ABC Languages

I took a Hindi class. It is a challenge and definitely requires a lot of work outside the classroom. The service personnel are responsive and helpful. The location is convenient. The class sizes are small enough where one can get individual attention.

I took a beginner Russian class here about 4 years ago. Horrible. There were 15 people in this «beginner» russian class and as we went around the room, everyone was introducing themselves in Russian and saying a few words about themselves (in Russian) and already reading the Russian text of the book (in Russian)!
Instead of teaching at a beginner level, the teacher chose to teach UP to the level of most of the class instead. An absolute waste of time for me. Now that I can read and speak some Russian, I’m probably fit enough to take a «beginner» russian class here. But I won’t because the teacher seemed way more interested in hitting on girls in class instead. I don’t know about you but I’m not paying money to watch a european dude hit on chicks in Russian. Amateur.
The school transferred my 12-​class package to a different class b/​c of poor feedback so kudos. However, read the fine print. If you cancel a class 24 BUSINESS HOURS prior to class, you forfeit the class. Since their locations and meeting times changed frequently, I ended up losing out on several classes.

I’ve been taking German Classes for 3 weeks and I can finally make a review on this establishment. The enrollment process is easy, you just go on there website and make an account. After you make an account with the school, you can enroll in any language that you are interested in.
The German teacher is really nice and we work a little on grammar, speech, and for homework we practice writing. The way you get homework is that the program manager sends the e-​mail out the next business day or two.
I am overall satisfy with the place and I feel like I am finally getting German after so many years.

I have been attending Spanish classes for over 4 years and have had many great teachers. The beginners classes started with many students in the class and the number did fluctuate ealier on. Many students initially joined and left but after reaching the intermediate level it has been manily very small classes which is great. All the teachers I have had over the years were wonderful, the school is very flexible as we are such a small group and very understanding. Staff are super friendly and make the whole experience really enjoyable, packages are reasonnable and the location is very convenient. All in all it’s been a great experience and I look forward to continuing it by attending many more classes.

GREAT EXPERIENCE! I enrolled in 6 Spanish classes with Clara and couldn’t have had a better experience! The class was thorough and challenging, and the instructor was incredibly nice and knowledgeable! WOULD 100% RECOMMEND!

My experience at the ABC Language School on West 30^th St, NYC
i have been attending mandarin classes at the ABClanguage school for 3 years with Professor Jonathan Kwan on occasion with Wendy Lu will serve as Chinese tutor.
before coming to this school, i tried (attended) about 4 different other places where Mandarin is being taught in nyc. none of them really suited my needs for the following reasons:
1. too many students in class
2. faculty with very poor teaching foreign language skills, but also with minimum command of the English language
3. the quality of the facility itself (noisy environments, poor lightning; not best location to access by public transportation.
At the ABC Language School most of the classes have less than 10 students; the faculty has great knowledge of the particular language and grammar they teach.. They make sure that the important points come across the best. .
Professor Jonathan makes sure that when you are in class no time is wasted, he is happy to clarify your doubts with examples, etc.
When you first go to the ABC language school, the staff allows you to attend classes at different levels, so you choose what class suits you best.
I have told the Director of the school, Ms Lunney that I look forward to my Tuesday evening class. It is my «night out» and I really enjoy it.
I wish the school had a course in learning how to read the Chinese characters, but i was informed that the demand for this was minimal.
Thus, I just started a very elementary Chinese class in Chinatown, NY where we learn to read and write but only traditional chinese characters, not the simplified ones. Life is tough, you never get all you want!!. However, I will keep enjoying «my Tuesday night out» at the ABC School learning the best taught Mandarin in NYC.
Jose J Rabelo, MD, PhD.

I took their beginning Level Spanish in Fall 2013. I used a groupon deal for a 6 week beginning level class that ran 1.5 hrs each week.
I liked how our classes were small — there were no more than 6 students in the class. Their schedule of classes is also quite varied — my class took place on a Wed afternoon, which I thought was prefect for my schedule at the time. We used a text book for homework that broke down grammar very well (we didn’t go over the homework in class, but the teacher was good about taking any questions we had about the homework before the start of each session) and the instructor copied handouts for us at each session, which we used during class. We focused a lot on conversation in class — a lot of speaking in pairs — however, there were times when we were speaking (without the instructor listening in on our conversation) when my partner and I weren’t sure if we were speaking accurately.
After the six week session was completed, one has the option to reenroll. I signed up for another six sessions but since other students can enroll in the class at any time (on a rolling basis based on what is currently covered in the class), next six sessions felt different because there were new students in the class at each session, and everyone seemed to be at different levels. It wasn’t necessarily «bad» but I like consistency and having more clarity on what will be covered during the sessions before class.
Overall, I thought it was a good value for offering small classes but I prefer having a clearer understanding of what will be covered during the sessions.

