Come and join various native speakers of Mandarin Chinese as they give students a lively introduction to the language and its rich culture. In this course, students learn the basic Chinese language as they learn the necessary skills to read, write, and speak Chinese. After one semester, students are able to engage in conversation in Chinese including greeting people, introducing themselves to others, and exchanging basic information with others. Students are able to count from 1 to 1,000 and make simple sentences in both spoken and written Chinese. They also learn 160 “magical” Chinese characters and use them on a variety of topics. As students progress through the course, they get to know not only the language itself, but also the culture where the language takes place and keeps developing. The course introduces students to a general knowledge of Pinyin, Mandarin Chinese, Chinese dialects, and Chinese characters.

This course is approved by the NCAA® and the University of California.