UCL CENTRE FOR LANGUAGES &
INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION
Evening Courses
Mandarin Level 1+
Prerequisite for entry
Successful completion of Mandarin syllabus level 1 at UCL Language Centre. Basic
knowledge of Mandarin Chinese or Cantonese.
Term duration
10 x 2-hour classes.
Aims and Objectives
The course aims to build on and strengthen students’ basic knowledge of Mandarin Chinese
to feel more confident about pronunciation, listening, reading and writing some Chinese
characters to function at a basic everyday survival level. By the end of the course, students
should be able to master in writing 100-150 Chinese characters, read words and phrases in
the text books in both pinyin and Chinese characters, as well as learn further more about
approaching some authentic materials.
Functions
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Shopping
Identifying colours, and asking for items
Describing a person's appearance and body parts
Talking about weather
Asking and giving advice for transportation
Making plans and invitations
Expressing alternatives and preferences
Talking about recreational activities
Course Content: Main topics/themes to be covered
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Time and appointments
Directions, and transportation
Holiday plans, and daily activities
Shopping and colours
Linguistic Structures/ Phonetics
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Confidence with the 4 tones
Be familiar with the pinyin pronunciation
UCL Language Centre
Evening Courses
1
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Further practice on sentence stress and intonation
Grammar
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Verb yao4
Determiners/ Adverbials: zhe4 and na4
Postposition: zai4
Particle: le for past tense and present perfect tense
Aspectual particle: duo4
Modal verbs: kei3yi3, hui4
Negative mei2 and bu4
Interrogative pronouns: ji3 and duo1shao3
Quantifier; difference between liang3 and er4 for two
Conjunction: hai2 shi4 and huo4 zhe3
Learning Resources
Books
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Discover China: Student's Book One, edited by Chen Xin, Jing Lili , Macmillan.
Bilingual Dictionaries
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Langenscheidt's Pocket Dictionary Chinese/English English/Chinese
Oxford Beginners’ dictionary
Macmillan-FLTRP Chinese Character Dictionary
Websites
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dictionary: http://www.zdic.net/zd/zi/ZdicE5Zdic8CZdic97.htm
characters producer: http://web.mtc.ntnu.edu.tw:88/ebook/index.aspx
In addition there are supplementary materials for self-study in the Self-Access Centre
UCL Language Centre
Evening Courses
2