I had no Chinese language experience prior took taking courses here. I took Beginner 1, 2, and I am starting 3 soon, meaning I think the product/courses and people running them are great. It also means I have been able to measure my improvement and my understanding grows immensely each week. I am able to speak and understand simple sentences and follow others speaking in moderately difficult conversations in person.

This course is a good launch pad for little or no familiarity with 中文 (Chinese)。 They have higher level courses which I am going to move to soon. The first three courses focus on speaking and listening simple sentences through Pinyin. The stressful writing aspect comes after three but is not a requirement to become comfortable with the language. (Note: the material includes written Hanzi with the Pinyin so I was able to work on writing separate from the course with writing sheets provided by Eric.)

Teacher Lin and Teacher Eric do a great job in making the task of learning chinese a reality, at a reasonable cost. Class is fun for everyone while we practice speaking to each other each class.

This is a wonderful place to begin learning Mandarin. The teachers go to great lengths to make sure the students understand the true meaning of what they’re saying, and on top of that they have a great sense of humor.

I enrolled in the Mandarin One Class to learn a little conversational Chinese for an upcoming trip to China.
Although I was concerned about learning this tonal language, the instructors were encouraging and supportive in this endeavor.
The class was small enough that each student had ample opportunity to practice speaking with the native Chinese speaking teacher, and an experienced team teacher. Cultural context was readily given and questions encouraged to help further understanding.
A bonus was that on several occasions, the director of the school provided beverages and Chinese foods to enjoy while we were learning to order and serve each other restaurant items.
The school provides an interactive website with supporting instructional aids and audio of vocabulary and dialogues to help reinforce the classroom and textbook learning.

The pacing was such that it was challenging, yet not overwhelming.
I have signed up for the next class in the series.

Eric and his teachers have been doing a great job teaching Chinese for over 10 years. They rent space with us at Portland Meeting Space at PELA. They have always been easy to work with and their students are great.

I would highly recommend Effective Chinese as a great way to start learning mandarin. We had a recent family trip to China. Even though we were going to be on a tour, there was going to be a fair amount of time for us to get around on our own and interact with locals. I had no prior experience with mandarin, but wanted to be able to communicate on my own as much as possible.

I took the Mandarin I and II courses and found them very helpful in our travels. The courses are well designed and very practical. Many of the lessons are specifically designed to give you the skills you need to take care of basic tasks such as ordering food, buying things, talking about time and place. With only two courses under my belt I was able to navigate a good number of situations while in China and even carry on some basic conversations with the locals.

The classes always include a native speaker as a teacher as well and that really helps both to hear and work on the tones and pronunciation but also to get a native speaker’s view on certain phrases and idioms.

I would highly recommend this course for anyone considering a trip to China or anyone with an interest in learning a fascinating language.