Sam Luxembourg

I’m Sam from Luxembourg. I wanted to come to China originally to learn Chinese, as part of my family is from China. In the past I visited Shanghai together with my family, and even studied some time in Beijing in a university program. Later, I found LTL through perusing on the website and got attracted to it. I found it appealing that it wasn’t a giagantic money making machine and big like some other schools I heard of. The fact that it was run by foreigners was also appealing to me, as I thought it less likely to be a scam then. I signed up for 3 months of classes to try it out, planning to continue with another 3 months if it’s good, which it was.

As I’ve been to China and specifically Shanghai before, I knew already my surroundings when I arrived and didn’t really have culture shock. I arrived to the school, met everyone and started classes. That Wednesday was my first school dinner, which start the whole social side of LTL and was the cornerstone of my stay there. I rarely missed a school event since.

During my studies, I had three teachers, all of whom were very good. One of them was definitely my favorite, as I felt she really understood me and my individual interests. For example, I really enjoy politics, and knowing that, the teacher personalized the course and content to this interest. It was truly tailored to what I know and how I learn. It wasn’t just practicing from the textbook. Later that teacher became one of my closest friends in Shanghai. In class, we were very professional and she helped me not to get sidetracked from the course, but outside of it, we were hanging out as friends.

Thanks to my relatively long duration at LTL, I was lucky enough to be surrounded with different students all the time, so I’m really happy about this. I would often get coffee with them in the morning, have lunch with them in the daytime, and then go out for drinks and food again in the evenings.
I really like Shanghai, and hope to work here in the future. I find it the most livable, being not as cold as Beijing in the Winter and not as hot as Hong Kong in the summer, two places which I’ve lived in. While it is not as cultural as Beijing is, I feel that Shanghai is more easily accessible in terms of walking around from place to place. I especially like walking around the roads of the Former French Concession, where the school is located.

Anthea Germany

I had LTL recommended by my relative Felix who studied in Beijing some time ago. I also looked LTL up on various agency websites and the reviews and comments all seemed good. In the end I spoke with my friend Felix’ parents and decided to sign up with LTL for the multi city gap year program, Beijing, Chengde and Shanghai.

I first went to Beijing. When I first arrived at the airport there was some confusion as I didn’t realize it was in fact my homestay father who picked me up at the airport. But my stay in Beijing was good, and I learnt to appreciate the Northern dialects. And I made a lot of friends at LTL, the social life was really good.

Chengde was fine albeit challenging as you are really forced to use whatever Chinese you have! It’s a great place to improve your Chinese level. It’s a much smaller city there is less going on, but there were also various events and trips organized. I also took snowboarding classes on my own.

Third was Shanghai, and Shanghai almost felt like a western city after Beijing, and especially Chengde. There was a lot going on, and the location of the school meant it was all within easy reach. Homestay in Shanghai was good as they quickly accepted me as part of the family. They did have a slight Shanghai accent though.

The classes in Shanghai were good. I had three different teachers in total. My teachers were a nice mix of structured, by the book learning, and more easy going conversations with some modern slang here and there to better understand how people actually talk.

All in all, I had a great experience at all three places and already I have decided I will go back to LTL Beijing for 4 months!

Monica Emilia's Mother

I would like to tell you how much we have appreciated how Alexander and Fu Lala have helped Emilia, and us, her parents, when we felt that she needed for health reasons to come home at very short notice. We are aware of the disruption this will have caused LTL and yet we were never made to feel bad.  Alexander was so understanding and helpful, even though he was travelling at the time and Fu Lala was also understanding when I spoke to her. They both took immediate action to facilitate Emilia leaving. It is the sign of a quality company that the people working in it genuinely care about the students who study at it and it is clear that this is the case at LTL in Shanghai. As parents we would recommend LTL without hesitation as an organisation that supports it’s students in China. Emilia really enjoyed her group classes and felt she learned a lot in the two to three weeks she was there. We and she intend that she resumes her studies as soon as she is properly well.

Note: Emila signed up for 6 month gap year program which unfortunately had to be cut short due to unforeseen circumstances.