Beginners’ Chinese: a taster course

Learn about Mandarin Chinese as a tool for communication and gain insights into Chinese society and culture. This free course, Beginners’ Chinese: a taster course, provides a brief introduction to the Chinese language, its scripts and sounds, and how words are formed. You will hear short conversations where people greet each other and introduce themselves, and learn how to count from one to ten. You’ll learn different ways of saying your name and greeting people, as well as give your telephone number. This OpenLearn course is introductory material for absolute beginners in Chinese.

• Introduction
• Learning outcomes
• 1 The Chinese language
• 1 The Chinese language
• 1.1 Varieties of Chinese
• 1.2 Pinyin
• 1.3 Tones
• 1.4 Chinese characters
• 1.5 Simplified and traditional forms of Chinese characters
• 1.6 Word formation
• 1.7 How to memorise and combine characters
• 2 Greetings
• 2 Greetings
• 3 Introducing oneself
• 3 Introducing oneself
• 3.1 Nationalities
• 3.2 Professional titles and basic professions
• 4 Basic numbers
• 4 Basic numbers
• Conclusion
• Further reading
• Take the next step
• Acknowledgements