The Basic Chinese you need

Welcome! Are you ready to begin your journey in learning Chinese?

This course was created by Zachary, an ex-pat living in China with very limited knowledge of Chinese, and his Chinese wife, Aliya. The concept for this course was to create a learning experience for Zachary with Aliya’s help. We hope you can learn and benefit from our experience.

Who should take this course? What is this course about? What do we talk about in this course?

Who should take this class?

This course is for anyone who is interested in learning Chinese but doesn’t know where to begin. This course is also for anyone who wishes to visit or live in China in the future and wants to get ahead and become familiar with some basic Chinese. This course is also for those who already live in China and want to make their lives easier by picking up some useful basic Chinese. Truly, it is a beginner’s class for those who are curious and have zero or almost zero knowledge of Chinese.

In the first lesson, we will cover some fundamental vocabulary and phrases that the Chinese use in their daily lives. The expressions include greetings and self-introduction. The expressions will be used throughout the entire course. One difficulty in learning Chinese for anyone, I mean including Chinese, is Chinese characters. However, you really don’t need to learn Chinese characters to begin with. The pinyin system is easier for people who are familiar with the Roman alphabet. With only a reasonable amount of differences in pronunciation, you can read all pinyin, and people will understand you. Each lesson will have a downloadable PDF file or ZIP file for you to review and revise.

In this course, we cover ten useful and daily scenarios that you will encounter living in China. The topics are picked based on our experiences and things we cannot live without.  The topics are:

• The Basic Chinese You Need

• Before Going Out

• Registering at the Police Station

• Getting a COVID Test

• Getting Your Home Ready

• Grocery Shopping Goes Right

• Receiving a Food Delivery

• An Ultimate Guide for Getting a Didi

• Eating out Like a Regular Chinese

• Going on a Date!

This is how each lesson works:

Setting the scene – We filmed a headshot video of Zachary introducing the topic of the lesson, including why did we choose the topic? What are Zachary’s experiences of the specific topic? And some tips he offers for you.

Lesson Review – We do a short recap of the previous lesson to assist in language recall and acquisition. The first lesson has a Lesson Preview instead of a Lesson Review as it is the first lesson in the course.

Teaching while chatting – In these videos, you will hear both of us chatting and explaining the words, phrases, and sentences that could help you increase your Chinese vocabulary and know how to use them in the given topics properly.

Vocabulary and sentences recap – This is self-explanatory!

Conversation – In the final video for each lesson there is a conversation practice where you can listen and practice the vocabulary and sentences in a real-life scenario. In the second half of this video, Zachary’s part is muted so you can practice speaking.

What you’ll learn

Learning a language is a long and tedious journey for many. So, through this course, we want to get you interested in learning Chinese. We hope this course will help you get started on a long but fun journey.

• You will be able to get familiar with real living scenarios in China.

• You will be able to read Pinyin.

• You will be able to learn practical Chinese vocabulary.

• You will be able to learn useful phrases in Chinese.

• You will be able to apply basic Chinese in real-life situations.

Are there any course requirements for prerequisites?

The answer is no! There are no requirements for any learners for this course. This is a beginner-friendly course.

Who this course is for?

This course is for anyone interested in learning Chinese but doesn’t know where to begin.

This course is also for anyone who wishes to visit or live in China in the future and wants to get ahead and become familiar with some basic Chinese.

This course is also for those who already live in China and want to make their lives easier by picking up some practical basic Chinese.

Who this course is for:

• This course is for anyone who is interested in learning Chinese but doesn’t know where to begin.
• This course is also for anyone who wishes to visit or live in China in the future, and wants to get ahead and become familiar with some basic Chinese.
• This course is also for those who already live in China and want to make their lives easier by picking up some useful basic Chinese.