Private one-to-one tuition · 中文
Private Mandarin lessons, built on tones and characters from day one.
Mandarin grammar is far simpler than English. Everything difficult about it sits in the sound and the script — which is exactly what a specialist teaches, from the first lesson.
Who it is for
Who books private Mandarin with us
Mandarin is a long-horizon language, and people commit to it for concrete reasons. These are the ones we are asked for.
The professional doing business in China
Manufacturing, trade, investment or law, where the English-speaking meeting is only part of the relationship and the dinner afterwards is the rest of it.
Practical business Mandarin: introductions, negotiation vocabulary, the courtesy language of hosting and being hosted, and enough listening to follow the room.
The parent of a child learning Mandarin
A bilingual stream, a Saturday school, or GCSE and A-Level Mandarin — and a parent who would rather not be locked out of it.
A programme that runs alongside your child's, so you can support the character work and hold simple conversation at home.
The heritage learner who speaks but cannot read
Mandarin or another Chinese language at home, fluent listening, and a literacy gap that becomes more inconvenient every year.
Reading and writing built on the spoken language you already have, plus the formal register that home Mandarin rarely provides.
The serious adult learner targeting HSK
A benchmark, a scholarship, a job requirement, or simply a level you want to be able to prove.
Level-by-level HSK preparation with the character and vocabulary lists sequenced, and the reading speed the paper demands.
The Learn&Co method
A selected network first. Your match, second.
We do not go looking for a Mandarin tutor once you enquire. The selection has already happened — our network is built slowly, from specialists we have interviewed, observed and chosen to work with.
What happens after your enquiry is the second layer, and it is personal. Maria hears the brief, chooses the specialist inside that network who fits it, and introduces you on a chemistry call before anything is committed.
“Amazing at understanding what people need and matching students with the perfect tutor…”
A network selected before you arrive
Mandarin specialists we have already interviewed, referenced and chosen — for teaching skill and subject depth, not simply for a passport.
A conversation before a tutor
Twenty minutes with Maria: what you need Mandarin for, by when, and how you learn well.
Matched from the network
The specialist who suits your goal, level and temperament is identified inside the existing network and named to you, with Maria overseeing the match. No rota, no directory, no algorithm.
A chemistry call, then oversight
You meet them before anything is booked. Monthly reports, a founder check-in at week six, and rematching if the fit ever stops working.
The tutors
What a Mandarin specialist brings that a generalist cannot
Mandarin has almost no conjugation, no gender, no plurals and no tenses. That is why the teaching has to be excellent in the two places that genuinely are hard.
They will not let tones slide
Tones are meaning, and a tolerant tutor who understands you anyway is doing you harm. A specialist drills tone pairs and sentence-level tone from the start, before errors set into habit.
They teach characters as a system
Radicals, components, phonetic hints, stroke order and the simplified–traditional decision. Learned this way, characters compound; learned as pictures, they stop at about three hundred.
They teach aspect instead of tense
Le, guo and zhe, measure words, and topic-first sentence structure. Mandarin expresses time and completion in a way English does not, and a specialist teaches it as its own logic.
They know the etiquette that carries the meeting
Toasting, hosting, name and title use, and indirect refusal. In Chinese business these are not extras — they are the part everyone remembers.
Life in the language
Every character you learn is a door that stays open.
Chinese writing is the oldest continuously used script on earth. Learn a few hundred characters and street signs, menus and messages resolve; learn a couple of thousand and you are reading a written culture three thousand years deep, with the same characters that carried it.
That is the quiet pleasure of Mandarin, and it is what the programme is built around: steady, visible, compounding access — not a list to be survived.
Sound before script, then both
Pinyin and tones established properly first, so characters attach to Mandarin you can already say.
Relationships are the register
Hosting, hierarchy and courtesy shape how things are said. Taught alongside the language, because in Chinese they are not separable from it.
Culture as material
Food, film, history, business practice or your children's schoolwork — practice comes from what you already care about.
In practice
What the lessons actually look like
The most common question after price. Here is the shape of the thing you are buying.
- An hour a week, or considerably more
- One hour a week is the standard rhythm and the basis of our guide prices. Mandarin rewards frequency, so many clients split it into two shorter sessions, or intensify before a trip or an HSK date.
- Online, in person in London, or both
- Most clients learn online with the same tutor throughout. Face-to-face tuition at home or at your office is available across London and is quoted individually.
