Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People

Tsinghua University via edX

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Details

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Provider

edX
Pricing

Free Online Course (Audit)
Languages

English
Duration & workload

6 weeks, 2-3 hours a week
Sessions

On-Demand
Level

Beginner
Subtitles

English

A Best Course of All Time

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Overview

This introductory Chinese language course will emphasize basic language skills for everyday life in Mandarin speaking countries.

The course utilizes pinyin, the standard system of Romanized spelling for transliterating Chinese, so learners will find it easy to understand and study the language.

The course is composed of several parts: Dialogues (taught through pinyin), listening comprehension exercises (in real-world situations), Chinese characters (frequently used in daily life), Mandarin songs, and Tea Time (tips for self-study).

This course is for anyone interested in learning Mandarin Chinese, especially if you plan to work or study in Mandarin-speaking countries. The course is also a good start toward the HSK Chinese proficiency test.

Taught by

Xia Ding, Xiaoning Wang, Li Lu and Yuan Li

Reviews

4.8 rating, based on 107 Class Central reviews

Start your review of Tsinghua Chinese: Start Talking with 1.3 Billion People

Sonal P Patel @sonal

It has been a while since I took this course on edX. It is still available on the archived mode on edX, so felt like I would share my review here. I took this class in 2016, in its first iteration at an instructor-paced mode. This was my first…

It has been a while since I took this course on edX. It is still available on the archived mode on edX, so felt like I would share my review here.

I took this class in 2016, in its first iteration at an instructor-paced mode. This was my first introduction to learning mandarin from one of the world's top universities. It was a great introduction. Enjoyed the class and learned to speak a few words and form some incorrect sentenses. It is a greatly organized and well-designed class. To practice, I took this class once again in the self-paced mode and advanced my learning. Language learning is a complex process and learning a language that is very different from yours is a challenge. Still, my beginning of learning this beautiful language from the top instructors has helped me to build my interest, sustained my enthusiasm in continuing to learn, and keep building on my skill at my own pace.

Now, I use many other resources and practice with real tourists from China on college campuses and museums! I also practice daily on Duolingo. It is a difficult language for me, and even after five years since I took this class first, I have not lost interest and am still learning there is so much to learn in this language, it will last me for a lifetime! I am glad I took this class on edX when it was first offered in 2016.

There are many other classes teaching this beautiful language on Coursera and other MOOCs. So, check out this class, and if interested check out classes on other MOOCs too. Class-central has a collection of too many classes to choose from! Happy Learning!
Anonymous

I can't recommend this course enough. This is a masterclass on how an online course should be designed, and how a second language should be introduced. Whether you're living in China or overseas, a total novice or just need a refresher, there's so…

I can't recommend this course enough. This is a masterclass on how an online course should be designed, and how a second language should be introduced. Whether you're living in China or overseas, a total novice or just need a refresher, there's something here for you.

The progression of grammar concepts and vocabulary is spot on - not overly repetitive or patronizingly slow, but also not frustratingly difficult. Where this course really shines is in the review questions between the video segments. Whoever designed these questions deserves an award and a promotion; the incorporation of authentic materials (menus, pictures, conversations and spoken phrases), as well as questions that incorporate contextualization skills is leaps and bounds above most language MOOCs that provide bland, fill-in-the-blank, rote memorization drills. The questions that have you listening to a word or phrase and picking out the tones spoken are extremely practical.

On top of the pedagogy here being top notch, the production values are excellent. This is probably the first, and only, MOOC I'll ever experience with a plot twist. Tea Time with Peter is cheesy but endearing. Again, the standard of authentic materials used to support the learning here is second to none.

I'd recommend this to anyone, anywhere. Kudos to everyone involved on this project, it's an inspiration.
Siripreeya Sonjai @SiripreeyaS

This class is very good for the foreigner to understand and learn Chinese in the easy way. Appreciated all Laoshi and Tsinghua team to prepare this for us. Xiexie!
Anonymous

I've just finished the Mandarin Level 1 course given by Tsinghua University.
The overall course was amazing. Not only very high quality content, and great lessons, but also very useful content for everyday living in China.
The course is also very entertaining, mixing a back story that develops over the whole course.
There are also great technological tips that make Mandarin learning, and living in China easier.

This is an amazing course, everyone interested in starting to learn Mandarin should take it, and should expect completing it and being very motivated to keep on learning, just as I am right now.

Xìexie.
Anonymous

This is the best MOOC i've taken in my life, and i've taken quite a few. It's like being part of a TV show or a movie, where you are part of a story, get to meet characters, identify with them, and feel sad when it all ends. Except that instead of a movie it is your journey into the Chinese world.

