Mandarin courses at TU Delft

Tao started the course after participating in several cultural and educational exchanges between the Netherlands and China. China has, in recent years, become one of the world’s leading economies, thus attracting a lot of business and educational investment. Chinese language skills are crucial in China, since the majority of the population still communicates in the local tongue. When non-Chinese travel to China for work or study, they struggle to integrate.

According to Tao, Mandarin is very easy to learn. It is different from European languages and one needs to get used to the fundamentals. The most difficult part of mastering the language is getting the tones correct. Mandarin has four pitched tones and a “toneless” tone. She even claims that the characters aren’t too difficult to learn.

She started the courses in 2006 and since then 300 students have participated. The course is designed to prepare students to study or work in China and allows them to learn Mandarin quickly. The course covers both written and spoken Mandarin.

The courses are organised into two levels – ‘Chinese for Beginners I’ and ‘Chinese for Beginners II.’ Each level consists of 14 weekly lessons which last for 2 hours and 15 minutes. At the end of the second course, Tao expects students to have developed proficiency in Mandarin. The next course starts in February and students can sign-up for the course in Blackboard.