Before co-founding Outlier, John studied Linguistics and Paleography in the Graduate Institute of Chinese at National Taiwan Normal University. He co-founded and later ran the Taipei Classical Chinese Reading Group, a weekly reading group consisting mostly of graduate Sinology students from western universities. He also taught classical Chinese to members of the group who had no previous instruction in the language. His coursework and research focused on excavated Warring States bamboo texts, historical Chinese character morphology, and the Shuowen Jiezi 說文解字 and its commentaries and criticism.

To say that Ash is a language enthusiast is an understatement. He speaks Dutch, Mandarin, Cantonese and German, all in varying states of decay. In addition to these, he has learned to some level or another another 7 languages and is currently working on Japanese and European Portuguese. He sees language learning as a chance to experiment. The goal is to find a better way (either getting the same result in a way that takes less time, or getting a better result). And he’s been at it for 30 years! He got his Ph.D. in Chinese at National Taiwan Normal University in paleography and historical linguistics. He was also in the P.hD. program for Teaching Chinese as a Second Language for six years. For his qualifying exams in that department, he had to learn functional grammar, cognitive grammar, case grammar, transformational grammar. So, we've definitely got you covered on the grammar front!

Henry began his journey in Chinese literature at Portland State University and would later continue studies in China and Taiwan, the latter where he earned his Master’s degree in Chinese literature. After spending a few years in Taiwan traveling, translating, writing, and teaching, Henry returned to the United States to earn his doctoral degree in Chinese language and literature at the University of California, Irvine (UCI). Combining research in late imperial Chinese fiction, hermeneutics, and Confucianism with interests in masculinity, martial arts, and teaching, Henry served as Assistant Professor at the Defense Language Institute (DLI) from 2020-2022, where he taught language, culture, and literature courses. His research has appeared in Frontiers of Literary Studies in China, Ming Qing Studies, and various academic journals in Taiwan.

Sam Goldstein received his PhD in the Asian Religious Traditions track of the Religious Studies department of Brown University in February of 2023. He is currently a post-doctoral researcher at Academia Sinica in Taipei, Taiwan. His dissertation focused on an unearthed manuscript called “The High Progenitor of Yin Questions the Three Venerables,” and his work generally relates to the topics of unearthed Warring States-period manuscripts, early Chinese Daoism, and early Chinese rhyme and phonology.

Andrew is the founder and author of the Slow Chinese newsletter, a free weekly resource which helps over 7,000 China watchers and language learners keep up to date with the latest language trends in China.

A self-taught learner of Mandarin for more than 20 years, Andrew consumes huge amounts of Chinese language news every day. His Mandarin News Mastery course (a more advanced course than this one) is now in its second year, and has helped over 100 upper-intermediate and advanced Mandarin learners dramatically improve their Chinese news reading skills and reading speed.

Andrew began his Mandarin learning journey backpacking in China for a year in 2002. He then lived and studied in Taiwan for three years. He’s had an extensive career in China-related business as an executive in a China-focussed advisory firm in the UK. He holds a BSc in Planetary Science from UCL, and an MA in Chinese Translation and Linguistics from SOAS.