Chinese for Beginners

Overview

During the last two decades, the rapid economic growth drew a lot of foreign companies to invest in China. In order to be actively involved in China, it is not only important to possess the necessary technical and business know-how, but it is also important to know the language, the colloquial forms as well as the culture and society of the country.

The TU Wien Academy for Continuing Education wants to assist you to make this bridging towards China. This two-semester seminar is the initial study proposal for technicians. After finishing this introductory course, there is a possibility to deepen the acquired knowledge in the regular university course "Technical Chinese".

*subject to sufficient applications

Contents

• Basic structure of modern Chinese (Mandarin)
• Essentials of Chinese culture and colloquial forms as well as intercultural communication
• Technical subject terms

The content is particularly oriented for a staying in China, and includes themes such as accommodations, travel organization, study and university aspects, work environment, and seeing doctors, etc. The participants will learn to understand short texts and to manage themselves in a Chinese language environment.

Method

Communicative language teaching: lecture, exercises, role-playing. The weekly homework requires an additional workload of about 2 hours.

Goal

In this course, the participants will learn the basic structure of Chinese language. The emphasis is on grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation as well as the Chinese writing system (simplified characters). Chinese culture and tradition will also be included.

After visiting the course, the participants will be able to understand Chinese sentences and frequently used expressions. They should be able to handle simple daily routines in Chinese. Furthermore, the participants should be able to read and understand simple descriptions and short articles of technical Chinese.

Target Group

Due to the growing business importance of China, the course mainly addresses the following groups of people:

• Preparation for students for their studying in China or Taiwan,
• Researchers of universities,
• Employees from companies (such as engineers and natural scientists) who want to build up relations with China or to prepare themselves for working in China,
• People with interest for the Chinese language and culture

Fee

Students: EUR 240 (free of VAT) per semester (without learning materials)
External participants: EUR 320 (free of VAT) per semester (without learning materials)
Employees from TU Wien: On request

Application

Please fill out the application form, opens a file in a new window and forward it to elisabeth.pixner@tuwien.ac.at  by October 03, 2022.