In this course, students learn the basic Chinese language. At the very beginning, the course starts by introducing students to a general knowledge of Pinyin, Mandarin Chinese, Chinese dialects, and Chinese characters. After one semester, students will be able to engage in conversation in Chinese including greeting people, introducing themselves to others, and exchanging basic information with others. Students learn to count from 1 to 1000 and make simple sentences in both spoken and written Chinese. They also learn 160 “magical” Chinese characters and use them on a variety of topics. As students walk through the units step by step, they get to know not only the language itself, but also the culture in which the language takes place and keeps developing. Prerequisites: None. Credits 1.0