Lectures
- 1. Conventions, Pronunciation, Numbering
- 2. Stative Verbs, Time and tense, Pronouns
- 3. Sounds and Symbols - Rhymes
- 4. Action verbs
- 5. Conventional Greetings
- 6. Chinese text
- 7. Dates and Days
- 8. Adverbs
- 9. More SVs
- 10. Nouns and modification
- 11. Location and existence
- 12. Miscellany and Dialogue
- 13. Review
- 14. Compound characters
- 15. Second set of characters
- 16. Third set of characters
- 17. Amount, Nationality
- 18. Form of characters
- 19. Cardinal directions
- 20. Yes and no, thanks and sorry
- 21. Things to drink
- 22. Why, because, so
- 23. Money and Other numbered sets
- 24. Sounds and Pinyin
- 25. Courses and classes
- 26. Chars 3, First Set
- 27. Places
- 28. Time Phrases
- 29. Chars 3, Third Set
- 30. Names in detail
- 31. Studying and working
- 32. Forms of address
- 33. Introductions
- 34. Dialogue: on the bus to Miányáng
- 35. Food
Chinese I (MIT)
Course Summary
This course is based on 21F.101/21F.151 Chinese I (Regular) made available by Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare under the Creative Commons BY-NC-SA license.
The purpose of this course is to develop (i) Basic conversational abilities (pronunciation, fundamental grammatical patterns, common vocabulary, and standard usage) (ii) Basic reading and writing skills (in both the traditional character set and the simplified) and (iii) An understanding of the language learning process so that you are able to continue studying effectively on your own. The course does not require any prior background in Chinese.
This is the first of a complete sequence of four Chinese language courses, covering beginning to intermediate levels of instruction offered at MIT. The course material accompanying this course includes a downloadable textbook and audio recordings.
Reading Material
1. Textbook: Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin Part 1J. K. Wheatley, Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin. Part 1.
(The textbook sections can be downloaded at the links below)
Preface (PDF file, 240 KB)
Table of Contents (PDF file, 176 KB)
Unit 1 (PDF file, 437 KB)
Unit 2 (PDF file, 696 KB)
Unit 3 (PDF file, 613 KB)
Unit 4 (PDF file, 927 KB)
Chars 1 (PDF file, 437 KB)
Chars 2 (PDF file, 592 KB)
Chars 3(PDF file, 644 KB)
Course Material
1. Notes on character stroke orderLesson 1 (PDF)
Lesson 2 (PDF)
Lesson 3 (PDF)
Other Resources
1. nciku - Online English Chinese dictionarynciku is a free Chinese-English and English-Chinese online dictionary. It has many other features that help users improve their language ability including tools for handwriting recognition, discussions about anything Chinese or China related, vocabulary lists, memorization tests, Hanyu Pinyin with sound and conversations where you can study, edit and save real-life phrases.
2. On-line Chinese Language Tools
This website provides various tools to assist people in learning and using the Chinese language. Check out the DimSum Chinese Reading Assistant, Character Flashcards, the Chinese/English dictionary, the Chinese Namer, and the Western/Chinese Calendar Converter.