We are running a new beginners program(Stage 1) in May at our site in Leeds, Yorkshire, which will accommodate 6-12 students for each class. The new program will be running for 12 weeks and will definitely be giving you an exclusive Mandarin Chinese learning experience!

Price: 8 pounds per head/per hour

Frequency: one session per week, 2 hours per session

Level: total beginners

How to contact us?

To contact us, you can simply ring us on 0113 2416883; or write emails to info@confucius-academy.com.

Great Flexibility

We arrange lessons that fit your personal schedule. Yes, you can learn Chinese whenever and wherever is convenient for you! 

Professional Teachers

All of our teachers are highly experienced and have obtained professional training in Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.

Favourable Prices

 Apart from its extreme flexibility, the price we offer is unbelievably cheaper than what you would normally pay for one-on-one tuition.

Live Teaching via Skype

Our lessons are conducted via Instant Messenger Skype which provides you with high quality of live communications!

Testimonials

‘The magic of the teachers at CLA is that they really understand how to make the learning a fun and interesting experience for me. I feel I have learned so much since the first day I came here.’                                                                                   — from student Bryan

 ‘Finally I don’t need to drive to school to learn Chinese. I can learn it at my home, in my office and whenever it suits me. I really appreciate the flexibility it offers!’    — from student Jane

Free One-on-One Trial Tuition!

Every new applicant gets a free trial Chinese tuition. We would like to show you how our system works and how easy it is to learn Chinese with one of our professional teachers before you sign up for it! 

Please make sure that you fill in the correct contact details. We will get back to you within one working day!  More excitingly, the first 50 online tuition subscribers will get 20% off. Only 28 vacancies left till today!

Confucius or “Kong Fu Zi” (circa 551-479 BC), more often named “Kong Zi” , is inarguably the best known person in China. One can never claim understanding China unless he knows Confucius.

Confucius, literally meaning “Master Kong”, was the most prestigious philosophical and political figure in ancient China, whose teachings tremendously influenced Chinese culture. More significantly, his principles spread beyond border and have a profound impact on other Asian people’s thought and life, including Korean, Japanese and Vietnamese. In Europe and America, his works have been studies by many scholars and traditional memorial ceremony are held every year.

He emphasized personal and governmental morality, correctness of social relationships, justice and sincerity. These values may be found in the Analects of Confucius (Lun Yu), a collection of “brief aphoristic fragments”, allegedly compiled by his students many years after his death. For nearly twenty centuries he has been believed as the first teacher of Chinese manner. In the West, since Jesuit Matteo Ricci first Latinized the name, thoughts of Confucius has attached considerable importance on European thinkers and the system of morality bought by him is integrating into western civilization.

Believe it or not, we are quoting Confucius all the time. And what is a better way to impress than slipping some of his words “unintentionally”?

Personal Background

Confucius was born in 551 BC, according to tradition, in or near the city of Qufu  in the ancient State of Lu  (now Shandong Province, China) during the Spring and Autumn Period, at the beginning of the Hundred Schools of Thought philosophical movement.

The sources for Confucius’ life are later and mostly pose a strong flavor of legend and fiction. Collections of tales identify his family was impoverished because of the turmoil at that time and Confucius had endured a poverty-stricken and humiliating youth. Confucius’ surname Kong (which means literally an utterance of thankfulness when prayers have been answered), his tabooed given name Qiu (which means a sacred hill and allegedly refers to one called Ni where his parents prayed for his birth), and his social name Zhongni, all appear connected to the miraculous circumstances of his birth.

Confucius social ascendancy linked him to the growing class of Shi, a class between the old nobility and the common people. It is said that he rose to the position of Justice Minister in Lu at the age of 53. According to most records, Confucius was deeply disappointed at the Duke of Lu and resolved to leave, beginning a set of journeys around the small kingdoms of northeast and central China. At the age of 68, he returned him and the Analects pictures him spending his last years teaching principles and transmitting wisdom via a set of texts called the Five Classics.

By most traditional accounts, Confucius died at the age of 72 or 73, burdened by the loss of both his son and his favorite disciples.

Philosophical Teachings

Confucius’ teachings and his conversations and exchanges with his disciples are recorded in the Analects or Lun Yu, a collection that probably achieved its present form around the second century BC.

Confucius represented his teachings as lesions transmitted from antiquity. He put the greatest importance of study and it is the Chinese character of learning that opens the text. In times of division, chaos, and endless wars between then feudal states, he wanted to restore the Mandate of Heaven that could unify China and bestow peace and prosperity on its people.

His teachings are often conveyed indirectly with ethical ideals and methods. One of his deepest social philosophies may have been the superiority of personal exemplification over explicit rules of behavior. His moral teachings emphasize self-cultivation, emulation of moral exemplars, and the attainment of skilled judgment rather than knowledge of rules. But all these were later elaborated into sets of practices by his numerous disciples and followers who organized his teachings into the Analects, and other core texts came to constitute the philosophical corpus known in the West as Confucianism.

