This document provides an orientation to learning Chinese language for business purposes. It is taught at the Confucius Institute for Business at SUNY Global Center in New York. The course philosophy is that learning Chinese language is a foundation for understanding Chinese culture, organizations, and people, and is one aspect of developing China business competency. The document outlines 10 levels of Chinese language proficiency and how each level benefits business interactions with China. It also provides basic facts about the Chinese language, including that it has a consistent spelling system, is monosyllabic and tonal, and has little grammar.

1. Unlocking the Chinese Language
Instructors: Janet Carmosky and Professor Wen Jing
An orientation to Chinese language learning
taught only at :
The Confucius Institute for Business
SUNY Global Center 116 East 55th Street New York, NY
confuciusbusiness.suny.edu

2. Course Philosophy
The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever
Chinese language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding China,
its organizations and people, in broader terms.
• Language competency is not equivalent to China business
competency: it is a doorway to understanding culture as
well as a communication tool - one of many aspects of
China business competency.

3. Course Philosophy
The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever Chinese
language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding China, its organizations
and people, in broader terms.
• Language competency is not equivalent to China business competency:
it is a doorway to understanding culture as well as a communication
tool - one of many aspects of China business competency.
• For an adult, the first part of learning Chinese language is to learn
about Chinese language.
• The relationship between sound, meaning, and the written
language bears no resemblance to English or any European
language, and is significantly different even from other East
Asian languages.
• An orientation will diminish the frustration that comes from
expectations that learning Chinese is like learning any other
language.

4. Course Objective
• Learn what to expect in a process of developing Chinese language skill.
• Gain insights about how Chinese language works – and the ability to
interact more confidently with Chinese people.
• Establish a foundation for any program of Chinese language study.
Copyright: Janet Carmosky

5. The “Table of Elements”: Sound, Meaning, and
written language
Source: Lee, Philip Yungkin, Tuttle Publishing 250 Essential Chinese Characters

6. A Business Perspective: How studying Chinese
builds China business competency
Stage Benefit
1. Understand the structure of the Establishes, to Chinese counterparts, that you care
NOVICE
language, and how it affects enough to make an effort.
communication and culture in general Starts a more effective “mindset” – one that
acknowledges how differently Chinese people may
2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently structure their thoughts – and view the world.
– including people’s names Demonstrates, when you focus on pronunciation -
that you are smart enough to know how the
3. Be understood in usage of commonly language works.
used phrases
4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary
BEGINNER
– key government agencies, products,
concepts.
5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy
6. Consistent reproductions of tones
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky 6
2012-10-30

7. A Business Perspective: How studying Chinese
builds China business competency
1. Understand the structure of the language, and how it affects communication and culture
in general
2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names
3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases
4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts
5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy
6. Consistent reproductions of tones
7. Based on knowledge of the written language, create new sentences- not just repeat
stock sentences or terms. Follow conversations with increasing comprehension
8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese conversation with full comprehension
9. Participate in longer and more varied Chinese language conversations,
10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well as follow the development of an idea
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky 7
2012-10-30

8. A Business Perspective: Why learn Chinese?
Novice Stage How it’s useful
1. Understand the structure of the language, It’s the start of a mindset where you can
and how it affects communication and see how differently Chinese people may
culture in general view the world.
2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently It establishes, with Chinese counterparts,
– including people’s names that you care enough about their culture to
3. Be understood in usage of commonly make an effort to learn.
used phrases A focus on pronunciation demonstrates that
you are smart enough to know how the
language works.
Who it’s useful for
Anyone who has any dealings with Chinese
people.
Copyright: Janet Carmosky 8

9. A Business Perspective: Why learn Chinese?
Beginner Stage How it’s useful
4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – Knowing the logic behind the formation of
key government agencies, products, language – words as well as organizations
concepts. – gives you a perspective on Chinese
5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy culture and business processes.
6. Consistent reproductions of tones
Working on very specific vocabulary,
characters, and tones will take you much
further and must faster up the learning
curve than spending time trying to
Who it’s useful for memorize phrases will.
Anyone who will deal on an ongoing basis
with Chinese people, and who wishes to
establish better communication, respect.
Copyright: Janet Carmosky 9

10. A Business Perspective: Why learn Chinese?
Intermediate Stage How it’s useful
7. Based on knowledge of the written Directly communicate with Chinese people
language, create new sentences- not just
repeat stock sentences or terms. Follow How long it takes to get to this stage
conversations with increasing
comprehension 1-3 years, depending on talent and
8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese motivation.
conversation with full comprehension
Who it’s useful for
People with natural talent in language and
real interest in working with China.
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky 10
2012-10-30

