Have you always wanted to learn how to speak Mandarin Chinese? Are you fascinated by the sound, the script and its ancient civilisation?

If so, this introduction with Open Learn will get you started on the essentials of reading, writing, speaking and listening in Chinese through a variety of online activities. A perfect introduction for absolute beginners!

Part 1: say hello and goodbye and thank people in Mandarin Chinese respond to greeting and thanks use personal pronouns including the politeness pronoun nín count from 0 to 99 recognise some Pinyin spelling conventions.

Part 2: refer to different languages and use different terms such as China, Chinese books, Chinese people and Chinese language talk about activities, such as watching TV and learning Chinese recognise where time expressions should be placed in sentences ask questions with shénme什么 (‘what’), nǎr哪儿 (‘where’) and understand the different usages of dōu都 (‘all, both’) ask a choice question with háishì还是 (‘or’).

Part 3: describe objects and people, including one’s appearance and state and be able to indicate a change of state recognise the Chinese concept of beauty form comparisons freely using bǐ 比 and the adjectives studied recognise some character head components as well as four-character idioms understand register in the Chinese language.