Dec 05 2007
Learn Chinese
Module 1: Basic Chinese 初級中文
By the time you finish Module 1, you should have built your basic speaking ability up to the point where you can carry on a conversation about any kind of daily task, whether at home, work, school, travel, shopping, leisure, gossip, and even in some emergency situations. Although your vocabulary is still limited, you should be able to handle yourself in a great variety of situations with your communication strength lying mostly in the use of verbs, when and how things happened. The most important goal of Module 1 is to build as much expression and flexibility of the use of a limited vocabulary.
Now, on to the lessons.
| Lesson 01. Who’s Who | Text | Video |
| Lesson 02. Names | Text | Video |
| Lesson 03. Nationalities | Text | Video |
| Lesson 04. Pronouns | Text | Video |
| Lesson 05. Excuse me | Text | Video |
| Lesson 06. Location, Where? | Text | Video |
| Lesson 07. Daily Activities, Expressing Continuous Action | Text | Video |
| Lesson 08. Playing, With | Text | Video |
| Lesson 09. Numbers, Time, Daily Activities (continuous) | Text | Video |
| Lesson 10. Ordinal Numbers, Telling Time/Dates | Text | Video |
| Lesson 11. Adverbs of Time, When?, Expressing Past Action | Text | Video |
| Lesson 12. Adjectives and Nouns, Comparisons | Text | Video |
| Lesson 13. Have, Can, Want, Activities, Expressing Present Perfect, Future Adjectives (will it be…) | Text | Video |
| Lesson 14. Ability, Possibility/Would/Could, Lend/Borrow/Give, Good At… | ||
| Lesson 15. Senses vs. Action (hear/listen), Willing, Should | ||
| Lesson 16. Directionals, Action Verbs+Direction (up/down/over/across/away…) | ||
| Lesson 17. Tell What Something Is/Says, Trying, Doing for a Moment | ||
| Lesson 18. Weather, Seasons | ||
| Lesson 19. Family Members, Adjectives, Conversation Review | ||
| Lesson 20. Before/After/Later, Places Around Town | ||
| Lesson 21. Clothes, Getting Dressed | ||
| Lesson 22. Laundry, Wash/Iron/Wrinkle/Ruin/Hang | ||
| Lesson 23. Expressing Past Tense | ||
| Lesson 24. Perfective Aspect, Already, Not Yet, Perfect Tense | ||
| Lesson 25. Change in Situation for Present and Future, Adjectives | ||
| Lesson 26. Perfect Continuous Tense | ||
| Lesson 27. Right Now, Continuous Aspect | ||
| Lesson 28. Continuous Aspect | ||
| Lesson 29. Experential Aspect | ||
| Lesson 30. Near and Distant Future | ||
| Lesson 31. Have To, Must | ||
| Lesson 32. Jobs, Noun Suffixes | ||
| Lesson 33. Always, Before, After, Later | ||
| Lesson 34. Driving, Lost, Parking | ||
| Lesson 35. Assuming, Originally, Was Supposed to/Going to | ||
| Lesson 36. Making it There on Time | ||
| Lesson 37. Getting Hurt, Injuries, Body Parts | ||
| Lesson 38. Heard Bad News, Consolation, Expressing Past Continuous | ||
| Lesson 39. As Much As Possible | ||
| Lesson 40. Inviting, Rejecting Advances and Invitations, Giving Excuses | ||
| Lesson 41. Doing Something Really Well, Special Verb Structure | ||
| Lesson 42. Decided to… | ||
| Lesson 43. Keep on Doing, Decided to… | ||
| Lesson 44. Working Overtime, Taking Off Work | ||
| Lesson 45. Won’t/Can’t Do Until | ||
| Lesson 46. Start, Hate, Avoid, Quit, Consider, Enjoy, Extend, Postpone, Suggest | ||
| Lesson 47. Paying, Check Out | ||
| Lesson 48. Airport, Customs, Baggage | ||
| Lesson 49. Banking, Loan/Mortgage, Bank Account | ||
| Lesson 50. Paying Bills |
Lesson 01. BPMF, DTNL, GKH, IU
Lesson 02. JQX, IU
Lesson 03.
Lesson 04.
Lesson 05.
Lesson 06.
Lesson 07.
Lesson 08.
Lesson 09.
Lesson 10.
Lesson 01. Students and Teachers
Lesson 02. School, Neighborhood, Renting
Lesson 03. Renting, Neighborhood, Home
Lesson 04. Home Activities
Lesson 05. School, Home, Eating
Lesson 06. Home
Lesson 07. Bedroom, Clothes
Lesson 08. Cleaning Up
Lesson 09. Cleaning Up
Lesson 10. Around Home and School
Lesson 11. Getting Around
Lesson 12. Around Town, Weather
Lesson 13. Weather, Seasons
Lesson 14. Seasons, Activities
Lesson 15. Doctor, Medical, Sick
Lesson 16. Hospital, Medical, Sick
Lesson 17. Miscellaneous Practice
Lesson 18. Miscellaneous Practice
Lesson 19. Eating Out
Lesson 20. Chinese Food
Lesson 21. Exercise
Lesson 22. Teachers
Lesson 23. Leisure Activities
Lesson 24. Leisure Activities
Lesson 25. Public Transport
Lesson 26. Shopping
Lesson 27. Shopping
Lesson 28. At Work
Lesson 29. Adjectives
Lesson 30.
Lesson 31.
Lesson 32.
Lesson 33.
Lesson 34.
Lesson 35.
Lesson 36.
Lesson 37.
Lesson 38.
Lesson 39.
Lesson 40.
Module 2 Intermediate Chinese 中級中文
Now that you’ve built up your core communicative abilities from Module 1, we’ll move on to build your expressive abilities. This is where your command of the language will come alive by delving into Chinese culture, exploring its vast history and its stories, providing a huge boost to your vocabulary which will enable you to speak at a more proficient level. This module teaches thousands of vocabulary, practices about 4000 sample sentences, and then the reading of 160 stories in the following areas:
We will also prepare some supplementary modules for the following subjects:
Module 3 Advanced Chinese 高級中文
With just the first two modules, you have all the tools to function normally as an educated citizen in Chinese society giving you complete language independence. In the advanced module, we look to take your Chinese further in business (商業), translation (翻譯), the art of rhetoric (修辭學), negotiation (談判), public speaking (演說), and common sayings (成語、歇後語、等等).
Meet the Cast
The guy on the left is Mike. He’ll probably appear in almost all the videos. He studied linguistics and has been speaking Chinese for over a decade and also speaks Min and Wu, commonly known as Taiwanese and Shanghainese. He loves trying to figure out more efficient ways of learning and explaining languages. He’s so used to talking to speakers of other languages that he tends to say the same thing many times in different ways so he tends to sound a little long-winded.
The girl on the right is Jasmine. She appears in most of the Module 1 videos. She grew up in Taipei and her native language is Mandarin. She studied foreign language studies and is also a runway model. She has studied English and French and although she’s shy in using them we need to give her more confidence in speaking English.
The girl on the right is Kelly. She appears in some of the supplementary videos. She grew up in Taipei and her native language is Mandarin. She also understands Wu commonly known as Shanghainese. She studied tourism, has worked in the service industry, and has lived abroad in Canada before so she speaks English. She’s always got a big smile and one of her favorite things to do is go to the beach and tan. Her English is not that bad, but if you speak Chinese to her, she’ll always speak Chinese.
The girl on the right is Mischa. She appears in some of the supplementary videos. She grew up in Taipei and her native language is Mandarin. She studied tourism and English and currently works in the service industry. A little shy in using her English, sometimes her English seems better than you might have originally thought.