Learn how to speak Chinese faster than ever before in our Shanghai school with first class Spoken Chinese Classes.

Our Spoken course focuses only on how to speak and understand the language – and not how to read or write it.

Students are encouraged to practice their spoken Mandarin in each and every class, through classroom debates, dialogues and speaking and listening exercises.

Because group classes are very small – with an average of three and never more than six students – there’s time for every student to get regular opportunities to speak out and have their say!

This is the best way to fast track your Chinese speaking ability, with our fully-certified teaching team.

We are China’s #1 ranked Mandarin school with 5 STAR REVIEWS all over the Internet!

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• Speak Chinese quickly
• No time wasted on characters
• Small groups averaging three people
• Certified teachers
• Central Shanghai location
• Join the LTL Community

Spoken Chinese Classes in Shanghai

Students study for a total of 12 hours per week in a small group.

Classes take place on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for four hours, usually from 10am until 3pm with an hour lunch break.

It is possible to upgrade the program to ‘Intensive Spoken Chinese Only’ where students have an additional four hours of 1-on-1 classes per day on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

The course is organised with one major focus: helping our students learn to speak Chinese as fast as possible. In this course we do not teach any Chinese characters. If at a later point students also want to learn to read and write Chinese, it is possible to organise a course focused on characters.

If you want to learn how to speak, listen, read and write from the get-go, have a look at our Full Time Chinese Courses in Shanghai.

You can join a course as early as next week, subject to availability.

However, if you want to make sure you have a guaranteed spot in advance, we advise students to book as early as possible as this is a very popular course that is often booked out.

Will I also learn characters in these classes?

While characters are not taught specifically during the course at all, they are always displayed alongside the texts and new vocabulary.

That means that students will usually start to recognise some frequently used Chinese characters automatically, even without actively studying them.

This course however does not teach Chinese characters.

Do I need to know characters to be fluent in Chinese?

Not necessarily, but in many cases you do.

The Chinese language uses less than 500 syllables representing tens of thousands of Chinese characters.

This means that each “word” in Pinyin can have dozens of completely different and non-connected meanings, because they are different characters that just happen to be pronounced the same.

Up to intermediate level this is not much of a problem.

However, once you know and are able to express more nuanced ideas in Mandarin, a Pinyin word like “shi” – which has about 80 commonly used characters associated with it, each one often with several different meanings – can become almost meaningless.

This is why we recommend taking a Spoken Chinese Only course up to about HSK 3 (B1) level and a normal Chinese language course afterwards.

Is it better to study alone or in a group?

It depends. Studying with others can be motivating and fun, as well as give you the opportunity to learn from the ideas and mistakes of your classmates.

Also since an LTL group class has on average only three and never more than six students, there is enough time for everyone to ask questions and participate.

Furthermore it is of course cheaper per hour to study in a group.

The advantage of taking individual classes is that the course is completely tailored to your needs and preferences.

You also get more flexibility time-wise and the studying experience is a lot more intense, because you never get to daydream while someone else answers a question. The focus is always on you.

LTL offers both private full time language courses and private part time classes for students who are already in Shanghai and want to study after work.

Can I also study Chinese online with LTL?

Yes you can indeed.

We offer online Mandarin classes here!