Chinese Language Courses

"The world is of the opinion that those who know Chinese characters are wise and worthy, ..."

Zheng Qiao (1104-1162), Encyclopedic Annals

FAQ's | CHN 001/002 | CHN 051/052 | CHN 095/096 | CHN 101/102 | CHN 201/202

Information about Language Recourse Center at UVM

Elementary Chinese

CHN 001 Course Objectives: 1. To enable you to communicate (listen, speak, read, write) accurately and appropriately in simple Chinese for common everyday purposes such as greeting, introducing friends and relatives, identifying people or objects, asking for one's personal information (including name, occupation, nationality, address, phone number), expressing gratitude to someone, sending someone your regard, making a reply to a complimentary remark, talking about your family, your school and your studies, looking for someone, seeing a guest off, asking the time, making an appointment, making an invitation, making a suggestion, asking for someone’s opinion, buying something, and offering congratulations.
        2. To lay a good foundation for you to further your studies of the Chinese language at intermediate level by helping you (a) to master the Chinese phonetic system so as to be able to speak Chinese with correct pronunciation and intonation, (b) to understand the basic Chinese grammatical concepts so as to monitor your own Chinese language production, (c) to be aware of some of aspects of Chinese culture imbedded in the Chinese language, and (d) to know the structures of Chinese characters so that you are able to recognize and write approximately 200 Chinese characters.
Exercises on-line:    Chinese Phonetics
                           Chinese Character Writing Sheets
                         Digitized Recordings for PCR Book I at LRC (Get the user ID and password from your teacher)
                         Text Recordings

CHN 002 Course Objectives:   1. Based on what you learned in CHN 001, CHN 002 will continue to help you to acquire the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), so that you can communicate accurately and appropriately in simple Chinese for common everyday purposes such as buying something, serving a customer, making an invitation, making an appointment, offering congratulations, asking for one's age, asking for opinions from others, presenting a gift, asking the way, making a telephone call, refusing politely, shopping, entertaining a guest, asking for information, complimenting, exchanging amenities, making a plan, asking for permission, welcoming a guest, waiting for someone, proposing a toast (if you are above 21 years old), confirming something, talking about ball games, seeing someone off, traveling, and buying tickets.
        2. To help you get fully ready for the second year Chinese. We will help you (a) to speak Chinese with correct pronunciation and intonation by practicing reading aloud and by getting to know more about the sense group stress and the sentence tunes in Chinese, (b) to understand more about the basic Chinese grammatical concepts so that you can monitor your own Chinese language production better, (c) to be aware of many aspects of Chinese culture imbedded in the Chinese language, (d) to know better the structures of Chinese characters and their meanings so that you can recognize and write approximately another 250 Chinese characters (in addition to 200 learned in CHN 001), and (e) to learn how to look up a unknown Chinese word or character in a Chinese dictionary.
Exercises on-line:
             Chinese Character Writing Sheets
             Digitized Recordings for PCR Book I at LRC (Get the user ID and password from your teacher)

Intermediate Chinese

CHN 051/CHN 052   These two course (CHN 052 is the continuation of CHN 051) are designed to help students who have completed one year of college level training in Chinese (i.e., CHN 001 and CHN 002) to develop their knowledge of spoken and written Chinese and to assist them in gaining a proficiency in using the knowledge in real life situation. Listening, speaking, writing, and reading comprehension are all emphasized in the courses. By the end of the semester, students are expected to have mastered another 500 Chinese characters in addition to the 500 chracters learned in CHN 001 and CHN 002, have a good knowledge of the basic Chinese grammar concepts, have acquired practical language skills that they can apply to a variety of everyday situations.
        Course Objectives:     The intent of these courses is to enable students to accomplish the following goals:
1. To be able to express, explain, and describe facts, emotions, ideas, and situations with appropriate vocabulary, sentence patterns, and grammar
2. To be able to participate in casual conversation with native speakers
3. To be able to write short essays in Chinese on subjects related to daily life
4. To be able to understand some aspects of Chinese culture
5. To be prepared to study in China

Exercises on-line:
               Chinese Character Writing Sheets
             Digitized Recordings for PCR Book II at LRC (Get the user ID and password from your teacher)
             Presentation and study files for the courses (including PDF files for vocabulary, example sentences, dictation sentences, grammar notes, writing sheets with grid lines, etc.)

Advanced Chinese

CHN 101/CHN 102   These courses are designed for students who have completed two years of college-level training in Chinese (i.e., CHN 001, CHN 002, CHN 051, and CHN 052). They aim at helping students to develop their ability to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. They seek to enable students to understand face-to-face conversations on most familiar topics in their daily life, give factual accounts, read materials written in relatively formal style, and write simples essays, reports, and all types of correspondence. Authentic reading and listening materials including those from the Internet are used. The courses are conducted entirely in Mandarin Chinese.
             Digitized Recordings for PCR Book III at LRC (Get the user ID and password from your teacher)
             Study files for the courses (including e-texts and mp3 files for each lesson)

Conversational Chinese for Beginners
or Chinese Characters

CHN 095 (Conversational Chinese for Beginners) This is an elementary Chinese course specially designed for beginners with an emphasis on developing minimum communicative competence in Chinese. Topics and language functions include greeting, introducing, expressing gratitude, apologizing, making phone calls, asking for and telling time and location, shopping, offering and making a choice, and asking for and giving directions. Students learn about 80 basic Chinese sentences, consisting of about 350 words and expressions and 30 grammar points.
Online multimedia materials for CHIN 095

CHN 096 (Conversational Chinese for Beginners)    This is continuation of CHN 095. It helps students to further develop their communicative competence in Chinese. Students learn another 80 basic Chinese sentences which include 450 words and expressions and 40 grammar points. This course enables students to communicate in daily life with Chinese speakers and study, work, and travel in Chinese without depending much on an interpreter.

CHN 096 (Introductory Chinese for Travelers)   This is a one-credit elementary Chinese course specially designed for people who have no Chinese language background but will soon travel to China. It helps students to learn to communicate (listen and speak) in simple Chinese for common travel purposes such as greeting, asking for a tourist location, talking about one's family, asking the time, dining at a restaurant, paying for a bill, and shopping. Students learn the Chinese phonetic system so as to be able to speak with proper pronunciation and intonation. Students also learn to be aware of some aspects of Chinese culture imbedded in the Chinese language.
             mp3 files for the course

CHN 095 (Chinese Characters) This is an introductory course on Chinese characters. It helps students without any Chinese language background to understand the structure and meaning of the most commonly used Chinese characters. Students learn 229 most basic Chinese characters and components that form hundreds and thousands of other Chinese characters and words.
             Presentation and study files for the course (including PDF files for graphics, characters, writing sheets)

Advanced Chinese Conversation & Composition