Chinese Tutors | Mandarin & Cantonese Teachers

Chinese Tutors – Mandarin & Cantonese Lessons

Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese Lessons and Courses in London

The military, political and economic rise of China over the last few decades has prompted many commentators to predict a shift in the balance of global power. In line with this, Chinese is becoming an increasingly popular language of study. The term ‘Chinese language’ usually denotes Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese Chinese, two distinct character-based languages. Mandarin speakers number nearly a billion people and constitute the overwhelming majority of the mainland Chinese population, as well as that of Singapore and Taiwan. There are also 70 million Cantonese speakers, whose ‘prestige’ dialect can be traced back to Yue Chinese, living in Hong Kong, Macau, and the mainland province of Guandong. Both Cantonese and Mandarin are also spoken by millions of people globally, including large communities in the UK, USA, South East Asia and parts of Europe. Our Chinese Tutors can help you build your skills in both Mandarin & Cantonese.

The Chinese language is character based and consists of traditional characters and modern script. This Modern Chinese Script is also known as Pinyin, however there are many different scripts that only use an alphabet for supplementary use. The characters are pictographic (just like Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs!) and generally represent one syllable which can be one word on its own or part of a polysyllabic word.

While Mandarin has five tones, Cantonese has up to nine tones, making it the more difficult language of the two. Both have the same grammar structure and are written using simplified traditional characters depending on the region.

Chinese culture is imbedded with traditions that stem from Confucianism, a belief system that upholds family values and self-cultivation. This is combined with a highly modernised society and advanced technology. Instead of social media platforms used in the West such as Facebook or Instagram, Chinese people use the popular apps WeChat and Weibo to communicate. Using these apps is an effective way to engage in modern usages of Chinese language.

The Chinese Proficiency Test (HSK) is the official way to assess the levels of non-native speakers. It is divided into three levels: Basic, Elementary-Intermediate, and Advanced. The Beginner test is for those that have knowledge of 400-3000 basic Chinese words, where the Advanced level is for students that have acquired 5000-8000 words. Overall the test is graded from A-C and takes 7 hours to complete.

Chinese Courses and Tuition in London

Mayfair Consultants offers fully-qualified Chinese Mandarin and Cantonese Chinese tutors for private tuition across London. Our tutors are either native or fluent speakers who use interactive and immersive approaches, focussing on extending clients’ vocabularies while perfecting their pronunciation and writing. Many of our tutors use literary materials, as well as online, journalistic and other non-fiction sources, as part of their instruction tools. We work with learners of all ages and abilities, including those preparing for Chinese GCSE, A-Level and IB exams, and those acquiring the language for research, travel or business purposes.

If you would like to arrange Chinese lessons or have any questions about our courses or tuition services, please call us on Tel: +44 (0) 207 665 6606 or you can send us an email via our contact form.

Useful Chinese Language Resources

https://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecentre/languages/chinese/ – SOAS University of London Chinese Language Centre

http://www.chinesetest.cn/gosign.do?id=1&lid=0 HSK Test

https://www.tw.org/tocfl/ – Test of Chinese as a Foreign Language

https://www.cambridgeinternational.org/programmes-and-qualifications/cambridge-igcse-chinese-mandarin-foreign-language-0547/ – IGCSE Chinese Exam

https://www.gbcc.org.uk/educational-grants/useful-links – Great Britain China Centre

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/LCI – Kings College London Lau China Institute

http://www.travelchina.org.cn/en/index/index.shtml – Tourism Authority of China

https://www.lang.ox.ac.uk/mandarin – University of Oxford Language Centre Mandarin

https://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/ – BBC Chinese

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/languages/resources/chinese – University of Sussex Chinese Language Resources

http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/ – University of Oxford Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language