Learn Mandarin in Shanghai with EF

Over the summer, I studied abroad with EF in Shanghai, China. I lived with a host family who was very nice and welcoming. Everyone at the EF school helped me settle in and feel at home in Shanghai. My Chinese Mandarin improved tremendously over the course of three weeks and I enjoyed the language classes very much. Living with a host family was great because I was able to practice at home all the new vocabulary words that I had learned in my classes or throughout the day. Additionally, EF offered fun activities for students to do every day, this was very helpful for meeting other students and making friends during my trip. I would definitely recommend this program to other students looking to improve their language skills or participate in a fun summer program. The study abroad trip with EF has been one of the best experiences in my life!

I just got back from my experience with EF in Shanghai, China- and it was absolutely incredible. You might be confused because of some Beijing reviews, but basically, the school has just transferred to Shanghai, and even though the school is brand new, it is functioning great! The school staff is so friendly and welcoming from the very beginning. With the small class sizes, EF makes learning Chinese practical and enjoyable. After spending 3 months here, I would have never expected that my Chinese would be as good as it is now. I am able to have conversations with the local people and able to survive in China. Before coming to Shanghai, I was a bit hesitant if it would be the place for me... Now looking back I am so happy that I made the decision to step out of my comfort zone and experience this rich international city. The teachers are great with years of experience in teaching Chinese. After class, they even choose to take us out for dinner and karaoke to vamp our language skills to the next level!

With EF Shanghai, every day there is something planned that you can do. It doesn't matter if it's a weekend or a weekday, EF is always planning cultural events, tours, and even trips across China and Asia to get the most of your time here.

EF does a very good job with the accommodations here in Shanghai. My apartment was always clean, and the utilities functioned great.

Conclusion- What I will take most from this experience can be summed up with the word "Networking". It felt like we were the mini United Nations. We all came from different backgrounds and cultures, lived together, studied together, and traveled together. I have created bonds that are worth maintaining through life, and I am beyond great full to have chosen EF. I have become more independent thanks to this experience and I built up a life on the other end of the globe.

This was my #EFmoment, now its time to make your own!

As many other overseas travelers might know, while traveling abroad the value of wifi increases by tens. In this day and age, you need wifi for everything; games, social media, and email all included. You need wifi to stay in contact with parents and friends, download awesome pictures from your trip, and make plans with all your new friends so that you can truly make the most of your trip while you are there. When using wifi abroad though, it is a very good idea to download a VPN app that helps speed up your connection. One of my favorite stories from my trip in China is about the blessed VPN. There is one type of VPN that is completely free. Many of my friends, myself included, chose to use this type of VPN. During my stay, we had one friend who used a different type of VPN that he had to pay for, but he swore it made his connection faster than the rest of ours. From then on, we had this ongoing joke where he would occasionally walk up behind us and surprise us, and whisper the name of his VPN network in our ears. We didn't care if his VPN was actually a few seconds faster, the joke was still funny. And although one of my favorite memories is about a wifi connection, which might sound somewhat petty, the joke made me realize how unimportant wifi can actually be. It made a lot of us appreciate the opportunities we were given, to be able to be visiting a different country, making new friends from all over the world, and be given a fun and exciting opportunity to learn a new language. It made us all take a step back and love experiencing a new culture, with cool people, a beautiful landscape, and an awesome history. Whether the blessed VPN was working or not, it truly made the most of my trip.

about education about accommodation and about the city everything was wonderful. in here you can not only improve your chinese but also learn so many different things because it's an international course. activites was also the best i think because activity times are usually in the morning so after the class you can go and see the city by yourself too and subway station is really close to school so it saves time. about the class: they teach you lessons so good that for example i haven't spent too much time for study at home because you can use all the things that you learn like in real life in shops or with your roommate. that way you can study. for next year i've already recommended ef to my friend who is learning japanese right now.

about education about accommodation and about the city everything was wonderful. in here you can not only improve your chinese but also learn so many different things because it's an international course. activites was also the best i think because activity times are usually in the morning so after the class you can go and see the city by yourself too and subway station is really close to school so it saves time. about the class: they teach you lessons so good that for example i haven't spent too much time for study at home because you can use all the things that you learn like in real life in shops or with your roommate. that way you can study. for next year i've already recommended ef to my friend who is learning japanese right now.

I recently just got back from spending 3 amazing weeks at EF Beijing. When i arrived in China i didn't know any Chinese and i was unsure of how much Chinese i could hope to learn in three weeks. The first week of class was a bit overwhelming since we jumped right into reading, writing and speaking in Chinese, but i stuck with it and studied on my own everyday after class. After a week i was caught up to the level of students in the beginner class who had been studying longer than me and at the end of my 3 weeks i'm proud to say that my Chinese language ability has improved enough for me to feel comfortable taking the HSK 2. Aside from the wonderful language program i would also like to say that the residence i stayed in was really great. My roommates were all extremely sweet and helpful and the location was perfect since it was only a 10 minute walk to school and about a 6 minute walk to the beautiful olympic stadium. On the way to school there were various restaurants and i was able to try a different food everyday. The trips were also incredible, ranging from the summer palace to the great wall and even when activities weren't planned, all the students would get together and go somewhere fun. In conclusion i would definitely recommend this program to anyone who is interested in learning Chinese, the school and the students are fantastic and living in Beijing was truly an experience of a lifetime :)

There are so many good places in Beijing.
Also it's really safe in Beijing. So student can travel a lot of places.
And can speak chinese with so many people.
There are many foreigners don't know chinese but they can help each other.
And chinese food is amazing!! yuxiangrousi, tancuniurou, tangcuyu, xihongshichaojidan really nice!! you have to come and taste it!! |'m strongly recommend you to come Ef Beijing!!

I am here in the EF Beijing School since 2 Month and I really like it! The Chinese culture is really interesting and completely different. The chinese hospitality is on a really high level, even if the living standards may are not that high,compared to Europe. It will definitely warm your heart when you see chinese people getting so happy when you try to talk in chinese. Learning chinese is actually not as hard as I expected and chinese people will help you to improve your language skills. So if you don't mind to have lower living standards, you will have a great time here in Beijing.