Demystifying the Chinese Language

Comprehensive Unit129 pagesGrade Level: Middle School – High School The main purpose of this unit is to demonstrate to students that the Chinese language, though in many ways different from the English language with which they may be the most familiar, actually shares common principles with the English language. We assume that familiarizing students with the Chinese language will reduce its "strangeness" for non-Chinese-speaking people. In this sense, the central goal of this unit is not that students learn Chinese, however worthy such a goal might be. Rather, we hope that, through a series of exercises which actively involve students with Chinese, students will engage in the process of "demystifying the Chinese language." The nature of the Chinese language itself has been the subject of much controversy in academic circles. Whether Chinese is primarily based on pictographs/ideographs or significs/phonetics remains ambiguous. This revision of Demystifying the Chinese Language att