The instructor goes over a lot of material that would be necessary to hold a basic conversation. I really like that she puts emphasis on pronouns and connector words and explains what each individual word's meaning is, instead of having you memorize random sentences without truly letting you know what the literal translation is. I've used Google Translate, Culture Alley and a couple of other sites which have all helped me learn the language but I can honestly say that this course has made the biggest impact for the small amount of time that I've been taking it.

Gostei da estrutura do curso: conhecimentos básicos para apresentação pessoal, números e alfabeto, dias da semana, meses do ano, como se localizar em relação a um endereço, como pedir comida e bebida, perguntar e dizer as horas, fazer compras, conversar sobre hobbies. O curso oferece uma introdução ao idioma que permite uma conversação básica, mas importante para iniciantes, principalmente no que diz respeito às entonações (tons).

Vale ressalta aqui, a didática da Professora Xiaoyu Liu, a qual apresenta os conteúdos de forma a facilitar a compreensão dos alunos.

I love everything in this course:

the content - real and useful language that we can use right away - that you can download and review

the presentation of the slides - not cluttered, not empty, visually good

the exercises: do help reviewing the content and practicing

the teacher :

calm, clear and patient;

with great voice tone and speed;

aware of the difficulties students might have

I've learned more in 7 weeks than in the 7 months I studied somewhere else.

When it ends, you want more.

谢谢

thank you so much , you are great , this course is slow and very clear especially for beginners , please please do like this simple , slow , clear course again and again but with advanced Chinese and with writing and reading Chinese characters . thank you dear teacher , you've been very helpful . God bless you . nice to have you as my first Chinese teacher . thank you so much. and looking forward to more and more of your nice Chinese language courses . please make a slow , nice course about reading and writing Chinese characters . thank you .

Thanks to the course, I was able to understand how to pronounce certain words.This course perfectly copes with the task of introducing into the language environment in order to understand how the language sounds. as for some translations, sometimes they actually don't sound right, and it's not always relevant. unfortunately, I can't think of any examples. but from the last one that I remember using watching TV. For example, a cartoon(动画片) using help, I was recommended to use this-动漫 . In general, I am glad that I was able to complete this course. 谢谢!

I’ve been trying to learn Chinese for a while and the hardest part for me was to keep practicing and learning regularly. The fact that this course is divided into weeks and that the tests are due at certain times really helped me! This is just what I needed and the fact that it doesn’t penalize you if you don’t take the tests in time is a really good idea, no unnecessary stress :) Also it’s cool to have subtitles! Even if I understand English pretty well, it’s not my first language so it really helped at some times. Anyways, this was so cool, 谢谢你！！

This was a special course where I could develop some skills in this new language. Sometimes it's hard to be out of our boundries to see other things, but if we want to learn, we can do it. This cours helped me to understand: (1) the structure of sentences, (2) Some special words used with questions, (3) many new vocabulary, (4) the used tones. That was quiet clear in pronunciation and writting. And (5) another view to learn this language as an effective way with calm and on my way. I want to try some of the other courses to continue learning!

Since this is a beginner course, there are no Chinese characters reading required, they use pinyin to represent the characters. However, if you have some background in reading Chinese character, it will be helpful to pass this course, and maybe this course will be too easy for anybody who have studied Chinese before. I encountered some new vocabularies here, which I have never studied before, but it is still not enough to satisfy my needs. Overall, this course is recommended to get used to listening Chinese language practice in daily life.

The course is just brilliantly structured. I imagine that this is a set of expressions to start a journey of love with the Chinese language and culture.

I did miss a bit explanations on the gramatical structure of chinese sentences. I.e. position of verbs, times, places, pronouns in the sentences. I kind of figured them out, being them different to the structure of western languages. Google Translate helped often to understand this structure and words.

The teacher is JUST lovely. Many thanks for a lovely work!

Muchas gracias por hacer de este curso un agrado en cada una de las lecciones aprendidas. Es un curso maravilloso y fue hermoso aprender un idioma tan bonito y tan antiguo. Ahora podré comunicarme con todos aquellos ciudadanos Chinos que viven en mi país y que siempre pensaba que nunca iba a poder expresarles algo en su lengua nativa. Gracias nuevamente a la profesora y a la Universidad de Pekín por entregarnos este curso básico, pero maravilloso de su idioma. XieXie Nimen, Zai Jian. Wo Jiao Víctor

Really liked the course - a straightforward and clear introduction to the Chinese language that will capture your attention, regardless of your Chinese learning goals.

Extremely useful for absolute beginners who want to get an idea of the language - how can you say everyday but essential things about yourself, as well as to familiarize yourself with the phonetics of Mandarin Chinese.

Recommended for beginners and people who are considering to give Chinese learning another try. (like I did). :)

Wǒ hěn róngxìng yǒu jīhuì cānjiā zhècì zhōngwén kè. Wǒ xué dàole hěnduō dōngxī, kěyǐ zài yǔ gāi dìqū zhōngguó gōngyìng shāng de rìcháng jiāoliú zhōng shǐyòng. Wǒ gǎnxiè Xiaoyu Liu , lǎoshī fēicháng qīngxī de jiàoxué. Xièxiè.

