Chinese Mandarin Beginners (part 1)

Whether you’re exploring history along the famous Silk Route, conversing with colleagues in Beijing or greeting distant relatives, part 1 of our beginners course will cover everything you need to get by in Chinese Mandarin.

You’ll get to grips with the essentials in just 10 weeks, building skills and confidence in a supportive and informal environment.

The focus will be on practical communication – you’ll learn key phrases to greet people and introduce yourself and learn helpful vocabulary used for travel or work. You’ll be introduced to the phonetic system, Pinyin, to develop speaking and listening skills and learn about basic word structures.

This is the first of three beginners modules, taught at progressive levels. And led by a qualified and skilled Mandarin speaker.

Who is it for?

Start here if you are a total beginner and want a flavour of learning Chinese Mandarin.

Timetable

This course takes place one evening a week at 18:30 for 10 weeks.

Benefits

• Get to grips with the basics in just 10 weeks
• Learn from qualified native Chinese Mandarin speakers, as part of a small group.

By the end of the 10 weeks you’ll be able to

• talk about countries, nationalities and people
• talk about jobs and occupations
• count numerals
• respond to comments and pay compliments.

Grammar

• pinyin pronunciation
• basic sentence structures and word orders
• particles ma ne
• other question words nǎli and shéi
• past tense particle le
• common measure words
• negate verbs with méiyǒu/ méi
• basis speech pattern dàn shì.

Assessment and certificates

There is no formal assessment or accreditation attached to this course, but you will be awarded an official City, University of London certificate. You must attend over 70 per cent of the classes to be eligible for the certificate.

Teaching

Classroom activities will include role-playing, pair and group work, work on pronunciation and intonation, and grammar in context.

The lessons feature the use of audio clips and videos and you’ll also learn about aspects of the Chinese way of life.

Weekly homework will help you to practise your reading and writing skills.

No prior knowledge is required for this course.

If you already know some basic Chinese Mandarin, you may want to start with part 2 or part 3.

Enrol on the full syllabus (parts 1, 2 and 3) to get the best price.

English requirements

You will need a good level of spoken and written English to enrol on this course.