I can only review the class I took at ABC Language Exchange, which is the Chinese Mandarin beginner’s class with a teacher who I only know as Cecilia. I bought a Living Social deal $ 135 for a beginner’s course which includes registration fees and the textbook ($ 275 total value). Signing up was easily done online. A confirmation is sent afterwards. I did inquire at their website about other classes that are not offered such as Korean and they emailed me rates and hours for private lessons, but there are different prices since it should be tailored to an individual’s needs. I thought it was expensive so I passed.
There are many locations to take classes. My class was held at 145 W 30^th Street, 9^th FL between 6^th and 7^th Aves. The entire time I attended this school, there was no security in the lobby. The elevator is small. Sometimes, there is a receptionist at the 9^th floor, but other times there are not. The first time, I was asked to wait in a waiting room, which is really a small classroom across from the receptionist desk. I realized later on that this was the place to go to wait until class starts. After the first class, the next classes are in the same room. During the first class, upon checking in with the receptionist, I received a textbook, «Chit-​Chat Chinese» which in my opinion is a pretty good textbook, though not 100% accurate according to my teacher. I found the concepts easy to understand with this textbook.
My teacher, Cecilia, is Taiwanese. I was a bit weary because learning Chinese really depends on where your teacher’s experience is from. Taiwanese Chinese is different from Beijing Chinese. I wasn’t there to go on any business trips so it was okay for me. The majority of other students had business or a reason to learn. I was the only Chinese there. The first class, we had eight people. Afterwards, it was more like six regular students including myself. Speaking from my experience, class was really more on the casual side. We seemed to follow the textbook, but there were many opportunities to learn random things depending on what the students asked. We built vocabulary based on what students wanted to learn so we didn’t have to necessarily follow the book. A lot of times, Cecilia was a unsure how to say something or how to explain something completely in English. I prefer a teacher who is strong, firm, and knowledgeable. Cecilia is really a nice person though. To help us understand, she would mention experiences she had with her friend, who is learning Chinese or experience Cecilia had herself while living in the U.S. We had a lot of laughs and funny moments in class. Though, this class was fun, I was looking for a more stricter environment to learn in which forces me to learn faster but I believe most people would enjoy this class a lot. The pace is too slow for me, but probably just right for total beginners. Unfortunately, for those going to go on a trip to China, I don’t think they would learn enough to actually have a conversation besides one or two sentences in six weeks of time. It seems to me, other students still relied on notes while speaking. I had prior knowledge so I had a better understanding. Cecilia sometimes gave us homework in which we emailed her, but it is also casual homework. We don’t get graded and we just come to learn at our classes’ pace.
Two weeks before my classes end, I was notified by email if I wanted to continue paying for courses. I chose not to continue and a representative responded graciously. I can always go back and continue in the future. Overall, I had a good experience.
PROS: fun classes
CONS: too casual for my needs

Update: Marco from ABC Languages called and apologized profusely for the clerical error that resulted in my going to the wrong class, offering an extra class comp. That’s how it’s done, y’all!

The staff is super friendly and always eager to help. Instructors I had were both top notch. I have studied there twice and have had nothing but positive experiences. You get a good framework every class; if you do the work and study you will learn. If you do not do the work and just show up every week you will get nothing out of it. It is a cliché but you get out what you put in. If you are looking to learn something new or brush up on something you already know I highly recommend ABC and staying away from that abomination that comes in a yellow box.

I took the 6 week Spanish language course offered by ABC language. Although the instruction was good, I barely got a grasp of the language. The pace was incredibly slow for an adult language class. In the 1.5 hour class, the first hour of instruction is dedicated to reviewing and reteaching the previous lesson. Only in the last 30 minutes do you learn any new material. There is no audio or supplemental work which makes it difficult to practice the grammar and new vocabulary. We barely finished 4 of the 15 chapters in the entire textbook. Chapter 4 is counting and days of the week… The 6 week session is set up so you are incentivized to pay more for more lessons beyond the 6^th week. If you want to finish the book, you have to pay for 20+ classes which barely brings you above a beginner level.

