Learning Chinese : Start From Scratch (零到一學中文)

This is a six-week introductory course in Mandarin Chinese conversation. The course will be taught completely in Mandarin, however students are not expected to have any experience learning Chinese. This course’s main objective is to study practical conversation. By watching videos showing various kinds of situations, learners will recognize and understand vocabulary, pair everyday words together with grammar to form short phrases, and learn the correct way to express words used in day-to-day life.

• Greetings
• Starting from the first step of cultural communication, the course introduces how Chinese people greet others and respond to greetings. Students will learn 25 simple words and form short phrases, beginning to communicate with others.
• Introduce yourself
• This week’s lesson uses ‘Studying Chinese’ as its main theme. Students will learn how to make a self-introduction, meet classmates from different countries, learn vocabulary commonly used in the classroom, use 31 new words, talk about themselves and their classmates, and understand how Chinese words are formed from individual characters as well as their meaning and the ways they can change.
• Shopping
• Learn everyday simple statements, such as being able to talk about: time, temperature, making choices when shopping, and personal likes and dislikes. Using 33 new words, make statements about one’s everyday life, talk about the things one wants to buy.
• Ｍaking an order
• Learn numbers and measure words while eating food, understand how eating food is an expression of Chinese culture, and use 41 new words to make statements about eating food as well as express desires, preferences, and opinions.
• Taking bus to school
• Recognize different modes of transportation and describe walking on the street, learn to use 41 simple words and form short phrases, make statements based on observations of urban streetscapes and the perceived distance of objects.
• Daily Dialogue
• Learn to talk about attending school, going to work, forms of communication, and leisure activities. Use 40 words to form short phrases, talk about one’s work and relations with other people at school.