Elementary Chinese

Chinese 125-126

This course will allow you to breach another "Great Wall of China"--the language barrier. We will learn the basics of Mandarin Chinese (called Hanyu, Putonghua, or Guoyu) the national language of both the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Republic of China (ROC, or Taiwan.) During the first two weeks of CN 125 we will concentrate on the sound system and writing system covered in the introductory portion of our textbook. During the remainder of the first semester we will proceed to some of the more basic sentence patterns, vocabulary and characters introduced in Lessons 1-8. In the second semester (CN 126) we will continue to learn basic sentence patterns. Vocabulary will be introduced in the pinyin romanization system; we will learn characters in their traditional (rather than simplified) form.

Textbooks:
Integrated Chinese Level 1 Part 1 3rd Edition [Fall Semester] and Level 1 Part 2 3rd Edition [Spring Semester] (Textbooks, Character Workbooks & Workbooks) Tao-chung Yao et al (Boston: Cheng and Tsui, 2009) The textbooks can be purchased at the Colby College bookstore.

Course Schedules

Our Class

CN 125 F 2008
CN 126 S 2009

LRC Resources

Tapes accompanying "Integrated Chinese" Level 1 Part 1 Textbook, & Level 1 Part 1 Workbook (3rd edition) can be accessed through the LRC Virtual Listening Lab
"The Bihua Project" Search Engine--Allows you to search for characters, and then to watch how they are written, and listen to how they are pronounced.
Instructions on how to configure your computer to download and access MPEG4 files (for the Bihua project among other uses.)
Instructions on how to make sound files and send them. (For your oral assignments.)

Internet Resources for Beginning Chinese Language Study

Integrated Chinese Homepage This is the home-page for our textbook.
Chinese Pronunciaton Guide Information and Exercises on Chinese Pronunciation
Pinyin exercises from the University of Iowa Great exercises for practicing tones, initials and finals!
Exercises These web-based interactive exercises supplement some of the grammar points covered in Integrated Chinese.
Games These web-based interactive games will help you learn the vocabulary covered in the lessons of Integrated Chinese--the games are fun, check them out!
Berkeley Integrated Chinese Site Web-based activities to allow you to practice and review the vocabulary and patterns introduced in the lessons of Integrated Chinese. Another really fun and useful site.
"Teaching and Learning Chinese" This page contains links to many useful sites for beginning to advanced Chinese language students.
Learning Chinese Online Another page with many links to useful sites for beginning Chinese language learning.
NYU Class Notes Notes on the characters in each lesson. (You may download them onto your computer.) The author, Moss Roberts, is an erudite scholar, and the notes include all sorts of interesting information on the history of the characters.
Marjorie Chan's China Links This is the most extensive site out there for information about Chinese language learning and linguistics.
Zhongwen.com A Chinese online dictionary and character geneology, with other useful links
Chinese pod A site where you can download (for a monthly fee) mini-lessons on a wide variety of topics, which are constantly being added to--a very good site for improving your listening comprehension and broadening your vocabulary.
On-line Chinese Tools Provides a variety of tools to assist Chinese learning.
Lost-theory Chinese pages Links to a number of sites useful for learning the Chinese languages

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