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Revised November 2024
Prerequisite for entry
Successful completion of Mandarin syllabus level 2 at UCL Centre for Languages & International Education or a low GCSE grade (or equivalent).
Term duration
10 x 2-hour classes.
Aims and objectives
The course aims to strengthen students’ basic knowledge of Mandarin to reach an intermediate level and to communicate in and understand Mandarin on many practical everyday matters related to various aspects of Chinese culture. Students are encouraged to express their ideas in discussions of a limited range of topics and expected to be able to read text without pinyin.
Functions
- Making invitations and explaining reasons
- Talking about weather and what clothes to wear
- Making exchanges between a host and a guest during a home visit
- Asking for and giving directions and suggestions
Course content
Main topics/themes to be covered:
- Daily routines
- Weather, seasons and clothes to wear
- Home visits, Chinese New Year
- Transport, distance and directions
Linguistic structures/ Phonetics
- Difference between “z” and “zh”
- Difference between “c” and “ch”
- Difference between “uo” and “e”
- The initials “zh” “ch” “sh”
Grammar
- The auxiliary words 得
- Topic-comment sentences
- 了as a particle and an auxiliar word
- Expressing succession using 一......就......
- Expressing similarity using A和B+差不多/一样
- Making comparisons using A比/没有B+ adjective
- Expressing future actions with 要/会
- Expressing actions in progress using 正在
- Expressing “both…and…” with 又......又......
- Expressing sequences with 先......然后......
- Expressing distance using 从A到B
- Using 以后/......的时候
Learning resources
Books
Discover China: Student's Book Two, edited by Chen Xin, Jing Lili , Macmillan, Chapters 1-4
ISBN: 9780230406391
Discover China: Workbook Two, Chapters 1-4
ISBN: 9780230406407
Bilingual Dictionaries
- Oxford Concise English Chinese/Chinese English Dictionary
Websites
In addition there are supplementary materials for self-study in the Self-Access Centre.
