Mandarin 101 for Complete Beginners

Kickoff Your Mandarin Learning Journey with a NY State Certified Teacher

Hi there!

Ever sit through a late night Kung-Fu movie and wish that you could understand the Mandarin spoken and not listen to the terrible translation voice-over?

Or order the "good stuff" written on the walls of Chinese restaurants?

If so, this Mandarin Chinese course will get you well on your way to being a Mandarin speaking, listening, reading and writing pro.

This course was created for complete beginners to start out your Mandarin learning process with an engaging, practical, informative and systematic instruction. Students of this Mandarin 101 course will be introduced to the Chinese phonetic system-pinyin and the basics to form Chinese characters, in order to develop the skills required for comprehension, communication, reading and writing in the Chinese language. Course work will provide you with opportunities to perform beginning level tasks in listening, speaking, reading and writing, with a cultural frame of reference reflective of the richness of Chinese language and culture.

The format of the lessons is a combination of video lectures and Powerpoint slides. Each lesson is about 20 minutes. In each section, you will practice topic vocabulary through hands-on activities and real life conversations, and resolve common grammatical challenges new Mandarin learners face. You will also have access to vocabulary flashcards, character writing worksheets, dialogues, and film or music resources. In addition, I will direct you to other supplementary online resources that will help reinforce the skills learned in my lessons.

The content in this Mandarin course typically takes a student a full academic semester to learn in a traditional school environment. After you complete this course, you will have learned over 200 vocabulary and sentence patterns, and be Mandarin confident to navigate through shopping malls, restaurants, social events and family gatherings - everywhere Mandarin Chinese is spoken.

Join me in this course! I look forward to supporting you in your Mandarin learning journey!

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Tips to Succeed in This Course:

1. View course lessons in sequence. Each lesson is built upon the last.

2. Take notes!!! Taking physical notes helps improve your conceptual understanding and retention of the material, especially when you are learning a different writing system. If you follow along and write the characters once in class, it takes less effort to study them outside the classroom.

3. Have fun and remember to breathe... Mandarin is easiest when... you are not tense or nervous about speaking :)