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To Chinese Learners,

Welcome to the Hello Chinese Series. Following a task-based approach, these course books are specially designed for the short-term, beginning learners of mandarin Chinese. We are trying to bring you the following learning experience:

1. The course books are based on the theory of Task Based Language Teaching (TBLT). Book I uses dialogue as the only form of text, while book II adds short essay as the other format. All the texts and exercises are accompanied with pinyin (alphabetic spelling system of Chinese). If you are a western learner, please note that this series doesn’t need you to master every Chinese character in the text. Instead, you are only to memorize 15 most commonly used characters each lesson (which are listed at the end of each lesson). With the accumulation over time, if you can finish the two books, you will be able to know about 500 characters, which equates to the proficiency of those who stay in a full-time Chinese course for half a year. If you are not interested in learning Chinese characters at the moment, you may simply go through this series without the characters.

2. Hello Chinese Demonstrates 30 real-life situations. We try to place the most urgent situations for language learners in the earlier part of the book, therefore even if you have only 20 hours of learning, you should still achieve a certain level of oral proficiency. If you can finish learning both books (which takes about 120 hours), you will reach the level of elementary-high.

3. Every chapter in this series uses pictures and other pre-task forms (as shown in the “Do you know?” part) to enlarge the learners’ vocabulary, so as to ensure the contents of the book are natural and authentic. Meanwhile, we strictly followed the HSK grammar and vocabulary syllabus and tried to cover all the major language points and vocabulary from level 1 to level 3. At the end of the books, summaries of vocabulary, Chinese characters and main sentence patterns are presented. We believe this program is thorough and well thought out.  

4. The figures in this series include both Chinese/foreign students and ordinary people. Through the interactions of these people in their daily life, you will get to know China and Chinese language in an authentic context.

5. There are pictures and audio clips to accompany the texts and exercises. If you install the companion APP in your cell phone, you will be able to review and practice after you complete each lesson, and the phonetic rating system can help you to improve your pronunciation. An online course of Mandarin-Chinese has been released on www. Courser.org. With its help you will be able to learn this book all by yourself when you are unable to attend a real class.

6. Hello Chinese is a full color course book with 4 main characters rendered with detailed backgrounds and distinct personalities. The stories in different lessons are somewhat inter-related. We want to implement the idea of “learning by doing” in the book, and the learners are encouraged to make meaningful cooperation and communication in the classroom. We wish this series to become an easy-to-learn and fun textbook of Mandarin Chinese.

Currently Hello Chinese has two volumes including 30 lessons in total and each lesson requires 3-4 hours learning time. The whole series covers 30 real life situations, 50 most common language points, 500 Chinese characters and about 1000 new words. By completing the two books, you will reach the proficiency of HSK level 3.