1-on-1 Tutoring with Victor

You are faced with a few difficulties when learning Chinese on your own:

Pronunciation
- You can’t correct your own pronunciation. Often times, you can’t tell if your pronunciation is off. Even if you playback your pronunciation and compare it to the pronunciation by a native speaker you may not able to tell the difference. Even if you can tell the difference you may find it difficult to imitate.
- There are so many Chinese tutorials teaching Chinese with an undesirable accent but you can’t tell.
- Do you know that the pronunciation of lots of Chinese words changes in informal verbal communications? Pronunciation of words also changes when spoken fast. You may be learning the perfect pronunciations of words, but when you start a conversation with Chinese people, your pronunciation may still be “off”.
Study materials
- There are thousands of study materials out there to help you learn Chinese but what material suits your situation and needs? If you want to say certain things, you may not find it in your study materials.
- I’ve seen so many Chinese study materials that teach very formal and old-fashioned spoken Chinese.
- There are also study materials that teach you Chinese that are a straight translation from English. I did a survey a year ago revealed that only 8% of people know that native Chinese never say “How are you?”.
- You can express yourself in a thousand ways. In order to know which word or phrase to use under what situation, you need to know the subtle differences between words and phrases. Almost no study material can teach you these.
Accountability
- Unless you are extremely self-disciplined or you are already in an immersive Chinese environment to force yourself to learn it is very hard to progress consistently.
- You may lose motivation or burnout at times and if no one is motivating you and keeping you accountable, you may end up giving up.
Practice
- You can practice speaking on your own but you won’t get any feedback from native speakers.
- You can practice listening by watching Chinese TV shows but you need to search for the ones that are most suitable for your level. You also need to take into consideration the accent.

This is how I can help you:

Pronunciation
- I was born and raised in Beijing. You can’t go wrong with my pronunciation. First, you need to understand that every single city in China has their own dialect. Although Mandarin is the official language of China and everyone learn to speak Mandarin, most people still speak with some accent from their hometown. The pronunciation of Mandarin Chinese is based on the Beijing dialect with minor differences. Many people prefer to learn the Beijing dialect (like Dashan) because it sounds cooler than the standard Mandarin. 😉 I can teach you either, or both.
- I’ll teach you the most authentic spoken Chinese pronunciation that will surely impress the Chinese. You can choose to learn the “correct” textbook pronunciation to get better marks for the HSK tests but in an informal conversation, I’ll point out those subtleties for you.
- I’ll teach you how each sound is pronounced and help you fine-tune your pronunciation.
Personalised Study Plan
- Based on your situation, your learning habit and your goals, I’ll create a personalised study plan for you so that you’ll always focus on the most important things.
Accountability
- I’ll keep you accountable. I’ll make sure you stay on track to achieve your goals.
- We can adjust your plan based on changes of circumstances but you will keep moving forward.
Practice
- The tutoring is all about you. I’ll make sure you do the most talking and I’ll provide you with real-time feedback.
- The better you get, the more Chinese words I will be using in our conversations. This will help you retain the words you learned and train your listening skills.
Learn more with less time
- Learning Chinese takes lots of effort but I’ll try to help you learn more effectively and with less effort by using my own teaching methods to help you remember more in less time. Most importantly I’ll make it fun!
Support
- I’ll set aside 1 hour each day to answer your questions on WeChat so that you can keep moving forward if you get stuck on anything.

Beginners

Passing the beginner’s level is definitely the most difficult part of learning Chinese. To pass the beginner’s level you need to learn Pinyin, pronunciation, tones, some basic characters and lots of vocabulary. It can be a very boring and frustrating process. There is no better way to start your journey to speaking fluent Chinese than doing 1-on-1 tutoring.