Erya Chinese - The Basics of Chinese Culture I

ERYA CHINESE·THE BASICS OF CHINESE CULTURE (I) has a total of 15 lessons, each composed of sections such as learning goals and pre-lesson questions, text, new words, cultural notes, proper nouns, and exercises. The texts are about the most representative Chinese cultural topics, e.g., historical sites, food, literature, arts, folk customs, martial arts, and clothing, aiming to help students form a general idea of Chinese culture and have a feel of its long history and unique charm. Meanwhile, the texts were made as lively and appealing as possible, explaining profound knowledge in plain language and taking foreigners’ perspectives into account so as to motivate them to keep learning and spreading Chinese culture. The new words are provided with pinyin and Chinese paraphrases and include a selection of cultural terms uncommon in other courses. The cultural notes succinctly introduce the cultural contexts of words and notions in the text to help students better understand the text. The exercises come in diverse forms, such as blanking filling, matching, true or false, multiple-choice, discussion, and presentation, reinforcing students’ knowledge and encouraging them to express their own opinions.