10:00 or 10:10-12:00.
The afternoon periods are: 1:00-2:50 or 3:00-4:50. The evening periods are 5:00-6:50 or 7:00-8:50. Students are free to choose their hours.
[quote=“miltownkid”]I started classes at The Mandarin Daily News again this week. Straight from the link in my previous post:
There are twelve terms in a year. Every term starts on the first day of each month and it lasts for a month. Each class is fifty minutes, students will have two classes daily.
The morning periods are: 8:10-10:00 or 10:10-12:00.
The afternoon periods are: 1:00-2:50 or 3:00-4:50. The evening periods are 5:00-6:50 or 7:00-8:50. Students are free to choose their hours.[/quote]
yes I read that thanks. I also read that students will have two classes daily, but I wouldn’t be able to get into Taipei until 6-6.30pm at the earliest so I can’t fit in 2 periods per day - unless 2 classes means 2 x 50 minute lessons, within the 7-8.50 period?
I think that’s a bad translation or something. It just means two 50 minute periods a day. You could easily do a 7-8:50 class if you got in between 6 and 6:30.
OK cheers, I will look into that more.
I first started learning Chinese at TLI and I thank them to today for the solid foundation they gave me.
For the first month or two all they let me do is learn ㄅㄆㄇㄈ. I was ready to go nuts at the time, but now I’m really glad I went through it. It helped my pronunciation a lot.
I also found the text book to be much more useful than the Shida one.
Not all of the teachers are great, but neither are the ones at ShiDa or even Taida.
[quote=“Elegua”]For the first month or two all they let me do is learn ㄅㄆㄇㄈ. I was ready to go nuts at the time, but now I’m really glad I went through it. It helped my pronunciation a lot.
[/quote]
Is that something I should get started on in the meantime? There are a few self teach resources for ㄅㄆㄇㄈ.
I know Miltownkid has had a positive experience with Mandarin Daily News, but I registered for a class with them last month and it was the absolute worst class I’ve ever taken. To give perspective, I’ve taken Chinese classes in the U.S, Tianjin, Beijing, and here in Taiwan.
The teacher sat the entire time while we read a vocabulary word and then every student in the class had to make up a sentence for that word. If a couple students had trouble thinking of a sentence, we would all just sit in silence and wait for those students to make up a sentence. We did this for every single vocabulary word. Once I attended class on a Thursday. I missed three classes. The next time I attended they were going over the same freaking vocab words again and making sentences. It was taking 2 weeks just to get through just one lesson in the Shida book! 
Also Mandarin Daily only uses bopomofo. I think most other language schools also use pinyin, since it is the world standard for Mandarin language learning. I’m stubborn and refuse to learn bopomofo, since I can already read a fair number of characters and am fluent in pinyin.
I had a good experience with TLI last term and should have stayed there. They don’t use the horrible Shida books and their teachers actually prepare for the class. They go beyond the “read this” “now make a sentence” style of teaching that seems to be so popular here. I’ve used their Intermediate Book 2 textbook and their Picture Story textbook and have been pleased with both of them. Unfortunately now I have to wait until the next term starts before going back to TLI. 
I just took a closer look at TLI’s site. They DO have 7.30-9.20 evening classes M/W/F
However, I spotted something else that may be of interest: External Classes
At $12-$13 USD per hr for 1-on-1 or $8 USD per hr for 2 or more on 1, this seems like a ideal option to avoid 1hr+ travelling time each way Taoyuan-Taipei.
Has anyone used TLI’s External Classes program, and can comment?
Speaking of one on one, I forgot to mention that I’ll only do a “class” class if everyone’s at a level higher than me and I’m the slow one. My experience at MDN has been 3 months in a class where most of my classmates were pretty fluent and were trying to learn how to read, and 2 months of on one on one. I really enjoyed both (but that class was a kick in the ass).
Now I’m doing one on one twice a week and I’ll probably just stick to that. Even though classes are cheaper per hour than one on one I think they cost more in the long run because; the learning is usually slower paced, the extra hours spent in class could be spent working, in a one on one class your always speaking or listening, and it’s always focused on you.
I tried 2 semesters at Shida and didn’t like that very much, but the nice thing about Shida is if you do want a class they’ll usually have enough people at a level similar to make one (TLI is probably the same). MDN always seems to be lacking students.
