This course is thebeginning course for learners of Chinese without systematic Chinese learningexperience.   It starts with the basic phoneticknowledge, i.e. initials, finals, tones and syllabicstructures, then moves to radicals, characters, newwords, sentence patterns, etc. The course is learner-centered, with afocus on the Integrated language skills of listening, speaking, reading, andwriting. The aims are to help students comprehensively understand and master the basics of Chinese and lay a sound foundation forfurther Chinese study.