This initiative produced the Virtual Community for First-Year Chinese students at Columbia University, which provides comprehensive learning and practice materials covering phonetics, characters, and grammar.
I. Chinese Pronunciation: In this section,we systematically introduce the phonetic aspects of the Chinese language, including the tonal system, the basic vowels,all initials and finals, pronunciation methods, spelling rules, tone sandhi rules, neutral tone phenomena, and retroflexion phenomena. It is divided into eight parts: Tones, Initials, Simple Vowels, Finals , Spelling Rules, Tone Sandhi, Neutral Tones ,the “R” Sound , and More Pinyin Exercises. Each section contains video and audile demonstrations, exercises, self-check quizzes, games and useful resources.
II. Chinese Characters: It introduces the basic writing system, including basic stroke orders, 87 out of the100 most frequently used radicals and parts of Chinese characters, and 600 characters from the most frequently used 1000. Animation demonstrates how to write each stroke, radical, and character chosen according to stroke orders. Practice exercises, self-check quizzes, and games are designed to help students learn the Chinese writing system more effectively and enjoyably.
III. Chinese Grammar : Six challenging structures and particles—the Ba-construction, Lian-construction, shi...de structure, aspect particles (了, 着, 过), passive voice, and relative clauses—will be introduced through video clips or animations depicting real-life contexts where these structures naturally occur. Step-by-step interactive questions will guide students in observing key features, helping them develop a clear understanding of the grammatical points in question. Finally, self-assessment exercises will reinforce their learning and application of these concepts.
IV. Online Community (to be completed in the future project.)