 |
 EUROPEAN CENTRE OF CHINESE STUDIES |
Chinese Mandarin Courses
In this course participants will be taught how to write the commonly used Chinese radicals that still form the basis of modern Chinese writing. By mastering these radicals students will learn other ideographs more easily and how to use a Chinese/English dictionary more quickly. Students will also learn to converse in everyday situations. The approach used to teach writing reading and conversing is based wholly on Accelerated Learning Techniques.
ECCS Course Structure for Mandarin Classes
| Level | Each Term of 10 Weeks ie. 20 hours |
| Level 1 | Learn over 400 written & spoken words. |
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Level 2 |
Learn another 400 new words; Total: 800 words!!! Learn to use a Chinese Dictionary. |
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Level 3 |
Revise the first 2 levels using a drama playscript and learn more new words & some grammar. You now have a total vocabulary of about 1000 Chinese words. |
| Level 4 | Acquire more new words and focus on Pin Yin and tones. |
| Level 5 | Gain knowledge on advanced grammar and some more new words. |
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Level 6 |
Consolidate your vocabulary to almost a total of 1500 words, both spoken and written. |
| Levels 7 to 9 | Have more practice in practical conversations. |
| Levels 10 to 14 |
You are now able to read short stories and discuss them in Mandarin. |
| Level 15 upwards | You are now fairly proficient in Mandarin and can converse in business topics. |
The courses are based on 10 lessons of 2 hours duration each and are held in the city venue.
Private company or group classes can also be arranged.
Current timetables for Mandarin Courses.
For the futher details, pricing or an enrolment form email us to info@eccschinese.com
Chinese Writing
Chinese writing has no alphabetical order therefore it is difficult to remember the ideographs through memorisation, since there are no sequential links connecting them. There are 214 elementary pictographs that form the basis of Chinese writing. These pictographs originated literally from pictures drawn of objects, animals, phenomena of nature etc. These pictures have changed over the years but many can be identified from their original representations eg. The word for "human being" is:
These pictographs evolved over the centuries of Chinese civilisation into symbols that stand for abstract ideas. Thus simple pictographs evolved further into ideographs. Gradually ideographs were combined with a kind of phonetic script to make new words. The Chinese language is constantly evolving and there is an infinite number of words that can emerge through the combinations of the 214 elementary pictographs called 'Chinese radicals'. Alternatively a new word can be formed by combining two or more radicals. And this is only the beginning. Such is the genius of Chinese writing.
Chinese characters evolved over time from earlier forms of hieroglyphs
Dominique Gamble
