I come from New York City, US and I studied Chinese with Richard Liu for one month, 5 days a week, four hours a day. Richard was an excellent teacher. Both his English skills and experience in teaching Chinese were clear.

He often knew words that many native English speakers do not know and could therefore compare subtle and interesting things about the differences in the two languages. I even learned some English from him and it was not uncommon for me to be incorrect when we had differences of opinion regarding certain English vocabulary.

When teaching Chinese he taught words in two types of groups. This was logical and made learning more interesting. For example, I would learn all the words to use in a given situation. Also interesting and helpful, I would learn different words that follow a certain pattern so that I could learn the logic in the Chinese language and many words at once.

I came to China not speaking any Mandarin and after one month could carry on some conversation. I was very happy with my improvements and would recommend Richard to anyone coming to China to learn to speak. If you have any specific questions please feel free to email me at godinger@hotmail.com.