Pronunciation is not related to the writing of Chinese words (characters). Pinyin is a special system, created for people to learn Mandarin pronunciation. Pinyin transcribes the Chinese characters so people can pronounce it. The writing of Pinyin is similar to the English alphabet. You can pronounce every single sound out in Chinese using pinyin. Students in this course focus on learning essential vocabulary, practicing pronunciation, and understanding simple grammatical structures. This knowledge prepares students to effectively communicate in Mandarin on a limited range of topics related to everyday situations. This course is a 12 weeks course that is suitable to those who have interested to learn Mandarin with ZERO or minimal basic.

Objectives:

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

1. Speak words, phrases, and sentences in Mandarin with the proper pronunciation and intonation;

2. Use appropriate words and phrases in various social situations;

3. Read elementary texts in pinyin.

Topics:

The basic content will include pronunciation and intonation, basic grammar, Hanyu pinyin Romanization, elementary conversational skills for various social situations, and basic phrases and vocabulary.

Lesson 1: Intro to Pinyin-Chinese phonetics system

Lesson 2: Important verbs

Lesson 3: Numbering, time & date

Lesson 4: Greetings

Lesson 5: Meeting someone

Lesson 6: Making a phone call

Lesson 7: Asking the way

Lesson 8: In the classroom

Lesson 9: At the clothing store

Lesson 10: Shopping for foods

Lesson 11: At the restaurant

Lesson 12: Short test

Method of Instruction:

After the first day of class, the instructor will have an hour of online learning through team viewer or zoom. The following lessons will have tutor video to facilitate the student’s learning process. Start from the fourth lesson, there will have an exercise for students at the end of each lesson and a short test at the end of the course.