The teaching is top-notch, short, lucid videos, plenty of practice exercises, you learn how to write characters, totally practical spoken chinese, excellent actors and overall it is such a fun experience. Best part - its self-paced so no stress about meeting deadlines.

Absolutely worth it.
Anonymous

The content is for beginner, but it's enjoyable to follow with Peter's story here and there. So it's not monotonous.

Even the videos are broken down into one-minute chunks, since they know we're too lazy to watch anything above one-minute. I've learnt Mandarin before and grew tired of the basics already (I'm not saying that I'm proficient already; my real level seems to be stagnating in the basics).

Overall, this course seems interesting as a review. Looking forward to more Peter's adventure.
Anonymous

สอนเข้าใจได้ดีมาก เป็นการเปิดโอกาสให้ได้เรียนรู้จากทางมหาวิทยาลัยโดยตรง ได้ความรู้เยอะมากเลยค่ะ เป็นการเรียนที่ไม่รู้สึกกดดัน รู้สึกสนุกไปด้วยค่ะ
Anonymous

This is one of the better beginner courses I've encountered. The stress on tone is quite good. The character lessons are also insightful, although I must emphasize that Wang Laoshi's stroke order is of utmost importance -- I don't think that was stressed enough. Grammar is not a huge deal in Mandarin, but students should be open-minded to some of the differences from European languages. I have already recommended this course to others, and will continue to do so.
Anonymous

I find this course very useful for beginners to the Chinese language. I love the design and Chinese characters pedagogy in this course. It is very easy to memorize words with their original characters. Thank you so much for such a wonderful and enjoyable course!
Anonymous

This course is good for beginners, it provides a lot of useful phrases. The focus is less on writing, so if you seek to learn written Chinese, it might not be your cup of tea.

2-3 questions in the quizzes were a bit unclear, and the speakers in the audio quizzes are a bit too fast for a complete beginner I think.

I'd also like some basic phrases like: "I did not understand" or "Please talk a bit slower" included in that course.
Anonymous

Quite fun and interesting beginning course. Useful sentences, and teacher can make the difficult chinese character that teacher to easy to remember.
Anonymous

good lesson for beginner. the course was very fun and very easy to understand basic Mandarin Chinese.
Anonymous

Great course for beginners! Easy to understand. Short videos and free you can study from anywhere. The teacher in the video can speak English fluently so it makes listeners understand easier.Animations are also great for learning.
Anonymous

Good lesson. It is quite reasonable long lesson because its content is pretty solid but if you dont have any fundamental Chinese language before then this lesson will be hard to learn
Anonymous

An excellent, pragmatic introduction to Mandarin. The course is very professionally built, and executed. With such a generic, wide approach and course mission it must be very hard to get it right - but the course team miraculously managed to keep the course in the "Goldilocks zone" :
- not too hard to scare beginners, but not too easy and shallow to become useless;
- addressing everything including writing, tones etc, but still not getting lost in details;
- etc
Well done, and 谢谢!
Anonymous

This was he best course I have ever taken. wonderful for beginners like me and the structure of this course was very well. I really felt involved and it as never boring but rather entertaining. I must say that I had no difficulties to follow along and I enjoyed the reading and writing of the chinese characters. I hope there could be a continuation of this course. I would definitely take it. Xiexie
Anonymous

Very good for speak and listening. When i was a girl I learnt chinese for 3 year. one word i wrote Hanzi,pinyin,Thai karaoke of pinyin because i cant remember how to read and meaning. This cause doesn't teach a lot of Hanzi but it's ok. Some word require 10+ stroke just to write one character, may be too hard for beginner.
Anonymous

I really loved this course. It was easy to follow, yet challenging compared to some monotonous online classes. It made me pay special attention to tones and tested me how well I listened. That helped a lot. I also loved that they did not forget to include character writing. The backstory was also very interesting. It was exciting to progress each week. The teachers and staff seemed very warm nice people.
Anonymous

This is a very good course, and covers a lot. It is simply explained, interesting, designed in short palatable pieces and was also really fun. I loved all the presenters on it and I really felt like I was really involved in a group lesson. Very highly recommended to anyone wanting to get a basic grasp of the Chinese language. Thank you Tsinghua University and your exceptional team.
Nkwelle Caleb

I have taken and proud to say i completed the course. Its simple with wonderful lectures and course instructors. the self based aspects is also a great feature. The lessons are just awesome for day to day interactions. The interface and structure, i have also enjoyed. Being free is a massive thumbs up for Tsinghua. I greatly appreciate. If you ever want to get some basics in Chinese Mandarin then just coming running over here.