I tried ABC last year for their beginning German class. They are in a great location, I had a wonderful teacher (Peter), the classes were small, BUT…
The classes may have been too small. We would start off with 8 – 10 people. Then that number would go down every couple of weeks, until I was the only one. Then I would have to wait for another class to get to my level, so I could join them, then it would happen all over again. And again, and again. Finally after a year, and no progress, I called it quits.
My new German teacher is Youtube.

I have taken Spanish and now Beginners French at ABC. The teachers have been great and the staff very attentive. I wish that the instructors would supplement the work book excersises with more audio and maybe even video pieces to help facilitate hearing and understanding the language more but in all the instruction is solid and I am really learning a lot.

I signed up for a 6 week beginner language course at ABC through a GiltCity deal. I was thinking of taking either French, German or Japanese. I picked French because it fit my schedule (I’m just taking it for fun, not because I need it for work or anything). I’ve never taken French before. I’m really glad I did though because the teacher, Blaine, is awesome. I think he grew up speaking French and he’s spent some time in France and travelling the world. So he always emphasizes proper pronounciation and how to speak it conversationally (vs textbook French). He gives us tips about how a native French person would say something, and it’s really useful. If you learn a language, you don’t want to walk around speaking it too formally or stiff or sounding like you’re talking out of a textbook. I really like Blaine’s teaching style, he makes us repeat things a lot to get the pronounciation correct and it also helps us retain a lot of it by going over things. He doesn’t waste time on things that aren’t that important or that would never come up in a real life conversation. Since the course is only 6 weeks long, he focuses on useful important things. The location is really convenient for me (right near Penn Station) and they offer classes at night and on the weekends. I can’t speak to any of the other courses since this is my first class with them but I would highly recommend the beginner French class and I recommend Blaine if you can get him as your teacher. I will definitely look into continuing with the next class level, hopefully he’s the teacher for that as well.

I came to ABC because of a Groupon deal a few months ago, and it was a good decision (and deal). I even decided to extend my classes, but mainly because I was incredibly interested in the language I was studying.
The lovely Italian woman working at the desk, Alice, is one of the most amazing people to work, uh, anywhere. She is incredibly friendly, warm, helpful, thorough, and her accent is awesome, ha.
I took Japanese with Miki Shimada as the instructor. If you are familiar with Japanese teaching style and culture, I guess her approach is not very surprising. There were many times where we found her explanations unclear. She was definitely strict and pushed the students to work. She encouraged students look up words in the dictionary she had, which people may have different opinions about.
The series of classes involved starting off with the most basic sentence/​phrase structure and building more complex sentences off of that. She didn’t want students moving ahead until she was certain you fully grasped the basics.
In the end, I know she just did not condone laziness and drove students to independently make connections with words, definitions, and concepts. She was also very accessible via email and occasionally stayed late/​came early for extra help.
The class sizes are small and there’s a lot of personal attention. The specific class you’re in continues until students are no longer enrolled. I was the last student in my Japanese class, and was refunded for the remainder that I didn’t attend since no one was left.
Since I only had to deal with 2 staff members (Alice and my instructor) I can’t speak for how other instructors teach, but I can say I learned a lot in my time there and would recommend it to anyone interested in learning a language.

I took a 6-​week beginner’s Italian course with ABC Language Exchange. I had some issues with my schedule, but the staff was helpful, courteous and understanding. They allowed me to change my class and get a better professor. My Italian instructor, Tony, was extremely knowledgeable about the language, history and culture. I learned a lot from him and really enjoyed the class, as it allowed me to gain a basic understanding of the Italian language. I look forward to using it later this year when I am in Italy!

I had bought a Groupon in May for a 6 weeks language course from ABC Exchange. Aside from the great deal, I have learned a lot in the 4 weeks that I have been taking my language course. The classes are small. Ranging from 3 – 6 students. They also provide the materials for the class, which is great! I am looking to continue after my 6 weeks is up.

The people who work at ABC Language are very warm and helpful and the teacher’s been fantastic. I feel I have learned so much in such a short period of time and I appreciate everything both the teacher and ABC’s employees have done.