- Your material, and a character plan
- Your sector vocabulary, the trip you are preparing for, the HSK list you are working through — with spaced character review structured between lessons.
- Written up every month
- Your tutor writes a monthly progress report against the objectives agreed at the start, and Maria checks in with you at week six.
Corporate clients
Trusted by global businesses
Language programmes delivered inside law firms, hedge funds, publishing houses and global property groups.
Partner schools
Working with leading schools in the UK and Europe
Exam preparation, tutor placement and curated exchanges with demanding independent schools here and with partner schools across Europe.
Investment
One rate, four ways to commit to it.
Every client receives the identical service — the matching, the chemistry call, the bespoke programme, the reporting and the founder oversight. The only thing that changes is how many hours you commit to, and the hourly rate falls as you do.
Guide prices are based on one hour of private online tuition a week and include VAT. Face-to-face lessons in London, additional weekly hours and intensive programmes are quoted individually.
Flexi
4 hours
Month to month
£75/hr£300 in total
Discovery
12 hours
Up to 3 months
£71/hr£855 in total
Momentum
24 hours
Up to 6 months
£68/hr£1,620 in total
Mastery
48 hours
Up to 12 months
£64/hr£3,060 in total
Every private plan, whichever you choose, includes
Bespoke programmes — not lesson bundles.
- A discovery call with Maria, our founder
- Personal matching from our selected network
- A chemistry call before you commit
- A programme written from your objective
- Specialist tutors, vetted and selected
- Monthly written progress reports
- Week-six founder check-in
- Rematching at any point, at no cost
Not sure which plan? Maria will recommend one on the call.
Before you book
Private Mandarin lessons — your questions, answered.
- How much do private Mandarin lessons cost?
- Private Mandarin tuition is bought in hours. Flexi is 4 hours at £75/hr (£300 in total); Discovery 12 hours used within up to 3 months at £71/hr (£855); Momentum 24 hours within up to 6 months at £68/hr (£1,620); Mastery 48 hours within up to 12 months at £64/hr (£3,060). All prices include VAT. Face-to-face lessons in London and intensive programmes are quoted individually.
- How is my Mandarin tutor chosen?
- The selection happens before you enquire: every tutor in our network has already been interviewed, referenced and chosen by us. When you come to us, Maria listens to your objective, level, temperament and timetable, then names the specialist inside that network who fits the brief. You meet them on a chemistry call before anything is committed.
- Is Mandarin as difficult as its reputation?
- The grammar is genuinely simpler than any European language — no conjugation, no gender, no plurals, no tenses. The difficulty is concentrated in tones and characters, both of which respond extremely well to one-to-one teaching and consistent short practice. Most people find speaking arrives sooner than they feared and reading takes longer than they hoped.
- Do I have to learn to write characters by hand?
- Not necessarily. Most adult learners type in pinyin and need to recognise characters rather than produce them from memory. If you are sitting a school examination, or you simply want the discipline, handwriting is taught properly — we decide it with you rather than for you.
- What if my tutor is not right for me?
- We rematch you, at no cost and without any argument. Fit is our responsibility rather than yours, and rematching is a normal part of the service rather than a complaint.
- Do you teach in person in London, or only online?
- Both. Online lessons are available anywhere in the world and are what our guide prices are based on. Face-to-face Mandarin lessons are available across London and some surrounding areas, subject to tutor availability. Many clients run a hybrid of the two.
- Can you prepare me for HSK or school Mandarin?
- Yes — HSK levels, and GCSE and A-Level Mandarin, subject to specialist availability. Preparation is built from the specific vocabulary and character requirements of the level, and works backwards from the exam date.
- Do you run Mandarin group classes?
- Not at present. Our ten-week group terms currently run in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese and Spanish. Mandarin is taught one to one, which is also the format that suits it best at the early stages. If a cohort ever becomes viable you will hear about it first.
- How quickly can I start?
- Most clients have a proposed tutor within a few days of the discovery call and a first lesson in the week that follows. A highly specific professional or dialect brief can take a little longer, because we would rather match well than match quickly.
Ready to start Mandarin?
Twenty minutes with Maria.
Tell her what you need Mandarin for, where you are now and how much time you honestly have. She will tell you how we would approach it — and who, from our network, she would match you with.
Maria Toubbe
- 20 minutes
- A conversation, not a sales call.
- With Maria
- Our founder, every time — not a call centre.
- No obligation
- Advice you can use even if you never book.
20 min · video call · free
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