HKUST - Center for Language Education

Recommended Chinese Materials for Non-Chinese

Spoken Chinese 900 – Book 1
More than 50 situations are presented under 19 headings of conversational Chinese. The conversations are designed to help learners cope with simple day-to-day situations.
Speak Chinese – Book 1
This course combines functional methods with grammatical methods. It contains dialogues related to everyday situations
Linguaphone
This course contains dialogues and focuses on learning grammatical structures through repetitions. Comes in two versions, one in Chinese and the other in English.
Pinyin Chinese Phonetics
Starting with simple greetings like ‘hello’ and ‘thank you’, this course gradually introduces useful daily phrases. Lessons are divided into two parts: Pinyin and Everyday Sentences.

Speak Chinese – Book 2
Proceeding from the easier to the more difficult levels, this course provides a wider range of words and structures than Book 1.
Spoken Chinese 900 – Book 2
Another 900 practical expressions are provided. Sentence structures are a bit more complicated than those in Book 1, but are just as popular in contemporary China.

Commercial Mandarin
Consisting of thirty topics, this course is especially designed for people who trade with China. All the dialogues center around doing business, with related Words of Study and Supplementary Business Expressions.
Chinese Business Dialogues
Guides the reader through twenty lessons compiled in order of procedure of typical business negotiations popular in China. Each lesson starts with a dialogue, followed by Words of Study and Grammar Notes.

Practical Mandarin Chinese
A comprehensive Mandarin beginners’course which takes you to ten different daily situations such as calling a taxi, going to the bank, making phone calls and shopping. Authentic dialogues help you understand how to use the expressions in various situations.
Putonghua Business Conversation
A short video-based course designed for lower-intermediate learners who are preparing to use Putonghua in a business context. By following situational dialogues through eight episodes, learners are introduced to key functional phrases for business situations.
60 Minutes to Chinese-Mandarin Conversation
A 60-minute video, demonstrating the Chinese phonetic alphabet plus some very basic vocabulary like numbers, time-question words and others. Excellent for elementary learners.
The Dragon’s Tongue Series
A series of short dramas illustrating how the language is used in natural everyday life. With a total of nineteen topics, learners also have the chance to practise sentence patterns. The emphasis is oral-aural, but some time is also given to Chinese characters and calligraphy. Also included is some documentary on Beijing life.

Lifetimes
A lifetime story about a couple who experienced several turmoils in China from the 40s to the 60s. Their story not only presents a typical tragic Chinese family during the period, but also serves as a witness to Chinese history.
A Terra-Cotta Warrior
A love story about a warrior in the Qing Dynasty and a young girl caught by the King to look for the medicine of longevity. They both died after their relationship was discoved, but continued their romance when they were reunited 3000 years later.
Farewell My Concubine
An immensely moving story of love, betrayal and tragedy, this film depicts the changing fortunes and intense relationship of three main characters through the years of Japanese occupation, Communist rule and the Cultural Revolution.