CHIN 1001 - Chinese IA

Chinese IA is a course for beginners in the language, followed by Chinese IB in semester 2 to build up basic knowledge and skills in Chinese. Native speakers or heritage speakers of Mandarin Chinese are not eligible for this course. Students who have studied Chinese before should contact the lecturers concerned to decide the best level at which to place them. Chinese IA teaches the fundamental grammar and vocabulary of modern standard Chinese (formerly known as Mandarin). This is the educated speech of North China which is now the official national language. Simplified characters are taught. The vocabulary reflects usage in contemporary China. It is expected that at the end of the course students should be able to master the Chinese phonetic system (Hanyu Pinyin), and should have an active vocabulary of around 200 Chinese characters and associated compounds concentrating on vocabulary that relates to contemporary China.