I am grateful for the opportunity and privileged to participate in this Chinese Lesson. I learned a lot and I can use it in everyday communication with Chinese vendors around the area. I am grateful to Teacher Xiaoyu Liu, for her very clear teaching. Thanks.

Thank you for this quick and easy course to help me reconnect with my childhood. I am grateful to have chosen this course to help me learn and improve my Chinese speaking and pronunciation skills. Hopefully, the simple phrases I learned from this course can be used when I converse with my family and friends, and be of good use when I am traveling or shopping in Asian grocery markets. Overall, I definitely recommend this course for anyone who would like to begin learning Chinese.

I enjoyed learning Chinese which I had no prior knowledge of this language before enrolling this course. I tried hard to imitate the teacher's sounds. Anyway, the content of the course is very useful and based on what I would like to know. I'll keep practice and one day I'll go to China to speak this language with people there. Thank for very much for offering a seven-week online course for everyone. I really appreciated that and thanks the teacher and Peking university again.

Excellent format for learning Mandarin. I would recommend this course with the goal of obtaining a certificate for this important course for the modern age; the idea is for this course to only be a beginning to many more that increase in difficulty and information. China is a world power and understanding the language and culture of the people of China will make the two countries, USA and China, have a better understanding and hopefully peaceful co-existence as global powers.

The course is very useful. The course designs well manage on Step-By-Step of practice. I really enjoyed the journey of learning . I've benefited a lot by pursuing this course. Small pronunciation and word stress has been cleared.

The instructor , Ms. Xiaoyu Liu, is very good in English communication as well as very clear in giving Chinese pronunciation and She can teach very interestingly. Thank you for her contribution. she looked poised and cheerful and professional.

It's really fun and really helpful for me. I really recommended this course because this course is really trustworthy. Actually this is my first time to join this coursera and I choose to learn "Chinese for beginners" for the first. Cause I think most people now often to use mandarin language. and I want to practice mandarin is because I want to have a chit chat or sharing in mandarin language with my neighbor and some of my friends (that really fluent in chinese language).

The instructor was excellent. I was a bit nervous about taking the course, but she really delivered. She was effective in closing the gaps to learning. I conducted some self-study prior to taking the course. For instance, I learned about tones before taking the course and the instructor reinforced my learning. In my opinion, if you are looking to learn, this is course is extremely helpful. I hope this feedback is helpful to your decision-making process. Thank you.

I had learned Chinese before and I also started to review what I had learned recently. Some of the sentences in this course I'm already familiar with. However, what I like most about the course is that it also focuses on the pronunciation, which I'm not really good at. In addition to that, learning using only Pinyin is really easy to follow because you do not have to remember the difficult written characters of Chinese. Thank you very much for an informative course!

To me as an english and spanish speaker, it has always been a little bit hard to approach any side of the chinese culture. I live in the northern City of Chile: Calama, where all the chinese culture we get is the food and the plastic products... I find this course very well structured and am very grateful for having the oppotunity to be part of the increasing number of people interested not just in the language but also on the whole chinese culture. Thanks again!!!

It's very good. you can follow along easily and can apply what you learned in everyday life!

Perfect for a beginner or those who have some experiment and want to brush your brain :)

I really like studying online as I could go fast or slow by myself. The course itself has divided into 7 weeks. But It took me around 4 hrs to finish all the video materials and reading :D Glad to come across here and will definatetly keep it up to the higher level :) xiexie laoshi

Well, for me it was a wonderful opportunity to take this course, and the course itself is great, very well structured. It covers several essential topics for you to understand and begin to grasp the Chinese language. I think their technique is very good; they use various methods to keep you connected and engaged. Sometimes you don’t even feel like you’re studying, but at the same time, it sticks in your mind. And the teacher who leads the course is amazing.

This course offered by Peking University is a very useful source for the people who want to learn new things at different stages of life. I had a great experience throughout this 7 week course and with each week passing, my confidence to learn this language has increased. The instructor," Professor Liu Xiaoyu, MD gave thorough description through videos which were a complete package. I am highly grateful to the university for providing such opportunities.

La verdad lo recomiendo, no se si habrán otras personas de Latinoamérica que le haya ayudado este gran curso y es una experiencia diferente, se acoplan a tu ritmo y es fácil el manejo de la pagina y el curso, no tuve ningún problema. Solo con un comentario si no sabes lo básico de ingles se te dará dificultad al ver el video de clase y leer en español, al igual que en los cuestionarios, pero con poco de traductor se facilitara todo. 100% recomendad.

Peking University's Chinese for Beginners course has been very interesting and comprehensive in covering the basics that would be truly useful and stimulating for beginners. The course has had simple yet adequate approach in teaching and assessing students' learning. For better practicing of conversations and lessons, it might be helpful if actual dialogues between the lecturer and a co-teacher were presented for the students to hear and learn from.