Ju’s Mandarin Chinese Class

I’m currently taking Mandarin because i plan on working and studying in China. Ju is a great teacher and her dedication and care in language instruction and methodology really shine through. She is passionate about language and really cares about what your motivation is for learning Mandarin – which is hard to find in a teacher. As a language teacher myself, I highly recommend taking her classes, especially if you plan on staying in China long-​term because she will really motivate you to keep on learning. Overall, I’m having a great experience.

As a teacher myself, I am very impressed with Ju’s methods. She is very patient, supportive, while using effective teaching strategies. I highly recommend her.

I’ve been studying with Juju for a few months now and have had a great experience. As an ABC (American born chinese) who grew up in a Chinese speaking household, I have good intuition on tones and pronunciation, but am very weak on grammar and proper sentence structure. Within our first class, Ju immediately identified my areas of improvement and has worked hard to help me build a strong foundation in grammar fundamentals.
As a teacher, Ju is incredibly organized and always comes prepared for each class with a lesson plan and feedback on my homework from last time. She writes out complex concepts on the whiteboard and is very clear in her instruction. Ju also uses audio transcripts and a mobile app (Skritter) to help me with my listening comprehension and reading/​writing.
As a person, Ju is friendly and professional. She is an easy person to chat with, and over the course of our lessons, we’ve talked about everything from our jobs, to our favorite Chinese food, to living in NYC. I’ve had a great time learning Chinese from Ju and highly recommend her for anyone looking for a personable, well-​organized, and extremely knowledgeable teacher.

Ju is an excellent teacher! She is extremely knowledgeable and knows just how to explain a new concept in a way that will stick. She is also extremely personalized and constantly adapts the class to meet my needs as a student. I would recommend her to anybody studying Mandarin Chinese, whatever their learning goal might be.

My wife and I are busy professionals who were looking to learn conversational Mandarin. I saw the positive reviews for Ju on Unilocal,but to be honest, didn’t have a strong opinion on her when we selected her. We are so excited that we went forward with her, because we didn’t know how good she was when we made the decision. Ju is patient, organized, warm and personable. She brings a solid curriculum/​lesson plan, as well as the openness to spend more time in areas that we really needed to hone in on. I couldn’t recommend Ju more enthusiastically.

I’ve been studying with Ju for two months, and I can already see the progress I’ve made in a relatively short time. Now, I’m able to speak a bit and understand quite of lot of conversation. Her teaching method is personalized, yet sufficiently comprehensive for my needs. As a physician and surgeon, I don’t have a lot of unused time. Ju’s teaching sessions and assignments allow me to study efficiently. I highly recommend Ju for those who aspire to speak Mandarin socially and/​or their professional aspirations.

I tried to study Mandarin on my own for a few months and was able to pick up some basics but Ju’s class was a huge improvement! Compared to other lessons her class is very organized and creative! She uses all forms of learning including listening, writing, speaking, and even dives into comprehensive understanding. This helped me a lot because I learn by utilizing the material and not just hearing it! She is an extremely passionate teacher who really cares about her students learning. Her professional teaching experience has enabled her to tailor her classes to her students level and learning ability. The location is also great in the middle of Manhattan! With this class I have been able to communicate correctly and speak Chinese with people all over the world!

Ju is an extremely effective teacher one-​on-​one. She really cares about helping me meet my personal goals for learning and can work with me in my way. Other teachers have a set, rigid way and don’t quite know how to «localize» their lessons for the student’s unique way of learning. At the same time that she is patient, she also knows exactly what grammar and vocabulary would help me next in my path. And she can use Mandarin to describe the word’s meaning rather than simply telling me the translation. I now consider her a dear friend.

I took Ju’s Mandarin class in Singapore. Ju is a great teacher and really cares about her students. She is able to recognise the needs and abilities of different students and customise her teaching style accordingly. I highly recommend her for anyone wanting to learn Mandarin.

I had the pleasure of having one-​to-​one Mandarin classes with Ju. She could quickly identify my weaknesses and customize lesson plans to tackle these issues.
As I had previously taken Mandarin classes during my school days, Ju felt that it will not be very helpful to follow any particular textbook. Instead, she made me read and translate Chinese articles from the Financial Times, which greatly improve my vocabulary and has the added benefit of being highly relevant to my field of work.
Unfortunately, she is moving to New York and we can no longer continue our classes. However, my loss is your gain, and I highly recommend anyone keen on learning the language in New York to reach out to her.
谢谢老师.

After living in China and having failed to learn the language, I decided to seek out a Chinese language teacher. After a lot of searching I found Julianne.
Julianne is a great teacher, she is easily approachable and, as we go, she explains the Chinese language really clearly.
My weak point is really spoken Chinese. Thankfully Ms. Zhu is incredibly patient and is quick to suggest strategies for when I’m totally screwing things up.
Learning Chinese, as with anything, requires a great deal of commitment. One of the biggest problems for me is finding time to refresh my memory of the Chinese that I am studying. Julianne does assign a healthy dose of homework, so be prepared for that.
A good teacher in one to one circumstances. I like her concern towards my learning and I like that she has an ongoing interest in languages other than Chinese.

