A recommendation for Mandarin students who are ready to swim in the deep end.

I recently spent 3 months in Taichung, Taiwan attending one-on-one daily classes at the Taipei Language Institute (TLI) and those few days in class greatly enhanced my listening and speaking abilities.  I highly recommend Rocket Chinese as a starting point and will periodically use it to maintain my Mandarin language abilities, but at some point it is necessary to remove the floaties and jump into the deep end.  Staying in an AirBnB in Taichung, purchasing food at the local open air market, and attending TLI classes was my first swim in the deep end.

TLI has offices in China, Taiwan, and the U.S.  Their internet address is http://www.tli.com.tw/. 

If you are serious about mastering spoken Mandarin, I urge you to go swimming in the deep end.  Cheers.

你好 nóngfū,

Thank you for sharing your wonderful experience in the field. :)

Indeed, we always encourage people studying a new language to bring everything they've learned to real life, and what a lovely choice to go to Taichung and Taipei for that! (Did you also pick up a little bit of Taiwanese - the predominant local dialect?)

To the Rocket Chinese community - there's really no better way to enhance your existing knowledge and command of Chinese than to use it (preferably regularly even). If you can't spend three months in Taiwan or China, try watching TV shows in Chinese, order in Chinese at a Chinese restaurant where staff speak the language, and reach out to Chinese-speaking friends for language tables. Just make it fun and make it a habit!