Ethics

His theory of ethics is based on three important conceptual aspects of life: ceremonies associated with sacrifice to ancestors and deities of various types, social and political institutions, and the etiquette of daily behavior. Cultivating or practicing compassion and love for others involved the avoidance of self-aggrandizement. He regards devotion to parents and elder siblings as the most basic form of promoting the interests of others and teaches that such altruism can be accomplished only by those who have learned self-discipline. Despite ritually forms of family relations, Confucius encourage interaction among all. He warns those in power that they should not oppress or take for granted even the lowliest of their subject.

“What one does not wish for oneself, one ought not to do to anyone else; what one recognizes as desirable for oneself, one ought to be willing to grant to others.”

Politics

Confucius’ political philosophy is also rooted in his belief of ethics, that the best government is one that rules through people’s natural morality rather than by using bribery and coercion and a ruler should govern by his own examples. For Confucius, what characterized superiority was the possession of virtue. He argued for according language with truth, which must always be represented even in facial expression. This demanded that the inferior must give advice to his superior if a course of action was wrongly taken.

“He who governs by means of his virtue is, to use an analogy, like the pole-star: it remains in its place while all the lesser stars do homage to it.”

Education

            A hallmark of Confucius’ thoughts is his emphasis on education and study. He disparages those who have faith in natural understanding or intuition and argues that the only real understanding of a subject comes from long and careful study. A good teacher, for Confucius, is someone who is familiar with the ways of the past and the practices of the ancients. Himself is credited by the tradition with having taught altogether three thousand students, and he is willing to teach anyone, whatever their social standing, as long as they are eager and tireless. He taught his students morality, proper speech, government, and the refined arts. Confucius’ pedagogical methods are striking, never discoursing at length and only posing questions and using apt analogies.

“He who learns but does not think is lost. He who thinks but does not learn is in great danger.”

Teach your children and your grand children Chinese.  It is going to be the most important language in their lifetime. – the best single advice from Jim Rogers (American investor and author)

Samiya is our IELTS Perparation Course student.

– by Tony Xu, Principal of CLA

With China playing an increasingly important global role, economically in particular, more and more people realize that Mandarin Chinese is becoming a major pursuit in language acquisitions. Today teaching and learning Chinese is part of the world-class education all over the Western world: school pupils are preparing themselves as global citizens equipped with the skills of Mandarin Chinese; university students would like to improve their job prospects both at home and abroad by acquiring Chinese language capability; business people want to join the ranks of business elite with the ability to speak Mandarin Chinese; members of the general public would like to know more about China and Chinese culture through learning Chinese or to be equipped with Chinese language skills for a better tomorrow in today’s challenging economic situation. Of course, there are many other contributing factors to the heating up of Chinese language learning.

Having said the above, there are also some misconceptions that are hindering some Westerners from venturing into it. One of them is the misconception that Mandarin Chinese is too difficult a language for Westerners to learn. To correct or clear it up, let’s compare English with Chinese in all the four components of the languages: speaking, listening, reading and writing:

Speaking is easier in Chinese than in English. Chinese characters are all monosyllabic with no consonant endings while English adopts multi-syllabic word-forming system with consonant endings; apart from a few consonants (initials) unique to Chinese, the majority of the Chinese speech sounds are the same as its English counterparts;

As with speaking, listening is not difficult in Chinese, either. Admittedly, Chinese has got four basic tones signifying the meaning of the pronounced character while in English there are only 3 tones – flat, rising and falling. Since there is only one more tone in Chinese than in English, can just one more tone put you off? Certainly NOT! It is only a matter of practice to get used to the tones,

Reading Chinese is easier than reading English, too. Chinese characters are ideogram-based, just by looking at its symbolic components, you will be most likely able to guess the meanings of the characters in the context. For example, anything to do with water or liquid, such as river, lake, sea, ocean, juice, wine, etc., the characters will invariably start with a component of three dots aligned vertically;

As with reading, writing is also easy with Chinese. English uses alphabet to form words while Chinese uses components to form characters. As you can see, there is only difference, but no difficulty to speak of once one learns and remembers the components. The added value to writing in Chinese is the great fun in it as the written characters can be a piece of art – Chinese calligraphy!

And Chinese grammar is simpler than many other languages including English. Naturally, there are some peculiarities with Chinese as with any other languages, but they are no barriers for Westerners to learn Chinese language well. I can cite numerous Westerners who can speak perfect Chinese: a Canadian guy well known to the Chinese people as “Da Shan” can even perform “Cross Talks” in Chinese on numerous Chinese festival occasions; the Chinese variety shows by two British girls on the eve of the Chinese Spring Festival absolutely thrilled and amazed me that Westerners could outperform many native speakers of Chinese on the shows, their proficiency level of Chinese put me to shame! I have to confess that they are part of the inspiration that pushed me into my action of setting up a Chinese language academy in Leeds – Confucius Language Academy, to facilitate and support the learning of Chinese by speakers of other languages. It is my life-long ambition and mission to inspire and nurture those interested in the Chinese language and culture into good speakers of Chinese.