For anyone that is looking into Mandarin lessons for a small office, I cannot recommend Ju’s Mandarin class enough. We came into her class with very specific requirements for instructing a small team of people that travel frequently and previously had no experience with the language. I’m happy to say she has exceeded out expectations, has kept us engaged, and has always made herself available to help people catch up when they’ve had to miss a lesson. Her approach is versatile and great for a small office environment, going beyond the text that she provides and focusing on realistic goals.
I’ve done a lot of research into classes for my colleagues and I to take, but none seemed to invest as much time and understanding in their students in the same manner that Ju does. She is easily the best fit for our office in Singapore and I’m confident you won’t be disappointed if you choose her as your instructor.

A few of us at our company wanted to learn Mandarin which we felt would be helpful for careers here in Singapore. Ju brings a very approachable teaching style to the classroom and knows how to use a combination of both fun and rigor to the material.
Having learned Cantonese for many years in my elementary years, I know how difficult it can be to keep a classroom engaged in the coursework. Ju’s love and is passion shine through as she helps people work through taking up a new language. I highly recommend her for group lessons for all levels.

Living in Singapore, I wanted to learn Mandarin for a while, but always found a good enough excuse that kept me away from it. Then i came across Ju, who I’ve worked with Ju for 5 months now — from not being able to speak or understand a word in Mandarin, i can now understand chinese speakers around me in the workplace, and can also speak basic mandarin — enough to get around in a foreign place.
Ju’s lessons are fantastic, they’re enjoyable and very informative. Her classes are a mix of learning through notes, as well as in-​class conversational mandarin. She also provides audio recordings of the lessons and take home notes, so you can practice your new vocabulary during the week.
Also, being a working professional, it was very hard to find time for these classes given our work and travel schedules, but with Ju you don’t usually miss much as you’ve always got the audio recordings to catch up and she’s always available via email or a phone call.
I would recommend Ju for anyone keen to start learning Mandarin.

I’ve worked with Ju for about 4 months now and my mandarin has significantly improved. Each class is rigorous, on point, and effective.
I previously took mandarin for about 6 years in high school/​middle school, but the pace of learning with Ju has outweighed those 6 years.
She has a good path to learning mandarin with the books. Some exercises seem trivial, but in reality, they’re very effective. When things start to seem easy with her, it’s because I have actually learned what is going on.
I’d recommended her for 1:1 tutoring for anybody looking for a personal challenging pace.

I had a 6 week window where I wanted to develop my writing and speaking skills in an intensive fashion. To provide some context, I grew up speaking some mandarin but my grammar, vocabulary and literacy was quite weak. Ju was the perfect teacher who could provide customized tutoring to my goals and my current level. She had me go through a textbook, the New Practical Chinese Reader, which was pretty thorough in terms of offering basic grammar structures and vocabulary. During our lessons, we practiced the content I learned through dialogues she developed. This was quite helpful in hammering in the grammar structures, rules and to help me with my pronunciation.
On top of that, she had me write/​type short essays about myself and things that I cared about so that I could learn the correct phrases and vocabulary to say in conversations.
I would say her greatest strength is her flexibility. She recognizes what aspects you want to focus on and spends more time on these. For example, I know that I will most likely never need to hand write Chinese, so learning the strokes and even memorizing characters was not as important as being able to recognize the text and solidifying my pinyin so I could type it. Also, since I had a bit more of time, she gave me a lot of work and practice to do during the week and was responsive to my questions over email.
Overall, the most important thing is she gave me a foundation of the basics and gave me an approach so I could self-​study on my own time while I start working. I’d highly recommend her for someone looking for personalized tutoring.

Ju has been an excellent teacher. I have been wanting to learn Mandarin for some time now, but I know from prior experience that I do not learn well in a classroom environment. So I decided to work with someone one-​on-​one. I chose to work with Ju because she had received excellent reviews, she has prior teaching experience and she focuses on teaching written as well as spoken Mandarin. I am very pleased with our progress so far. Ju is very professional. Her lessons are well organized, and she adjusts them to meet my needs. We spend extra time on areas where I need the most work (for example, practicing tones), but we still move at a brisk pace and I feel challenged. I have only been studying with her for 6 weeks, and I feel like I have made significantly more progress than I have in my prior attempts. I highly recommend her to anyone considering studying Mandarin.

