学汉语到新语翔

Level 1                          

                                        Preface

Chinese Express-Talk Chinese is designed for English speakers studying Chinese at beginner’s level. It is for university students who choose Chinese as a module, people who join evening courses at unibersities or community colleges, and students who want a suitable book for self-study.

Chinese Express-Talk Chinese is concise and user-friendly. It is a book which should be as easy for students to study as for teachers to use. It is different from other textbooks insofar as Pinyin, Chinese characters and English are used together throughout the whole book. This will suit students who only need to learn listening or speaking as much as those who want to learn reading and writing as well.

Chinese Express-Talk Chinese uses a communicative approach and places emphasis on learning communication skills. 188 key sentences make up the main structure of the book, around which situational dialogues are introduced, covering the most useful situations in real life. Language Points are explained in simple English and set out in a logical step-by-step order that is easy to understand. This is designed to give students the opportunity to gain confidence in using the most common vocabulary and grammar relevant to everyday situations.

Chinese Express-Talk Chinese covers Chinese essential grammar points and is equivalent to university beginner’s level in listening and speaking. Each lesson consists of about 7 to 8 sentences, and about 25 new words and expressions. The whole book introduces around 550 of the most frequently used words in daily life. There are altogether 25 main lessons and 5 summary lessons. It takes about 2 hours to cover each lesson, 60 to 70 hours for the whole book. Relevant cultural insights are given within each summary lesson.

The authors of this book believe in learning through doing and this plays a very important role in the lessons in Chinese Express. Each lesson includes an assortment of exercises designed to make students think more about the language as they learn it, so that they can understand and respond more confidently when confronted with the same situations in real life.

The authors would like to thank Professor Shiju Zhao and Dr Yinghua Zhai from Wuhan University in China for checking the grammar and giving professional advice. We also would like to thank Robert McCready and Nigel Pamment for their suggestions and support during the writing of this book and for their assistance in proofreading the book. Our special thanks go to Anthony Ward for kindly polishing our English. Finally, we would like to express our gratitude to Zhansheng Xia, Xian Xu and Wenqing Zhang of the Cypress Book Company for their assistance and professional guidance in preparing this book for publication.

       

Contents

The Sounds of Chinese

Lesson 1    Greetings & Farewells

Lesson 2    Names & Titles

Lesson 3    Nationalities & Languages

Lesson 4    Days & Dates

Lesson 5    Time & Daily Routine

Lesson 6    Summary for Lessons 1-5

Lesson 7    Addresses & Telephone Numbers

Lesson 8    Family & Family Members

Lesson 9    Work & Professions

Lesson 10   Interests & Abilities

Lesson 11   Invitations & Appointments

Lesson 12   Summary for Lessons 7-11

Lesson 13   Telephoning & Messages

Lesson 14   Money & Currency

Lesson 15   Shops & Shopping

Lesson 16   Colours & Clothing

Lesson 17   Size & Style

Lesson 18   Summary for Lessons 13-17

Lesson 19   Food & Restaurants

Lesson 20   Cafes, Pubs & Drinks

Lesson 21   Hotels & Services

Lesson 22   Travel & Transport

Lesson 23   Places & Directions

Lesson 24   Summary for Lessons 19-23

Lesson 25   The Weather

Lesson 26   Activities & Progression

Lesson 27   Intentions & Plans

Lesson 28   Health &Body

Lesson 29   Compliments & Well-wishing

Lesson 30   Summary for Lessons 25-29

Index 1     Listening Script

Index 2     Key to the Exercises

Index 3     Vocabulary List