Mandarin Chinese Essentials (edX)

Chinese is a critical language for all global organizations. Mandarin Chinese Essentials features a thorough basic Chinese virtual learning experience at your pace!

Switching from Latin alphabet or other phonogram languages to Chinese can be intimidating and frustrating. This prerequisite course breaks down all basic characteristics of Chinese language, ensuring you have a solid foundation to be a competent speaker in a business environment.

We will introduce one rule with practices and related dialogues through videos that include practical business conversations.

We provide solid learning system that is essential for beginners to differentiate and construct sentences, and then use them in workplace and business scenarios.

If you enroll in the verified track, you will be able to participate in the Webinar lectured by Dr. Estella Y. Chen, who will lead the discussion with a wide variety of popular topics to accompany you to the world of chinese business culture and trend.

What's more, in the verified track, we'll give you three pronunciation lessons that will help you communicate more smoothly and effectively in a business environment.

No previous knowledge needed. We start from the beginning!

This course was developed with the assistance of Dr. Haohsiang Liao, Director of the Chinese Language Program at MIT.

This course is part of the Mandarin Communication Professional Certificate.
What you'll learn

- Five essential characteristics of Mandarin Chinese: tones, pinyin, grammar, characters, and basic structures

- Greater insight into Chinese culture

- Essential and practical communication skills

- A solid start toward masteringMandarin for business

- Build your confidence to communicate effectively with colleagues, clients, and friends in Chinese

Syllabus

Week 1: Tones

Learn the most crucial characteristic of Mandarin Chinese-tones. You cannot speak Mandarin without singing, without tones.

Week 2: Pinyin

It is absolutely useful for beginners to learn Pinyin, a transcription consisting of Latin characters.

Week 3: Chinese characters

After learning Pinyin and tones, you may try to 'draw' characters stroke by stroke.

Week 4: One Character One Syllable

It is essential to know that one character contains only one syllable. There is no prefix or suffix in Chinese.

Week 5: One basic Chinese structure

Introduction to basic Chinese structure, knowing and practicing basic sentences in everyday scenario.