Yale-China Chinese Language Academy
Mandarin Chinese language-learning institution in Hong Kong
Yale-China Chinese Language Academy (CLA), formerly the New Asia - Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre, or Yale-China Chinese Language Centre (CLC), is a Cantonese and Mandarin language study centre at The Chinese University of Hong Kong. The CLA offers small-class instruction programmes for students with various objectives. These include Cantonese and Mandarin for foreigners, Mandarin for Hong Kong people, and Cantonese for Mainland Chinese students and migrants to Hong Kong.
The CLA is headquartered at the CUHK campus in Sha Tin, New Territories, and had additional classrooms in Jordan, Kowloon from July 2017 until May 2020. Its name has changed from CLC to CLA in 2024, due to its merger with the Centre for China Studies.
History
The CLA was established by Jennie Mak Ling in 1961 to teach Cantonese to foreigners. Ling studied at Diocesan Girls' School and Yale Divinity School. After returning to Hong Kong, she began teaching Chinese in her family home.
In 1963, the school received support from New Asia College and the Yale-China Association and was renamed New Asia–Yale-in-China Chinese Language Centre. It moved to New Asia in the spring of 1963 and was formally incorporated into The Chinese University of Hong Kong in 1974.
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The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jan 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8047329. 1 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2017, 2020, 2024 and 1961.
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This entry incorporates text from “Yale-China Chinese Language Academy” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.