Our Approach to Chinese Language Learning

Self-study Chinese is a bi-linguistic book of curriculum between English and Chinese for adult learners. Different from studying Chinese as a child simply through immersing your mind into a Chinese environment, this 3-month teaching curriculum will help you build up a strong linguistic foundation and enable you to see the logic behind each linguistic phenomenon. What makes our curriculum different is that you do not have to recite hundreds or thousands of Chinese sentences to learn this language. Our approach is to spend time truly understanding 3 types of sentences throughout the whole book. These sentence patterns are core to the Chinese language. You will learn how to use the theories from those core sentences to decode the structure of the language.

We believe that fast-food culture in learning another language is not effective, and you will feel like climbing stairs when studying this curriculum. The next study session is closely connected with the current and past sessions. So please do not simply regard this curriculum as a way to only learn some conversational Chinese greetings and phrases, you should have a much higher expectation about the outcome of using our curriculum!

If you are truly a Chinese lover, you will find out the fact that learning conversational Chinese is not satisfying, while Self-study Chinese curriculum will help you dive much deeper into the language. This holistic curriculum is broken into five modules, which are designed to satisfy different purposes. You can choose to pay each module separately or purchase the whole curriculum at one time to receive 25% off discount.

Create an account with us today and learn more about our Five Modules: Three Primary Verb Types, Three Sentence Patterns, Chinese Attributives, Chinese Adverbials, Chinese Tense and Voice. 

What Makes us Different?

In general, there are three areas that distinguish this book from other Chinese study books you might have come across: 

1. Combination of practical study and linguistics: This curriculum focuses both on practical application of Chinese language and also quality linguistic teachings of the Chinese language. Because of its practical focus, readers and students are not required to have any linguistic background and will be shown the underlying cultural reasons Chinese has certain grammar rules. We believe it is more effective to comprehend this background before simply memorizing sentences.

2. Holistic study approach: The comprehensive approach focusing on Chinese grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary along with the strategically designed practice exercises at the end of each day's studying session will lead to your success in language learning.

3. Study resources: There are over 70 teaching videos accompanying your journey through the Self-Study Chinese curriculum. The teaching videos are intended to satisfy the needs of visual learners and to provide correct answers for your practice exercise. These videos are a supplement to and not a replacement for the course curriculum. Learning a new language system indeed requires a diligent mind and a multifaceted approach.

Core aspects of the Self-Study Chinese curriculum

Focus on the fundamentals

There are altogether three parts for the Self-Study Chinese curriculum which consist of 11 chapters. The three parts are designed according to the three elements in Chinese language: grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. Among these three elements, this book carries the mission of advocating the necessity and enjoyment of grammar in second language learning. 

comprehensive study program 

Generally, there are five capabilities to think of in term of second language learning: listening, speaking, reading, writing and translating (interpreting). The book Self-study Chinese enables your practices on all these five capabilities. With your dedication to following all the instructions of this curriculum, your success in mastering Chinese is very promising. 

cultural impact on Modern language 

With the globalization of many aspects in our modern lives, what receives the most attention in language learning is the daily language that people use to interact with each other. However, this approach is not as effective with Chinese. Many Chinese phrases still keep their own tradition and have not been impacted by the trend of globalization. In addition, the pictograph of Chinese characters is completely independent and free from the related pronunciations.  We believe this makes it even more important to understand the cultural background of the language and grammar which is the foundation of our curriculum. 

此书通过两种语言所出现的各类现象，发起对“有关中文和英文，这两种语言的真理性”的探索与考究。可是因为，真理只能被启示而得以完全，不能通过有限地观察而得以完整地被呈现。 因此，该书会把“最大程度内”所得到的观察而整理出来的，具备解释性与囊括性的单元语言性的意义，系统地分成各类“双语语言定理”。本书所要负责的，以及想要承担的使命，与倡导的意义就在于传扬这些“双语语言定理”。我们又通过这些已经建立起来的，相对比较成熟的定理系统，以此来引导两种语言之间的相互佐证和推衍，从而达到“教学相长”的功用。至于在“教”与“学”的过程中，由诸类“双语语言定理”所推衍出来的各样“实用性”的推理，本书尚不能承担由这些推理所引发的自由思考和结论。