Chinese Language (CHINL-UH)

Open to students with little or no training in Chinese, this course is designed to develop and reinforce language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as Chinese language relates to everyday life situations. The objectives are: to master the Chinese phonetic system (pinyin and tones) with satisfactory pronunciation; to understand the construction of commonly used Chinese characters (both simplified and traditional) and learn to write them correctly; to understand and use correctly basic Chinese grammar and sentence structures; to build up essential vocabulary; to read and write level appropriate passages; to become acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials.

A continuation of Elementary Chinese I. The course is designed to reinforce and further develop language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as these relate to everyday life situations.

This course is designed to consolidate overall listening and speaking proficiency, with the focus gradually moving toward semi-formal usage of Chinese language in topic-oriented discussions. The objectives are: to be able to obtain information from extended conversation; to both express and expound on, in relative length, feelings and opinions on common topics; to expand vocabulary and learn to decipher the meaning of compound words; to develop reading comprehension of extended narrative, expository, and simple argumentative passages; to solve non-complex textual problems with the aid of dictionaries; to write in Chinese mid-length personal narratives, informational narratives, comparison and discussion of viewpoints with level appropriate vocabulary and grammatical accuracy, as well as basic syntactical cohesion; to continue being acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials.

A continuation of Intermediate Chinese I, focusing on semi-formal usage of Chinese language when discussing more academically-inflected cultural or social topics.

This course is designed to further develop proficiency in speaking and writing through readings on and discussions of socio-cultural topics relevant to today’s China. The main focus is the improvement of reading comprehension and writing skills. The objectives are: to further improve oral communicative competence by incorporating semi-formal or formal usages; to acquire vocabulary and patterns necessary for conducting semi-formal or formal discussions of socio-cultural topics; to increase reading speed of texts with more advanced syntax; to learn to make context-based guesses about the meaning of a new word, conduct sentence analysis and solve textual problems with the aid of dictionaries; to write and present more fully developed narratives or reasoned and structured arguments; to learn to employ basic rhetorical methods; to learn to appreciate stylistic usage of Chinese language.

Continuation of Advanced Chinese I. Designed to reinforce and further develop students' knowledge of formal usage of Chinese language.