Teaching code

4S003701

Credits

9

Coordinator

Michele Mannoni

Language

Italian

Scientific Disciplinary Sector (SSD)

L-OR/21 - CHINESE AND SOUTH ASIAN LANGUAGES AND LITERATURES

Erasmus students

Not available

Moodle Seminars 0

The teaching is organized as follows:

Learning objectives

The course aims to provide the basic elements of phonetics, writing and the basic sentence structure of the Chinese language. The aim is to introduce students to the elementary spoken and written Chinese, creating the conditions for an autonomous use of the putonghua (Standard Chinese). At the end of the course the student will be able to interact in simple conversations on daily life, to read and understand short and simple texts and will also have acquired the basic syntactic structures of the simple sentence and the formative principles of the Chinese characters, their classification and their structure. Students at the end of the course will have achieved a level of linguistic and lexical knowledge corresponding to an HSK2 certificate, ie an A2 level in the international classification.

Prerequisites and basic notions

Fundamentals of grammatical analysis.

Program

The course focusses on Volume 1 of the book by M. Abbiati and Z. Ruoying «Dialogare in Cinese», on the grammar and the syntactic structures shown in them, as well as on other linguistic aspects. Besides the materials indicated in the Bibliography section of this course, other materials and exercises, included those uploaded to the platform ‘Moodle’ will be the subject of this course. Students are expected to engage autonomously and independently in the study of linguistic and grammar aspects of Modern Chinese by using the materials indicated in the Bibliography. Students shall acquire knowledge of the linguistic aspects relating to the Chinese language family in general, its history, and that of its writing system.
During classes taught by native Mandarin teacher, students are going to learn the words shown in the units of the book and how to use them (措辞) with a contrastive perspective with respect to the Italian language. At the same time, they are going to actively exercise the use of syntactic structures taught by the grammar teacher. With native Mandarin teacher, students are going to improve their speaking skills (会话) and listening skills (听力) of HSK2-level-alike texts.
Reference materials:
- Compulsory materials: see Bibliography;
- Other materials:
• PLECO – App. gratuita for iPhone, iPad, Android
• WENLIN –Software for Learning Chinese, Wenlin Institute (www.wenlin.com)
• Abbiati, Magda (2011) “Grammatica di cinese moderno”. Venezia: Libreria Editrice Cafoscarina.
• Casacchia, Giorgio; Bai Yukun (2013). “Dizionario Cinese-Italiano”. Venezia: Cafoscarina. [solo cinese-italiano]
• Zhao Xiuying (a cura di) (2013). “Il dizionario di cinese”. Bologna: Zanichelli.
• Zhang Shihua (a cura di) (2007). “Dizionario di cinese”. Milano: Hoepli.
• Dizionari cinese-inglese consigliati: 中英词典. Lin Yuan (ed.) (2002). “The Contemporary Chinese Dictionary”. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
• Hui Yu (ed.) (2004). “A New Century Chinese-English Dictionary”. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.
• Martin Manser (Ed.). “Concise English-Chinese Chinese-English Dictionary (4th Edition) (English and Chinese Edition)”. Flexibound.

Bibliography

Didactic methods

This course is taught offline. Students affected by covid-19 may consult the page https://www.univr.it/it/coronavirus-info-studenti and get in touch with me.

Learning assessment procedures

The final exam consists of a written test containing theoretically relevant questions (grammar, translation, etc.), a listening test; and an oral test that includes conversation in Mandarin and theory questions. It is necessary to obtain a passing mark in each test in order to pass the exam. Each of the three tests have to be passed during the same exam session: whoever intends or has to retake the exam is allowed to do so by retaking all the three tests of which the exam is made of (i.e., writing, oral, listening).
Since attendance to the classes taught by the Chinese mother-tongue teachers is mandatory, the final mark of the exam will also be calculated on the basis of the grades that the student obtains in their assignments, if any.
HSK certificates does not replace this exam, neither in whole nor in part.

Evaluation criteria

Theoretical and practical skills.

Criteria for the composition of the final grade

written test containing theoretically relevant questions (grammar, translation, etc.), a listening test; and an oral test that includes conversation in Mandarin and theory questions. It is necessary to obtain a passing mark in each test in order to pass the exam.

Exam language

cinese e italiano