Do these places have classes aimed for people who are interested in Business Chinese or some other specialized business area such as IT, computers, HR etc
TIA,
=YC
TLI (the now defunct Hsinyi branch) did a customized business and stock exchange class for me and a friend a few years back (then the friend dropped out and it was a one-on-one for 2-on-1 prices, yeah!! :bravo: ) But that was just because they happened to have two teachers, one of whom was from a business background (MWF) and the other from the securities field (T-Th). It was a pretty good class though (although i’ve admittedly forgotten most of it 
)
But if you want advanced stuff, why not just find a person with expertise in your field? You’re not paying for teaching expertise at any of these schools, really…and you are not likely to get subject expertise as relatively few people go into teaching Chinese because they are hugely motivated to do so, but rather because they went to the Chinese department in college and – now what?
[quote=“truant”]I just took a closer look at TLI’s site. They DO have 7.30-9.20 evening classes M/W/F
However, I spotted something else that may be of interest: External Classes
At $12-$13 USD per hr for 1-on-1 or $8 USD per hr for 2 or more on 1, this seems like a ideal option to avoid 1hr+ travelling time each way Taoyuan-Taipei.
Has anyone used TLI’s External Classes program, and can comment?[/quote]
Just a warning here – TLI’s external classes are much more expensive than their regular buxiban classes. You’d be better off hiring someone privately; the teacher will be too, since she’ll end up with more money.
I started taking classes at TLI again and I have nothing but good things to say about the school. This is the second time I’ve taken classes there. The last time I started out in a class, but then got a full time job, so had to switch to one-on-ones. They let me use the money I spent on my group class towards my one-on-one class with no problem.
This time, I started out taking one-on-one classes and now have added a group class. I’m in a what they call superior level class, so there are only 3 of us total in the class. Eleanor is definitely a businesswoman, but I find that to be great. She works hard to keep her customers satisfied. She let me sit in on classes so I could find the appropriate one. And if you don’t like a teacher for any reason, you can tell them you want a different one -no questions asked.
They publish their own books and I find them to be much better than the Shida ones. They are not 40 years old. The ones I’m using now are “Picture Story”, which was last updated in 2004 and “Travel Across The Strait” which was updated in 2005.
I don’t know why Austin has so many complaints about TLI. They are actually the best school that I’ve attended for Chinese classes and I’ve been around to a lot of schools! The fact that his friend got a refund from TLI at all says something. Getting a refund anywhere in Taiwan next to impossible.
For anyone who is thinking about taking classes at TLI, don’t be put off by Austin’s post. I’ve been extremely satisfied with my experience there thus far. I highly recommend them.
TLI does not update its books except for cosmetic changes. The exception is the change from Yale pinyin in the pink-cover 40 year old Practical Chinese to new pinyin. They’ve changed the covers of some of the books. TLI’s Practical Chinese was first written in 1956 - and from the text anyone can see it predates the invention of the computer and the desktop publishing software on everyone has had for the last 20 years. It’s a great book and the cds that go with it are also good.
Last year, TLI had students paying for 1:1 sitting in the noisy halls and walking them over to other buildings behind their Roosevelt location. Although TLI lowered its service, it did not lower its price. TLI has renovated so the crowding is not as bad as it was before. TLI prefers the crowding - they save overhead, but keep bringing in students and dollars.
Unless you are interested in chinese customs, Travel Across the Straits might not be interesting. In it (especially the last half), you’ll learn many things about chinese customs and associated superstitions. At the end of reading it, you’ll know more than many Chinese about their customs.
Eleanor’s most disarming statement is “I lived abroad for 23 years and I am basically a foreigner like you, so you can trust me.” When you hear her say that, make sure you know where your wallet is.
A person can be in business and still be a straight-shooter, honest.
All that said, TLI is still the best private school (because the others are even worse).
I’ve taken one-on-one classes at TLI Kaohsiung in both Mandarin and Taiwanese for the last 2 years and have been happy with both. All the teachers I’ve had have been great. I can control the pace, which I like. None of the teachers has ever taken issue with my discussing Taiwan and China. I talked my way through the last presidential election without any problems.
Intermediate 2 has a lot of mistakes (tones) in the pinyin version and some of the material in the third writing book is dead boring. Those would be my only complaints.