Chinese Courses

The course aims to enhance students’ ability to pronounce Chinese words correctly and increase their awareness of Pinyin spelling rules, tone sandhi, neutral tone, and as well as to help them identify the differences between easily confused tones, initials and finals. After completing this course, students will be able to use Pinyin as a tool to pronounce commonly used Chinese words and sentences in daily life. 

• Learn basic Putonghua phonetic system through practical, daily-life contexts  

• Enhance your competence in Pinyin usage with interactive Canvas tasks  

• Provide feedback tailored to diverse learning backgrounds  

• In-class test: Produce an accurate Pinyin script for self-introduction and identify different tones, and commonly used words and sentences written in Pinyin. 

• Written assignments and learning tasks:  Recognize Putonghua syllables and spelling rules and distinguish between easily confused finals and initials for effective daily communication.  

• Grade Type (Pass/ Fail) 

Attributes  

• Non-Chinese language background students who have previously learnt Mandarin Chinese for less than 50 tuition hours.  

Exclusions  

• LANG 1113, LANG 1117-1118, LANG 1122-1127 (prior to 2022-23)   

• LANG 1412-1416, LANG 1421–1426, LANG 1513-1515  

Course outcomes  

• Improved ability to engage in basic communication using Pinyin as a tool for learning words and sentences in daily life contexts.  

• Stronger skills in independent learning and teamwork.