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The course is designed for learners without previous knowledge of Chinese language who intend to use Chinese language in business settings. The course helps students to develop basic listening and speaking skills in Mandarin Chinese and conduct the most basic conversation in business activities.

This is an elementary Chinese language and business culture course designed for students with little or no exposure to the Mandarin Chinese language. The materials used in the course are in the Roman spelling system (Pinyin). Students will be introduced to Chinese phonetic alphabet system, fundamental vocabulary, grammar, speaking skills, and useful business cultural traits that will allow them to communicate appropriately in most common situations. Students are exposed to basic and tailored topics and sentence patterns by engaging in simple conversations with grammatical and business cultural explanations. In addition to the language learning, a wide range of knowledge on Chinese business customs, rules and etiquette.

Course title in Estonian

Hiina ärikeel ja kultuur

ECTS credits

3.0

approximate amount of contact lessons

28

Teaching semester

autumn

Assessment form

Examination

Independent work

The course consists of 45 hours of independent practice after class. The students are expected to practice new words and expressions learned in class, recite the sentence patterns, and complete the exercises the teacher gives after each topic taught in the class.

Upon successful completion of this course, the student 
• is able to pronounce correctly text written in Mandarin Chinese Pinyin 
• knows and is able to correctly use very basic and necessary Chinese expressions for daily commercial communication and skills for polite social intercourse (such as greeting, introduction, apology and congratulation) 
• understands and is able to use familiar everyday expressions and very basic phrases aimed at the satisfaction of needs of a concrete type 
• is able to interact in a simple way provided the other person talks slowly and clearly and is prepared to help 
• is able to recognize different situations developed in business conversation and communicates appropriately in Chinese environment 
• has improved his competence for cross-cultural communication with Chinese partners.

Assessment methods

The student is expected to actively participate in all classes. 
A written test (75%) and spoken test (25%) in the end of term.

The course is a prerequisite to the course Chinese Business Language and Culture II (CIC6029.CI)

Study literature

Wang, Lifei. Into Business with Chinese. Higer Education Press, 2010 
Tan, Yue; Zhang,Haitong, Chinese Express –Talk Chinese 
SINOLINGUA press 2015 
Zhang, Li. Gateway to Business Chinese-Daily Communication. Peking University Press. 2011 

Handouts and other materials given by the lecturer.