Modern Mandarin Chinese, Level 1 ― The Routledge Course Textbook

Modern Mandarin Chinese is a two-year undergraduate course for students with no prior background in Chinese study. Designed to build a strong foundation in both the spoken and written language, it develops all the basic skills such as pronunciation, character writing, word use, and structures, while placing a strong emphasis on the development of communicative skills.

Each level of the course consists of a textbook and workbook in simplified Chinese. A free companion website provides all the audio for the course with a broad range of interactive exercises and additional resources for students’ self-study, along with a comprehensive instructor’s guide with teaching tips, assessment and homework material, and a full answer key.

Key changes to this new edition:

• An increased number of vocabulary and characters introduced. 255 characters are introduced in this second edition for active production. Dialogues and example sentences are also presented in full-character format for passive recognition, and to provide additional challenge for more advanced students. 
• Additional exercises in the workbooks and online to support the expanded number of words and characters incorporated into the textbooks.
• New cross-references between the textbooks, workbooks, and companion website facilitate using all the resources in an integrated manner.
• Greatly enhanced and re-designed website.

Retaining its focus on communicative skills and the long-term retention of characters, the text is now presented in simplified characters and pinyin from the outset with a gradual and phased removal of pinyin as specific characters are introduced and learnt. This unique approach allows students to benefit from the support of pinyin in the initial stages as they begin speaking while ensuring they are guided and supported towards reading only in characters.

Claudia Ross is Professor of Chinese at the College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, USA. Her publications include Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar: A Practical Guide, co-authored with Jing-heng Sheng Ma; Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar Workbook, co-authored with Jing-heng Sheng Ma and Baozhang He (2006, 2014); Outline of Chinese Grammar (2004); and Traditional Chinese Tales: A Course in Intermediate Chinese (2001).

Baozhang He is Associate Professor of Chinese at the College of the Holy Cross, Massachusetts, USA. His publications include Difficult Grammar Knots Unravelled (2015), co-authored with Nansong Huang and Wenzi Hu; Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar Workbook (2006, 2014), co-authored with Claudia Ross, Jing-heng Sheng Ma, and Pei-Chia Chen; and Elementary Chinese (2006), co-authored with Pei-Chia Chen.

Pei-Chia Chen is Lecturer and Academic Coordinator of the Chinese program at UC San Diego, USA. Her publications include Elementary Chinese (2006), co-authored with Baozhang He; and Modern Mandarin Chinese Grammar Workbook, co-authored with Claudia Ross, Jing-heng Sheng Ma, and Baozhang He (2014).

Meng Yeh is Teaching Professor in the Center for Languages and Intercultural Communication at Rice University, USA. Her publications include Chaoyue: Advancing in Chinese (2010) and Communicating in Chinese: An Interactive Approach to Beginning Chinese, Student Lab Workbook (1999).