Canal in Suzhou, 1982. (Image by Julian Wheatley.)
This course features a downloadable textbook in the
readings section, audio lectures in
study materials, and extensive information about test materials in the
assignments section.
This subject is the second semester of two that form an introduction to modern standard Chinese, commonly called Mandarin. Though not everyone taking this course will be an absolute beginner, the course
presupposes only
21F.101/151, the beginning course in the sequence. The purpose of this course is to develop: (a) basic conversational abilities (pronunciation, fundamental grammatical patterns, common vocabulary, and standard usage); (b) basic reading skills (in both the traditional character set and the simplified); (c) an understanding of the way the Chinese writing system is structured, and the ability to copy and write characters; and (d) a sense of what learning a language like Chinese entails, and the sort of learning processes that it involves, so students are able to continue studying effectively on their own.
The main text is J. K. Wheatley's Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin, part II (unpublished, but available online). (Part I of the book forms the basis of 21F.101/151, which is also published on OpenCourseWare.)
技术需求
Special software is required to use some of the files in this course: .mp3.
Microsoft® Internet Explorer (version 5.0+) on Microsoft® Windows®:
From VIEW menu select Encoding... Chinese Simplified.
Netscape® (version 7.0+) on Microsoft® Windows®:
From VIEW menu, select Character Coding...Chinese Simplified.
Microsoft® Internet Explorer (version 5.0+) on Macintosh® OS 9 or X:
From VIEW menu select Character Set… Chinese Simplified.
Netscape® (version 7.0+) on Macintosh® OS 9 or X:
From VIEW menu select Character Coding...Chinese Simplified.
Safari on Macintosh® OS X:
From VIEW menu select Text Encoding... Chinese Simplified.
