The instructional material can be accessed from two menus: Lessons and Tools. The Lessons menu contains the instructions for the entire week. The tools menu contains tools to help with the course material as well as learning Chinese in general.

Lessons

In the Lessons Menu, there are six sections: Lecture, Vocabulary, Phrases, Sentences, Grammar, and Quiz. It is recommended that you proceed through these sections sequentially.

Lecture

The Lecture is a flash slideshow that introduces the course material both visually and auditorily. This gives a good overview of the lesson. You can start, stop, or rewind to study at your own pace. The lecture is also presented in text below the video screen. Don¡¯t worry if you don¡¯t fully understand the lecture. Proceed to the next section and come back if you need to.

Vocabulary

The lecture introduces all the vocabulary necessary to illustrate the basic concept of the lesson. Additional words used in the phrase and sentence templates are included in the vocabulary section. The additional words are listed with yellow background instead of white. The vocabulary section also includes more information about a word such as definition, type, and pronunciation.

Phrases

In Chinese, a single character can be a word by itself or it can be combined with other characters to form phrases or compound words. They often have different meanings from their individual component characters. Sometimes, these combinations follow simple rules. The ability to use these rules is so important that we designed phrase templates to teach various types of combinations. Choose a phrase template from the pull-down menu. A list of words for the chosen template will appear. Choose any word to form a phrase and see its definition and hear its pronunciation.

Sentences

Sentence templates are listed in a table. Within a template, there are fixed words and selectable words. The selectable words have pull-down menus that allow you to choose among appropriate words for that space. The English translation and the Chinese characters for the sentence are both listed with the Pinyin. They change according to the words you choose. You may click on the speaker icon to hear the sentence.

Grammar

The grammatical concepts introduced in the lecture are explained and supplemented here. Chinese grammar is less stringent and easier than English in many ways. There is little concern over persons, numbers, or tenses. However, there are more subtle usage idiosyncrasies that don¡¯t lend themselves to definitive rules. The grammar section allows us to introduce these common usages and some cultural background as well. As a foreigner, you will be given a lot of leeway for grammatical correctness. So don¡¯t get overly concerned but do read this section to get a better understanding of the language.

Quiz

No lesson is complete without some constructive feedback. The Quiz section offers a customized quiz for each lesson. You may set the number of multiple-choice questions in a quiz. These questions test three types of skills: listening, reading,and speaking. There are four levels of difficulties: vocabulary, phrases, sentences, or all.

For example, a listening skill question has a speak button that plays a Chinese word, phrase, or sentence, you need to select the correct translation. A reading question will show Chinese character(s) with Pinyin(s) and let you select the correct translation. A speaking question show English word(s) and you must pick the correct translation in Pinyin(s).

At the end of the quiz, you should click on the Done button to see your test score and the correct answers. The quizzes are randomly generated each time you click the Start button. So you may test yourself as often as you like.

Give these sections a once over, and then feel free to jump around back and forth to enhance your understanding. We recommend that you spend most of your time in the phrases and sentences sections to get the most practice.

Tools

The tools menu offers great study aids in these sections: Pinyin, Vocabulary, Phrases, Sentences, and Flashcards. The Vocabulary, Phrases, and Sentences are similar to these same-named sections in the Lessons menu. However, instead of divided into seven lessons, the content is shown together with the added functions of sorting and searching. These functions are helpful for the students who have completed the lessons and wish to study Chinese in a more comprehensive manner.

The Pinyin tool is extremely useful for the novice Chinese learner. It allows you to select any initial and final combination to hear its pronunciation. You may choose one of four tones or hear them all. A good way to practice is to hear all the Pinyins of the same initials or of the same finals. It also allows you to look up a Pinyin you are unfamiliar with. Spend as much time as you need with this tool until you can sound out Pinyin by sight.

The flashcard tool is a wonderful vocabulary builder. You can customize it to suit your needs. You can turn the voice on to learn the sound or turn it off to test yourself. Setting it to auto-play saves you from clicking constantly. You can select a pace you feel comfortable with.

With so many well designed lessons and tools at your disposal. Learning Chinese will be a much more enjoyable experience than you thought.