LN716     
Mandarin: Level 3 (Fast Track)

This information is for the 2025/26 session.

Course Convenor

Requisites

Assumed prior knowledge:

Language skills and knowledge of Mandarin at A2 level of the Common European Reference Framework for Languages are required.

Additional requisites:

Students should have successfully completed LSE Level 2 Fast Track course LN714 or have learned equivalent content, see the description of "Communicative content" and "Structural Content" of Level 2 Fast Track (LN714). Students should: Demonstrate full commitment to regular attendance, completion of homework, and all pieces of continuous assessment. Dedicate at least two hours per week for coursework, in addition to classes. Admission into the course after completion of the online test and upon tutor’s approval during the Needs Analysis Sessions.

Course Aim:

• To develop the ability to use Chinese effectively for purposes of practical communication and reading comprehension in familiar work and social contexts.
• To establish the skills and language required to promote and facilitate further study of Chinese.
• To enhance knowledge of Chinese culture and society.
• To be able to use a Chinese key board.
• To be able to deliver presentation or essay about a chosen topic.
• To improve your transferable skills.
• To bring students to the equivalent of level of B1, CEFR.

The course is focused on the following aspects:

• Talking about past event.
• Changing money at banks.
• Making new friends.
• Describing and comparing things.
• Buying clothes.
• Taking a bus.
• Sending letters and parcels.
• Talking about hobbies.
• Asking and giving reasons.
• New year’s greetings.
• Talking about direction and location.
• Talking about sports.
• Talking about one’s experience.
• Looking for jobs.
• Talking about plans.
• Talking about weather.
• Purchasing plane tickets.
• Talking about changes.
• Talking about living conditions.
• Talking about an incident.
• Talking about language studies.

This course will focus on the following grammatical areas:

• The complement of state.
• Reduplication of the verb.
• The simple directional complement.
• Time-measure complement.
• Quantity complement.
• Resultive complement.
• Location words.
• Sentences indicating existence Past experience.
• Action measure complement.
• The complex directional complement.Notional passive sentences.
• Changed circumstances.
• Condition construction.
• The aspects of an action.

The course will also introduce 540 words and 270 Chinese characters.

22 hours of classes in the Winter Term.
16 hours of classes in the Autumn Term.

Please refer to the LSE timetable for course teaching arrangements.

16 hours of classes in the AT. 22 hours of classes in the WT. 2 hours of group tutorial time, as arranged by the teacher during the AT, WT, ST.

Key textbook:

New practical Chinese Reader, textbook and workbook, vol. 2, by Liu Xun, Beijing Language and Culture University Press, 2007 (the textbook comes with DVD or audio materials)

Recommended Readings:

Concise English-Chinese, Chinese-English Dict., Commercial Press/Oxford University Press 1986

Intermediate Chinese - A Grammar and Workbook by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington. Routledge. 1998.

Oral examination (30%)

Continuous assessment (70%)