Award-Winning Mandarin Chinese Lessons in Philadelphia, PA

Varsity Tutors offers Philadelphia Chinese lessons for anyone who's studying a dialect of the language. Whether you're meeting a language requirement at Upper Darby Senior High School, majoring in Chinese at Swarthmore College, and even if you're studying on your own for business, personal, or cultural purposes, we can support your language learning needs. Lessons take place online in either a group class or through one-on-one tutoring.

Chinese is considered the most difficult language to learn because it's entirely different from English, so it's a good idea to get all the help you can to work towards the fluency level you want to reach.

Chinese is the most common language spoken throughout the world. The Mandarin dialect is most prevalent worldwide, and Cantonese is historically the dialect spoken most in the US. The characters that make up written Chinese are a beautiful art form and have existed for thousands of years. They date back to the Shang Dynasty (1700-1027 BCE), which was a time of great advancement in areas of astronomy, art, math, technology, and more.

As you can see, learning Chinese is bigger than just learning to communicate with more than another billion humans. It involves learning about an ancient, highly developed culture with ancient traditions and philosophies. This is even the reason some people study the Chinese language.

What kind of subjects are studied during Philadelphia Chinese lessons?

Most language courses look fairly similar, especially when studied in school. Learning Chinese involves some unique topics to learn. One of the first things you'll probably learn is how to navigate the tonal differences in the language. Mandarin Chinese consists of four tones: flat, falling, falling then rising, and rising. Funny situations can happen when you mix up tones; you might tell somebody you're going to take a nap for dinner, when you're actually going to boil dumplings for dinner. Some can be more embarrassing. The word for ask and kiss is the same word with different tonal usage, and you probably don't want to mix that up.

There are more than 50,000 Chinese written characters, and even the greatest Chinese scholars can spend an entire lifetime learning them. Of those, 20,000 are in common use. You'll be happy to know that while you're likely going to learn Chinese characters, there's also a written language called Pinyin, which was developed to represent Chinese phonetically using Western letters.

If you've ever studied another language, there's something you might appreciate about Chinese. Each word has only one grammatical form. What does this mean for you? No verb conjugation or tenses, plurals, or articles to memorize. You can spend more time on the pronunciation aspect. The rest of your Philadelphia Chinese lessons may be basically the same as any other language, including using common phrases as soon as possible, memorizing necessary vocabulary, and learning grammar rules.

Which study option should I choose, classes or a private Philadelphia Chinese tutor?

There are a few factors to making an informed decision regarding this question. First, what's the first answer that pops into your mind? That may be your answer, since our first instinct is often right. If you want to know more about the advantages of each type of lesson before you decide, here are some specific things to consider.

Do you tend to learn much more quickly than your classmates? Do you usually need a little more time than they do to fully understand concepts? Are you learning Chinese for a highly specialized niche area? Are you really good at one area of language acquisition, but need a good deal of help with another? Do you find it confusing to be online in a group situation with many people? Do you prefer to work with one trusted individual? If the answer to these questions is more yes than no, you will probably prefer to work individually with a Philadelphia Chinese tutor.

Are you more energized by collaborating with a group of people led by an expert instructor? Do you learn well in a regular classroom situation? Do you like bouncing ideas of peers as well as your instructor? Are you learning Chinese for general purposes without needing a lot of specialized vocabulary? If the answer to these questions is mostly yes, you may prefer to take Philadelphia Chinese lessons in an online classroom setting. One useful option when you take the group class is that you can request time with an individual tutor any time you need some extra focus on a certain idea, more one-on-one conversation practice, or other reasons.

How do Philadelphia Chinese lessons help me learn Chinese better than studying by myself?

While some subjects are easier to study on your own, learning a language isn't suited for that. Languages by their very nature are social. Practicing a language by conducting everyday conversations with people who are equal to or better than you at speaking the language is generally agreed upon as the best way to work towards fluency.

There are many benefits studying Chinese in either an online class or with a private instructor online. For example, an expert instructor may be able to determine the cause of your difficulties in memorization, and more importantly, they're more likely to have a variety of potential solutions. If you've only learned one or two memorization techniques in your middle or high school, you might have missed out on either newer or alternative methods. Maybe you're using digital flashcards, but you're not aware that their effectiveness can increase exponentially when used with the spaced repetition method. This is just one example of the many advantages to studying the Chinese language with an expert instead of on your own.

How can I get started with Chinese lessons as soon as possible?

Varsity Tutors makes it as easy as possible to get set up with a Philadelphia Chinese tutor or class. Simply contact us and our educational consultants can answer any questions you have. They can also enroll you in a class or set you up with a tutor beginning as soon as possible. We look forward to helping you as you work towards Chinese language proficiency and a more interesting future.