Find a Chinese tutor near you in Manchester

Taking Chinese lessons in Manchester

Learning a foreign language isn't always the easiest thing to do, especially when it's so different from your mother tongue. One of the main differences you’ll notice when learning Chinese, Arabic, Russian, or Japanese is that the writing system isn’t the same as the Latin alphabet we use in English. Chinese, in particular, uses a writing system completely different to ours. In fact, each character in Chinese represents a word or part of a word.

To learn Chinese characters and Chinese vocabulary, improve your level in the language, and speak Chinese conversationally, you should consider taking private language tutorials. Private tutorials with our tutors in Manchester are a great way to improve your Chinese, learn some new vocabulary, learn how to read and write in Chinese, and improve your speaking.

There are a lot of things you can do in Chinese tutorials:

• Learn Chinese characters
• Study Chinese grammar rules
• Familiarise yourself with the pronunciation (Chinese is a tonal language)
• Memorise Chinese vocabulary
• Improve your speaking
• Get better at writing in Chinese
• Learn about Chinese calligraphy
• Study Chinese culture (Chinese history, Chinese civilisation, Chinese cooking, etc.)
• Practise your Chinese conversation skills
• Read and write without using the Pinyin romanisation system

Are you interested in Chinese or Taiwanese culture? Are you planning a trip to Nanjing, Beijing, Shanghai, or Taipei? There are tutorials for all levels that are tailored to each individual to help them achieve their learning goals and prepare for spending time in Chinese-speaking areas.

What’s Learning Chinese All About?

Chinese is actually a group of related languages rather than one single language.

Chinese, A Group of Sino-Tibetan Languages

The Chinese languages include Wu (spoken in Shanghai), Cantonese (spoken in Guangzhou, Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao), Gan, Hakka, Min (spoken in Taiwan), Xiang, Jin, Hui, Ping, and Mandarin, the most widely spoken of the languages. Standard Mandarin Chinese what you’ll probably be taught if you get Chinese lessons in a language school. Chinese is the language of the Han people, the largest ethnic group in China and Taiwan. Mandarin is also the official language of China, Taiwan, and Singapore and is spoken by around 850 million people.

To be fair though, there is little resemblance between Manc and Chinese. However, there are a lot of Chinese people living in the UK and in Manchester. There are over 400,000 people of Chinese origin in the UK. This means that there are plenty of people who could teach you the language.

A Language Abandoned Despite Its Popularity

Those studying their GCSEs and their A Levels tend to focus on European languages such as French, Italian, German, and Spanish over languages like Russian, Arabic, and Chinese. In recent years, however, the popularity of Chinese amongst school students has increased. This is a good thing given that Mandarin is the second most popular language in the world.

It makes more sense to learn Chinese over Italian or German given how much more common the language is.

A Few Things to Know About Chinese

In order to learn Chinese, you should know a few things about the language and why some find it so difficult. Mandarin is a tonal language which uses four different tones that can change the meaning of each syllable. It’s quite difficult for Europeans because we’re not used to tone changing the meaning of words. The Pinyin romanisation system represents these tones by using diacritic marks over the vowels: a macron, an acute accent, a circumflex accent, or a grave accent.

The Pinyin system makes reading words in Chinese easier for those familiar with the Latin alphabet. However, if you really want to learn about Chinese characters and stroke order, it’s best to avoid transcribing Chinese words using the Latin alphabet. It’s better to focus on learning the characters and engaging your visual and echoic memory in order to remember them better.

The goal is to make you remember the characters and words themselves just like a native would rather than the Latin transcription of them.

Why Learn Chinese in Manchester?

Even in Manchester, you can enjoy learning Chinese. Additionally, you can learn Chinese in Bolton, Stockport, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, and Bury.

Speaking Chinese for Professional Reasons

Those with language skills will always be needed in an increasingly globalised world. Learning Chinese could really boost your career. In fact, speaking English and Chinese will make you quite an asset in a lot of different companies. There are plenty of places where English is used as the lingua franca but Chinese is catching up and becoming more important every single year. With our private tutors, you can get tailored Chinese lessons to achieve your own personal learning goals be them learning Chinese to work in China, learning a number of different Chinese characters, becoming bilingual, etc.

Learning Chinese in Manchester

No matter which area of Manchester you’re living in, you should be able to find native Chinese tutors. Whether you live in Altrincham, Castlefield, Didsbury, Fallowfield, the Northern Quarter, or Salford, there are language tutors available to help you learn to speak the Chinese language. Having your own personal language expert will help you to read, write, speak, and understand Chinese.

You can get regular tutorials with a tutor that will tailor their lessons to your learning style and your strengths and weaknesses until you’re a master of the language. Our tutors are either native speakers of Chinese or advanced speakers of the language. Private tutorials are exactly what you need if you’re ready to take the leap and start learning a foreign language. The best way to learn to speak a language is by actually speaking it, after all. Maybe your new language skills will improve your career or take you to new and exciting places.

You could become an English teacher in China or Taiwan, for example!

Learning Chinese to Travel to China or Taiwan

Once you leave the major cities in China, you’ll begin noticing a few things that might be off-putting:

• Nothing is translated into English
• Pinyin isn’t used
• Very few people speak any English at all

In other words, it’ll be hard to understand anything if you don’t speak any Chinese. To get ready for travelling in China or Taiwan, it’s probably a good idea to brush up on your Chinese or start learning the language. Ask your Superprof tutor to teach you about Traditional Chinese (for Taiwan) or Simplified Chinese (for Mainland China). Once you’re there and fully immersed in a Chinese-speaking culture, you’ll start learning more than just a few phrases and common questions!

Private Chinese Tutorials in Manchester with Tutors on Superprof

In Manchester, there are a number of Chinese tutors available to teach you in person and there are even more tutors available online from all over the UK and the world to help you, too. The average cost of Chinese tutorials in Manchester is £20 per hour. Generally, the rates will vary according to how many years of experience they have and their qualifications in Chinese and teaching.  Nevertheless, this doesn’t necessarily mean that a new and inexperienced tutor isn’t any good.

To choose your tutor, you need to take into account several factors:

• Your tutor’s origins: bilingual, British Chinese, native Chinese, etc.
• Their skills and qualifications: Degrees, writing, pronunciation, Chinese vocabulary, etc.
• Their travel costs: some include these in their hourly rates.
• The levels they teach: it’ll cost you more for more advanced classes than for beginners’ classes, for example.

Don’t just go for the cheapest tutor as this may be a false economy. Ideally, look for tutors who offer the first hour of tutoring for free. This is a great way to see if you get along and see if their teaching methods are right for you.