This is an archived course. A more recent version may be available at ocw.mit.edu.

Chinese I (Regular)

An image of a front door in Zhenjiang, central China. A banner and a mailbox hang on the door.

Front door, Zhenjiang, central China. (Image courtesy of Julian K. Wheatley.)

Instructor(s)

MIT Course Number

21G.101 / 21G.151

As Taught In

Spring 2006

Level

Undergraduate / Graduate

Course Features

Course Description

This subject is the first 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 no prior background in the language. The purpose of this course is to develop:

  • Basic conversational abilities (pronunciation, fundamental grammatical patterns, common vocabulary, and standard usage)
  • Basic reading and writing skills (in both the traditional character set and the simplified)
  • An understanding of the language learning process so that you are able to continue studying effectively on your own.

The main text is Wheatley, J. K. Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin. Part I. (unpublished, but available online). (Part II of the book forms the basis of 21G.102 / 152, which is also published on OpenCourseWare.)

Chinese Sequence on OCW

OpenCourseWare now offers a complete sequence of four Chinese language courses, covering beginning to intermediate levels of instruction at MIT. They can be used not just as the basis for taught courses, but also for self-instruction and elementary-to-intermediate review.

The four Chinese subjects provide the following materials: an online textbook in four parts, J. K. Wheatley's Learning Chinese: A Foundation Course in Mandarin; audio files of the main conversational and narrative material in this book; and syllabi and day-by-day schedules for each term.
CHINESE COURSES COURSE SITES
Chinese I (Spring 2006) 21G.101/151
Chinese II (Spring 2006) 21G.102/152
Chinese III (Fall 2005) 21G.103
Chinese IV (Spring 2006) 21G.104

Other OCW Versions

OCW has published multiple versions of this subject. Question_OVT logo

Archived versions: Question_avt logo

Julian Wheatley. 21G.101 Chinese I (Regular), Spring 2006. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), https://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA


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