I’ve wanted to learn Mandarin for a long time, and after trying a few online solutions on and off, I finally decided to commit to in-​person instruction with a regular schedule, and contacted Ju. The structure Ju brings to the educational process has been exactly what I needed. We meet for 1.5 hours once a week, with a manageable but effective amount of homework in-​between to keep the lessons fresh in my mind. Ju’s instruction is thorough and really helps build up an understanding of the fundamentals, as well as the nuances, of a new language in a way so that things actually get internalized rather than relying on rote memorization. She actively learns new languages herself, and it’s easy to see that she is familiar with what it’s like to be the one on the other side of the table learning.
The pace has been brisk, manageable, and rewarding. After only a half dozen lessons, I already had made more progress than all the previous false starts I had put together, and I really felt it all coming together as a whole (which is not easy to get from a less structured curriculum/​instruction). It can be difficult to maintain a realistic and rewarding learning pace while keeping a full schedule with work, etc. but Ju made every effort and worked with me to accommodate my schedule.
If you’re serious about learning Mandarin, Ju is the teacher to go to.

I decided to take 1 – 1 classes with Ju Lao Shi after reading some Unilocal reviews. I think she is a fantastic Chinese teacher! Probably due to the fact that she has previously worked as a full-​time teacher at a private school for several years, I definitely feel that her curriculum structure is very clear and systematic and the teaching is fun as well as effective.
My main purpose of taking classes was to brush up my Chinese since I had taken a 6-​month break in my classes and felt I was falling behind. She has a strong focus on grammar which has been very helpful to me since I feel my foundation was not very strong.
Also, she focuses on the written part of Chinese and that has also been a huge help since it helps provide me with a visual aid and benefits my audio understanding as well.
Finally, her lessons are very structured and personalized to my own level of understanding and that is something I always felt was missing in group classes. While group classes have their benefits, I think 1 – 1 lessons can be hugely helpful to ramp very quickly on a language, especially something as hard as Mandarin. Also, the focus with a 1 – 1 lesson with a really good teacher can be great for a student at any level.
It’s hard to find good language instructor to teach adults as many of them are not professionally-​trained teachers. Therefore, I definitely feel that I’ve got a good deal. Ju Lao Shi is on time, dedicated with sending feedback and homework after each lesson and is worth every $ you spend with her – her price is competitive as well. My sense is that if she starts a language school, it will be a very full class! if you need a strong teacher with the ability to teach you Chinese at any level, I would highly recommend Ju Lao Shi!

Finding a good Mandarin teacher is very important to me as I will be leaving to Asia in a few months. In the past, I have had some lessons in city and UC colleges, so I do know what type of teachers help me learn well.
Since some of the reviewers have already written of their experience, here is a shortened list of reasons why I rate 5 stars for Ju’s Mandarin class:
1. Her private lessons are personable, catered to the student’s level
2. She teaches both simplified and traditional
3. She works with me using a highly recommended textbook and workbook (I have used these books in college courses before)
4. the lessons are structured and organized — uses both classroom and conversational settings
5. competitive pricing
6. lessons are at home (but may depend on your location)
7. teaches outside of the book, and sometimes pushes me to go outside my «beginner» level, so that I can learn new vocab and more fluid sentence structures.
:)

I am SO grateful to have found Ju! I had been studying Mandarin for about two years and taken all of the available classes at City College, SF State, and had enrolled in one at the Berkeley Extension that was cancelled due to low enrollment. I was out of options but I really wanted to continue my studies. I mentioned this to a friend of a friend, who told me that Ju, a former colleague of hers at the Chinese American School, was relocating to the Bay Area and setting up a private language teaching business. I read her reviews on LinkedIn and decided to get in touch.
My two principle hesitations about hiring a private teacher had been 1) they are so expensive, and 2) I was afraid it would just be someone having loose conversations with me and not really a trained teacher with an actual curriculum. (I’ve studied 4 different languages at the college level and know that I respond best to a structure, disciplined curriculum rather than «conversation based» learning). After one lesson with Ju I knew I had no need to be worried! Her prices are fair (and cheaper than I would pay for a private language school), her lessons are structured, and her curriculum is solid. Before we began, she set up an over-​the-​phone evaluation to assess my level and discuss my motivations and goals. Every session, she comes prepared with a lesson plan and follows up with homework instructions. She’s also adapted the curriculum along the way to fit my needs and progress — we use a variety of media so I’m getting work in reading, writing, listening, and speaking. It’s a truly personalized experience!
I’ve been working with Ju for about 4 months now, and I can see the difference in my abilities. I can read pages of the textbook written entirely in characters (I had been scared of characters before and had purposely taken «pinyin only» classes at CCSF), am confident enough to have conversations with friends’ parents who only speak Mandarin, and am, most importantly, really enjoying myself. Ju is friendly, sweet and reassuring, and ultra-​professional. Learning Mandarin is a lifelong endeavor for me and I’m so happy to have Ju helping me along the way. I would recommend her to anyone.