Chinese

Chinese Mandarin Complete course (CD)
Chinese Mandarin for English speakers. The course teaches you to write both formal and informal letters and aims to give a good grounding in grammar by covering the main sentence patterns, verb tenses, and basic structures needed to achieve confidence in everyday situations.

• All the texts and exercises are presented in both simplified Chinese characters and in Pinyin. There is a separate Characters/Alphabet book. The Characters book covers the following:
• What are Chinese characters?
• Their evolution
• Types of Script
• Simplified characters
• Radicals
• Finding characters
• Strokes
• Stroke order
• Penmanship

Pinyin is used in the Peoples' Republic as an aid in teaching the national language. The advantage of Pinyin is that it has similar sound values to English, and is hence a simpler way to learn spoken Mandarin.
Although you will encounter various aspects of Chinese grammar as you move through the course, there are also some general notes at the beginning of the course regarding words, nouns, verbs and sentence particles.
At the beginning of the course, you are introduced to the different sounds of Mandarin and then there is a short introduction teaching you to some basic sentences. The course then contains 30 lessons, the titles of which are listed below to give you an idea of the subject matter covered in the course.

1. My Home
2. The four seasons of Peking
3. The Travel Service
4. The Evening meal
5. At Beihai Park
6. A Storm
7. Sunday
8. Father's Birthday
9. Neighbours
10. The Chinese New Year
11. In the department store
12. Paying a visit
13. Peking Metropolitan Airport
14. At the hotel
15. Making phone calls
16. At the Tiananmen and the Old Palace Museum
17. At the market
    
18. Sending mail and telegrams
19. Visiting the Great Wall
20. At the hospital
21. Asking the way
22. Visiting a people's commune
23. Watching a ping-pong match
24. Seeing the Peking opera
25. At a restaurant
26. Taking a train
27. Visiting a school
28. At Shanghai
29. Sightseeing at Xihu
30. At Canton

At the end of the course you can find an alphabetical listing of all the (Pinyin) vocabulary that you cover in the course for quick reference. Contains:

• 9 Compact Discs
• Handbook
• Textbook
• Oral Exercise Book
• Study Guide
• Alphabet book

The Complete Course is perfect if you want to reach a reasonably high level of ability. Whether that is because you are working abroad, studying for an exam or wanting to refresh your skills from previous study.
This course and the others in the Complete range are the most widely used of all our courses as they start from scratch and yet provide the learner with a confident and competent understanding of a new language.
Since the complete course gives you more chance to speak the language, you will benefit from improvements to your fluency, pronunciation and confidence.
CDs
Recordings of native speakers ensure a good accent.
Handbook
The Handbook is your tutor. Written in your own language, it provides you with all the necessary language guidance and explanations. It also includes a list of vocabulary and covers all the grammatical points as new words and phrases are introduced in the recordings.
Textbook
The Textbook is a printed and illustrated transcription of the CD recordings. This means that you can follow the text whilst listening to the CDs and so become familiar with the spelling and structure of the language.
Oral Exercise Book
Spoken practice and exercises improve your accent and pronunciation.
Study Guide
Full instructions on how to plan your study and get the most out of your course.