11. A Business Perspective: Why learn Chinese?
Advanced Stage How it’s useful
9. Participate in longer and more varied Facilitate communication between Chinese
Chinese language conversations, people and non-native speakers.
10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well
as follow the development of an idea How long it takes to get to this stage
4 years+, depending on talent and motivation.
Who it’s useful for
People who intend to live and work in China.
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky 11
2012-10-30

12. A Business Perspective: 10 levels of Chinese
language skill
1. Understand the structure of the language, and how it affects communication and culture
in general
2. Be able to pronounce pinyin consistently – including people’s names
3. Be understood in usage of commonly used phrases
4. Learn some survival industry vocabulary – key government agencies, products, concepts
5. Enjoy characters and calligraphy
6. Consistent reproductions of tones
7. Based on knowledge of the written language, create new sentences- not just repeat
stock sentences or terms. Follow conversations with increasing comprehension
8. Follow 20+ minutes of Chinese conversation with full comprehension
9. Participate in longer and more varied Chinese language conversations,
10. Full fluency – ability to persuade as well as follow the development of an idea
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright: Janet Carmosky 12
2012-10-30

13. Logic is not universal: Warm Up
Logic and language, culture and communication are all related
Christian name Chinese name
Given name, Last name Family name, First name
Robert Collins Collins Robert
Western Address Chinese Address
My name My country
My house number, my street 12345678 code
My city, my state 12345 My city
My street, my house number
My name

14. What is Mandarin?
Useful facts about regional speech and dialects
• In the PRC Mandarin is called “putonghua普通话” and in Taiwan it is called “guoyu 国语” . These
languages have a relationship much like British and American English. That is, accent, vocabulary
and usage make instantly obvious which side of the strait the speaker comes from.
• The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, or Shanghainese, is more like the span between
French and Portuguese. They broke off the same tree over 1000 years ago.
• Each city and province tends to have its own spoken language conventions. Sichuan Province has
Sichuan Hua, Henan Province has Henan Hua, Tianjin City has Tianjin Hua etc.
The relationship between the official written and spoken language
• The written form that adheres to that grammatical conventions of Mandarin is the official written
language, called Chinese (zhongwen 中文)
• Dialects abound but there really is only one written language.

15. Q. What is Mandarin?
A. China’s Official Spoken Language
• The People’s Republic of China has one official spoken language, which many refer to as Mandarin.
(putonghua 普通话) It is a spoken language completely intelligible as native or close-to-native
tongue in the most heavily populated areas north of the Yangtze River.
• South of the Yangtze River, dialects not based on Mandarin proliferate – province to province and
even town to town.
• The grammatical structure of Mandarin is based on the speech dominant in Beijing and in the
provinces to the northeast of Beijing.
• The broadcast standard for pronunciation is the Northeastern city of Ha’erbin, not Beijing as many
people think.

16. More About Mandarin
Useful facts about regional speech and dialects
• In the PRC Mandarin is called “putonghua普通话” and in Taiwan it is called “guoyu 国语” . These
languages have a relationship much like British and American English. That is, accent, vocabulary
and usage make instantly obvious which side of the strait the speaker comes from.
• The difference between Mandarin and Cantonese, or Shanghainese, is more like the span between
French and Portuguese. They broke off the same tree over 1000 years ago.
• Each city and province tends to have its own spoken language conventions. Sichuan Province has
Sichuan Hua, Henan Province has Henan Hua, Tianjin City has Tianjin Hua etc
The relationship between the official written and spoken language
• The written form that adheres to that grammatical conventions of Mandarin is the official written
language, called Chinese (zhongwen 中文)
• Dialects abound but there really is only one written language.

17. Build up over time: spoken language proficiency
Being understood in Chinese language requires an upfront investment in learning
pronunciation. It takes about a year for the organs of speech and hearing to build the neural
pathways to differentiate and produce the consonant and vowel sounds. Accurate, “second
nature” production of tones takes longer.
Proficiency in speaking Chinese depends on an ability to produce all the sounds in all
combinations, combined with comprehension.
12 36
months months
skill
Proficiency
Basic Conversational Capacity
3. repeat basic phrases 6. tone & overall pronunciation ability acquisition
Basic Comprehensibility
2. pinyin ability acquisition
1. context appreciation ability
time
17
Source: Janet Carmosky Copyright:Janet Carmosky
2012-10-30

18. Three basic facts about Chinese language

19. Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language
#1. It has the world’s best spelling system

20. #1. It has the world’s best spelling system
Pinyin – which means “spell sound” rhymes - 99.9percent of the time
English spelling Pinyin –which means “spell sound”
Come Home Yang Fang Wang Lang Bang
Good Food De Te Le Ne
Hasty Nasty Ai Tai Lai Mai

21. #1. It has the world’s best spelling system
Pinyin – which means “spell sound” rhymes - 99.9percent of the time
English spelling Pinyin –which means “spell sound”
Come Home Yang Fang Wang Lang Bang
Good Food De Te Le Ne Se Re
Hasty Nasty Dai Tai Lai Nai Sai Wai

22. Ninety percent of life is just showing up.

23. Ninety percent of life is just
showing up.
Ninety percent of learning
Chinese is pronunciation.

24. About 400 new friends for you: the pinyin table

25. Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language
#2. It is a monosyllabic
and tonal language. Which
makes learning it fun.

