Chinese Language Courses at UVM

Chinese Language Courses

"The world is of the opinion that those who know Chinese characters are wise and worthy, .…"

Zheng Qiao (1104-1162), Encyclopedic Annals

1. Elementary Chinese (CHIN 001/002)

CHN 001 Course Objectives: 1. To enable you to communicate (listen, speak, read, write) accurately and appropriately in simple Chinese for common everyday purposes such as greeting, introducing friends and relatives, identifying people or objects, asking for one's personal information (including name, occupation, nationality, address, phone number), expressing gratitude to someone, sending someone your regard, making a reply to a complimentary remark, talking about your family, your school and your studies, looking for someone, seeing a guest off, asking the time, making an appointment, making an invitation, making a suggestion, asking for someone’s opinion, buying something, and offering congratulations.
2. To lay a good foundation for you to further your studies of the Chinese language at intermediate level by helping you (a) to master the Chinese phonetic system so as to be able to speak Chinese with correct pronunciation and intonation, (b) to understand the basic Chinese grammatical concepts so as to monitor your own Chinese language production, (c) to be aware of some of aspects of Chinese culture imbedded in the Chinese language, and (d) to know the structures of Chinese characters so that you are able to recognize and write approximately 200 Chinese characters.

Exercises on-line:

Chinese Phonetics
Chinese Character Writing Sheets
Study files for the courses (including PDF files for vocabulary, writing sheets with gridlines, example sentences, dictation sentences, grammar notes, mp3 files, etc.)

CHN 002 Course Objectives: 1. Based on what you learned in CHN 001, CHN 002 will continue to help you to acquire the four language skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing), so that you can communicate accurately and appropriately in simple Chinese for common everyday purposes such as buying something, serving a customer, making an invitation, making an appointment, offering congratulations, asking for one's age, asking for opinions from others, presenting a gift, asking the way, making a telephone call, refusing politely, shopping, entertaining a guest, asking for information, complimenting, exchanging amenities, making a plan, asking for permission, welcoming a guest, waiting for someone, proposing a toast (if you are above 21 years old), confirming something, talking about ball games, seeing someone off, traveling, and buying tickets.
2. To help you get fully ready for the second year Chinese. We will help you (a) to speak Chinese with correct pronunciation and intonation by practicing reading aloud and by getting to know more about the sense group stress and the sentence tunes in Chinese, (b) to understand more about the basic Chinese grammatical concepts so that you can monitor your own Chinese language production better, (c) to be aware of many aspects of Chinese culture imbedded in the Chinese language, (d) to know better the structures of Chinese characters and their meanings so that you can recognize and write approximately another 250 Chinese characters (in addition to 200 learned in CHN 001), and (e) to learn how to look up a unknown Chinese word or character in a Chinese dictionary.

Exercises on-line:

Chinese Character Writing Sheets
Study files for the courses (including PDF files for vocabulary, writing sheets with gridlines, example sentences, dictation sentences, grammar notes, mp3 files, etc.)

2. Chinese Characters (CHIN 020)

CHN 020 Fundamentals of Chinese Characters This is an introductory course on Chinese characters. It helps students without any Chinese language background to understand the structure and meaning of the most commonly used Chinese characters. Students learn 229 most basic Chinese characters and components that form hundreds and thousands of other Chinese characters and words.
Presentation and study files for the course (including PDF files for graphics, characters, writing sheets)

3. Intermediate Chinese (CHIN 051/052)

CHN 051/CHN 052 These two course (CHN 052 is the continuation of CHN 051) are designed to help students who have completed one year of college level training in Chinese (i.e., CHN 001 and CHN 002) to develop their knowledge of spoken and written Chinese and to assist them in gaining a proficiency in using the knowledge in real life situation. Listening, speaking, writing, and reading comprehension are all emphasized in the courses. By the end of the semester, students are expected to have mastered another 500 Chinese characters in addition to the 500 chracters learned in CHN 001 and CHN 002, have a good knowledge of the basic Chinese grammar concepts, have acquired practical language skills that they can apply to a variety of everyday situations.
Course Objectives: The intent of these courses is to enable students to accomplish the following goals:
1. To be able to express, explain, and describe facts, emotions, ideas, and situations with appropriate vocabulary, sentence patterns, and grammar
2. To be able to participate in casual conversation with native speakers
3. To be able to write short essays in Chinese on subjects related to daily life
4. To be able to understand some aspects of Chinese culture
5. To be prepared to study in China

Exercises on-line:

Chinese Character Writing Sheets
Presentation and study files for the courses (including PDF files for vocabulary, example sentences, dictation sentences, grammar notes, writing sheets with gridlines, etc.)

4. Third Year College Chinese (CHIN 101/102)

CHN 101/CHN 102 These courses are designed for students who have completed two years of college-level training in Chinese (i.e., CHN 001, CHN 002, CHN 051, and CHN 052). They aim at helping students to develop their ability to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. They seek to enable students to understand face-to-face conversations on most familiar topics in their daily life, give factual accounts, read materials written in relatively formal style, and write simples essays, reports, and all types of correspondence. Authentic reading and listening materials including those from the Internet are used. The courses are conducted entirely in Mandarin Chinese.
Study files for the courses (including e-texts and mp3 files for each lesson)

5. Fourth Year College Chinese (CHIN 201/202)

CHN 201 This course is designed for students who have completed three years of college-level training in Chinese (i.e., CHN 001/002, CHN 051/052, and CHN 101/102) to improve speaking and writing proficiency in Chinese. Students present, explain, and argue for their viewpoints orally and in written compositions after reading selected original Chinese source materials on contemporary Chinese society.
Study files for the courses (including e-texts and mp3 files for each lesson)

CHN 202 This is continuation of CHN 201, and it is also designed for students who have had three and half years of college-level training in Chinese. This course seeks to provide students ample opportunities to sharpen their debating skills in Chinese.
Study files for the courses (including e-texts and mp3 files for each lesson)

6. Third Year Conversation (CHIN 121/122)

CHN 121/122 (3^rd Year Conversation) Conversational Chinese 121/122 is designed for students who have completed at least two years of college-level training in Chinese and would like to continue to improve their speaking proficiency in order to be able to present paragraph level discourse on such topics as Restaurants and Food, College Life, House and Housework, Women’s Role, Jobs, Movies and Movie Stars, Spring Festival and Other Holidays, Residential Community and Home Improvement, Chinese Modern Writers and Their Works, Shopping, Looking Jobs and Unemployment, and Small Businesses.

Study files for the course (including question sheets and mp3 files)