Course Objectives

This course aims at providing you with a rudimentary knowledge of the Chinese writing system, grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. The course is directed toward bringing you substantially closer to meeting the rating of Low-Intermediate in listening, speaking, writing, and reading on a scale formulated by a professional language teaching organization. To achieve this goal, we employ a multiple-skill approach and the immersion method in this multimedia-enhanced course.

About a quarter of the world’s population speaks Mandarin Chinese, known as Guoyu, Putonghua, or Hanyu. It is the lingua franca of “Cultural China”—China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Chinese communities around the world. Because this is a beginning language course, about 90% of our time will be spent in language learning and about 10% in cultural issues. Research indicates that the more knowledge you have about the context in which the target language is used, the higher your overall linguistic proficiency level will be. Therefore, we will watch Chinese films, documentary films, and have class discussions about these visual materials.

Please note that this course fulfills the language requirements of all B.A., business, information science, and some science programs. It also counts toward the Chinese minor requirements. Questions regarding the Chinese minor may be directed to Prof. Alex Huang.

Required Textbooks (available at the PSU Bookstore)

Chinese Link: Zhongwen Tiandi, A Course in Elementary Chinese (Prentice Hall, 2006) ISBN 0-13-193033-8

Recommended Material

Chinese Link companion website (with links to audio clips)