26. #2 Monosyllabic, tonal, and
fun
(may expand your aptitude for music,
humor, and language in general)
The classic example
the syllable spelled “ma”, showing four of its most
common meanings, in four different tones.
ma 妈 (n) mother
ma 马 (n) horse
ma 麻 (n) hemp
ma 骂 (v) curse
Virtually every one of the 420 syllables correlates
to more than one character (unit of meaning)

27. Characters and Words: what’s the difference?
One character equals one syllable equals one unit of
Show page from Chinese pinyin
meaning.
dictionary – with bullet about zi
我 Wo3 I, me 开 Kai1 open
字and ci词
你 Ni2 you 人 Ren2 person, people
他 Ta1 he, him 笔 Bi3 writing implement
Literacy is defined by knowing 3,000 characters. More
educated people may recognize 6,000 of more characters.
There may be as many at 10,000 characters in total.
Many units of meaning are described by two or three
syllables.
普通 Pu3 Tong1 common, usual
普通话 Pu3 Tong1Hua4 Mandarin (common language)
There are at least 100,000 expressions or “words”.
Expressions 4 or more characters long are usually
technical or specialized.
通货膨胀Tong1Huo2 Peng 3Zhang4 inflation

28. Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language
#3. It has almost no rules of
grammar.
The fact that the unit of meaning and
sound is a character means there can
be no endings – that is,
• No word gender
• No conjugations
• No declensions
• No singular or plural

29. Three basic facts about learning the Chinese language
you can speak grammatically correct Mandarin from Day One.
Wo3 Qu4 我去 means
I go
I am going
I will go
I went

30. Wanna be fluent? All you have to do is:
1) Read this table accurately 2) Hit first, fourth and second tones consistently
3) Have a good memory 4) Keep listening and speaking

31. How the written language works
Typesetting
• The most common typesetting is horizontal row, from left to right, which is influenced by Western
convention.
• Characters can also be typeset in columns the read from top to bottom: the columns may follow an
order from right to left or from left to right.
Writing a character
• Each character has a number of strokes - which need to be written in the proper order or the
character is technically “mis-spelled”
• Groups of strokes that are used over and over are called “Radicals”. “Radicals” have names, and
they are combined to build up the meaning and phonetic aspects of an idea so that it becomes a
word.

32. Characters and Words: what’s the difference?
One character equals one syllable equals one unit of
meaning.
我 Wo3 I, me 开 Kai1 open
你 Ni2 you 人 Ren2 person, people
他 Ta1 he, him 笔 Bi3 writing implement
Literacy is defined by knowing 3,000 characters. More
educated people may recognize 6,000 of more characters.
There may be as many at 10,000 characters in total.

33. How the written language works

34. How the written language works
Typesetting
• The most common typesetting is horizontal
row, from left to right, which is influenced by
Western convention.
• Characters can also be typeset in columns the
read from top to bottom: the columns may
follow an order from right to left or from left to
right.

35. How the written language works
Writing a character
• Each character has a number of strokes - which need to be written in the proper
order or the character is technically “mis-spelled”
• Groups of strokes that are used over and over are called “Radicals”. “Radicals” have
names, and they are combined to build up the meaning and phonetic aspects of an
idea so that it becomes a word.

36. How the written language works
Forms of writing
• In order to raise the literacy of the population, the PRC reduced the number of strokes
needed to write many characters, resulting in “simplified characters” (jiantizi 简体字)
• Simplified characters are used in the PRC, Malaysia and Singapore.
• The Traditional (long form) characters sets are still taught and used in Hong Kong, Taiwan
and Macao
Simplified Traditional
jian2dan1 (simple) 简单 (19 strokes) 簡單 (28 strokes)
fei1ji 1 (airplane) 飞机 飛機

37. Structure of Chinese language: Neurological & social impact
Chinese language English language
Writing has to be learned by rote Alphabetic systems use lateral thinking
Everything is contextual Good writing stands alone
Hao le 好了
All done
I’m feeling better now
That’s enough
It’s good!
Persuasion by imagery, allusion Persuasion requires logic

38. Course Philosophy
Language competency is one piece of China business competency. It is a
doorway to understanding Chinese culture.
The first part of learning Chinese language is to learn about Chinese language
The best use of language skill in business with China is to take whatever
Chinese language skill we can acquire as a foundation for understanding
China, its organizations and people, in broader terms.

39. Questions?