Chinese / Mandarin classes · Los Angeles · Since 2006
Chinese / Mandarin Classes in Los Angeles. Ni hao.
Private lessons with native-speaking instructors. Matched to your goals, your schedule, and your life. Start any time.
Your instructors
Chinese / Mandarin class instructors
Why Chinese / Mandarin?
Four reasons to take Chinese / Mandarin classes
Access the World's Second-Largest Economy
China's GDP is $18 trillion and climbing. Mandarin fluency opens careers in trade, finance, tech, and manufacturing that English alone cannot reach.
Read 3,000 Years of Unbroken Literature
Chinese characters have been in continuous use longer than any other writing system on earth. From Confucius to contemporary fiction, the literary tradition is staggering.
Live the SGV Like a Local
Monterey Park, Alhambra, and San Gabriel form one of the most vibrant Chinese communities outside Asia. Speaking Mandarin here is not a novelty — it is daily life.
Train Your Brain in a Completely Different System
Mandarin uses tone, characters, and classifiers that English does not have. Learning it rewires your perception of how language can work.
Since 2006
Chinese / Mandarin in Los Angeles
Mandarin Chinese is the most spoken language on Earth. Over 1.1 billion people use it, including virtually everyone in mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, plus diaspora communities worldwide. Mandarin is a tonal language with four tones — the pitch pattern of a syllable determines its meaning, so the same sound pronounced with a rising tone versus a falling tone is a completely different word. The writing system uses characters (hanzi) rather than an alphabet: each character represents a word or a morpheme, and a literate adult needs roughly 3,000 to 4,000 of them for everyday reading. There is no way to “sound out” a character the way you sound out English spelling. You either recognize it or you do not.
The Chinese community in Los Angeles is one of the largest in North America. Chinatown downtown is the historic anchor, but the real center of gravity shifted to the San Gabriel Valley decades ago. Monterey Park, Alhambra, San Gabriel, Rosemead, and Arcadia form a corridor where Mandarin (and Cantonese) are spoken as commonly as English. Chinese supermarkets, banks, medical offices, and restaurants in the SGV operate bilingually or entirely in Chinese. For many families, Mandarin is the language of home, and heritage speakers — kids who understand spoken Mandarin but never learned to read or write characters — represent a significant portion of our students. Strommen also coached actress Amy Adams in Mandarin pronunciation for the film Arrival, working on the tonal precision required for her scenes with the alien linguists.
Strommen has been teaching Mandarin in Los Angeles since 2006. Our native-speaking tutors understand that every Mandarin student is different. Heritage speakers need character literacy and formal grammar. Business professionals need meeting-ready fluency and the cultural awareness to navigate Chinese business etiquette. Complete beginners need tone training before anything else. We build every lesson plan around the student, not around a textbook. Sessions are one-on-one, conversation-first, and available online or in person.
No public Chinese / Mandarin group classes right now — but we can set up a semi-private class for your family, friends, or company with as few as two people. Get in touch.
Chinese / Mandarin class FAQ
What is the best way to learn Chinese?
Regular one-on-one lessons with a native Mandarin speaker, with heavy emphasis on tone practice from day one. Tones are not optional polish — they are foundational. If you learn vocabulary with wrong tones, you will be misunderstood constantly and have to unlearn bad habits later. A tutor can hear your tone errors and correct them in real time, which apps and textbooks cannot do. For characters, spaced repetition tools like Anki help, but a tutor gives structure to what you study. Between lessons, Chinese TV dramas and podcasts build listening comprehension fast.
How long does it take to learn Chinese?
The State Department rates Mandarin as Category IV — the hardest tier — estimating 2,200 class hours for professional proficiency. For conversational Mandarin, most dedicated students can handle everyday interactions within 12 to 18 months of regular study. The spoken language is actually quite logical: no verb conjugations, no gender, no plurals, simple syntax. The time investment goes into tones, listening comprehension, and characters. Heritage speakers who already understand spoken Mandarin typically make fast progress on reading and writing within a few months.
Is Chinese hard for English speakers?
The tonal system and the writing system are the two genuine obstacles. English speakers are not trained to hear tonal distinctions, and it takes practice to produce them consistently. The character system requires sustained memorization — there are no shortcuts. But Mandarin grammar is actually simpler than English in many ways: no conjugation, no declension, no articles, no gender. Sentence structure follows a subject-verb-object pattern similar to English. The difficulty is front-loaded. Once your tones are solid and you have a few hundred characters under your belt, the language opens up.
Can I take Chinese classes online?
Yes. All of our Mandarin lessons are available online via video call. Screen sharing is particularly useful for character practice — your tutor can write characters in real time, demonstrate stroke order, and review your writing. Online sessions also allow flexibility for busy professionals and students who may not live near the San Gabriel Valley. You get the same native-speaking tutor each week, with lessons built around your level and objectives.
Are you a Chinese / Mandarin teacher in Los Angeles? Join us →
Since 2006 · Los Angeles
Start Chinese / Mandarin classes this week.
Call 323-638-9787 or fill out our form. We match you with an instructor within 24 hours.
Get Started