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Mandarin Chinese I | 中文课程1

About this textbook

This textbook is designed to be used as part of an online course. Learning to speak a new language requires continual practice, interaction, and feedback. If you are taking a course, your instructor will provide you with assignments, and if the course is online, you should also have a language coach.

Of course, you can also use the textbook on your own — as a reference, to learn about Chinese language and culture, and to pick up some useful words and phrases.

How the textbook is organized

The textbook is divided into six chapters. The first two chapters introduce you to the Chinese language: the structure and sounds of the language, the Pinyin system for writing it using the Latin alphabet, and the basics of Chinese writing.

The next four chapters consist of specific lessons, in which you will learn to speak, read, write, and understand Mandarin Chinese. Each lesson starts with a short video, which you’ll be asked to watch. To help you understand the video, each lesson also includes a transcript (in English, pinyin, and simplified and traditional Chinese characters), a list of vocabulary (with audio clips), language and grammar notes, and culture notes.

At the end of the textbook (and linked from the sidebar of each page) is a list of vocabulary from all of the lessons, including audio clips of each word or phrase. You can use this list for reference. It is organized alphabetically by pinyin spelling.

Pinyin

The pinyin in this textbook is formatted according to the rules specified by Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography by Yin Binyong and Mary Felley. However, one exception should be noted in the case of borrowed words and transliteration. Yin specifies that in pinyin, romanization should be rendered in the language of origin. For the ease of students, we have opted to portray these words in their actual pinyin form. Thus 纽约 in the pinyin transcription reads Niǔ Yuē instead of New York.

Technical requirements

This textbook includes a great deal of audio and video, so you will need a high-speed internet connection to use it easily.

Browsers

To properly display the Chinese characters, you should use one of the following browsers:

For Windows:

  • Firefox
  • Opera (version 8 or higher)
  • Internet Explorer 7

For Mac:

  • Firefox
  • Safari
  • Opera (version 8 or higher)

Fonts

You will also need to have Chinese-language fonts installed on your computer. Newer Macs and PCs with Windows will come with Chinese fonts already installed. If your computer does not have the necessary fonts, instead of Chinese characters, you’ll see boxes.

Wazu Japan has a number of free fonts available for Chinese Simplified and Chinese Traditional characters.

Flash and Javascript

To play audio and video, you’ll need to have Flash 8 or higher installed, and you’ll also need to make sure that Javascript is enabled in your browser.