Piao Yilin

handwritten version ✍🏻 – digital version 

Translation:

Dear friends:

Hello everyone, I’m Piao Yìlín, a Chinese student currently enrolled in the first year of an art degree program in Milan. I’m very happy to have the chance to share my experience with Brandon with you.

I met Brandon six months after arriving in Italy. For an eighteen-year-old girl fresh out of high school, moving alone to a completely unfamiliar country to live and study is definitely not easy.
I’m part of the Turandot program, and by the time I was about to finish my language school, I was still very anxious and insecure about my Italian. I really needed a private teacher—someone competent, but above all able to teach without adding more pressure. It was at that moment that a friend sent me information about Brandon’s lessons. I decided to try a class, and unexpectedly, it was a wonderful surprise!

Brandon doesn’t just use published textbooks: he has developed his own teaching method, well-structured, and has collected the key concepts into clear and easy-to-understand PDF files.
He is also an extremely thorough teacher: every time he explains a new concept, he truly makes sure I’ve understood it and can use it independently. That’s why he gives me examples and asks me to write texts, which he then patiently corrects in the next lesson, explaining everything in detail and answering all my questions.

Besides grammar and vocabulary, Brandon also devotes a lot of time to living language, to real communication. During conversations, he carefully corrects every mistake in pronunciation and sentence construction, writes down everything we say, and after the lesson, sends me the full dialogue.
We’ve also sung many Italian songs together and played characters in fun, engaging stories—we’ve had so much fun! One thing he always says is to carefully observe singers or characters to learn from their pronunciation and articulation.

All these experiences have been fundamental for me. Week by week, month by month, I’ve felt my connection to the language grow stronger. And today, when I speak Italian in everyday life—at school, at the supermarket, or on the street—I feel more and more confident.

I also want to thank him for the support and encouragement he gave me outside of lessons.
The year I met Brandon was a turning point for me: I was finishing language school and about to start university. At the same time, I was going through a very difficult and emotionally unstable period for personal reasons. Every time I confided something to him, he would listen with great patience and always find the right words to give me courage and make me feel understood.

I discovered in him a very wise and deep person. If today I’ve been able to overcome so many difficulties and find the strength to keep studying in Italy, I also owe it to his help. For me, he is truly one of the most important people I’ve met in my life. Thank you from the bottom of my heart!

To anyone who wants to come to Italy or improve their Italian, I sincerely recommend choosing Brandon as your first choice. And if one day you come to Italy, I hope we’ll meet on the streets of Milan.

Piao Yilin

Milan, 06/16/2025