Chinese Placement

Information about Chinese placement exam time, location, and preparation tips can be found on the website here.

Chinese Language Requirements:

All students are required to be proficient in Mandarin Chinese up to the Intermediate 2 level by graduation.

These are the kinds of Chinese courses from Elementary to Advanced:

  • Elementary Chinese 1
  • Elementary Chinese 2
  • Elementary Chinese 1 for Advanced Beginners (see note in course description below; covers through Elementary 2)
  • Intermediate Chinese 1
  • Intermediate Chinese 2
  • Intermediate Chinese 1 for Advanced Beginners (see note in course description below; covers through Intermediate 2)
  • Intermediate Chinese Accelerated
  • Advanced Chinese 1
  • Advanced Chinese 2

There are a number of post-advanced Chinese courses as well.

Here are the textbooks that are used for the Chinese courses at NYU Shanghai:

Below are the course descriptions and sample syllabi for the Chinese courses:

CHIN-SHU 101 Elementary Chinese 1 (sample syllabus)
This course is the first part of a one-year elementary-level Chinese course designed for students who have no or almost no knowledge of Mandarin Chinese. It is designed to develop language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as it relates to everyday life situations. The objectives of the course are: (1) to master the Chinese phonetic system (pinyin and tones) with satisfactory pronunciation; (2) to understand the construction of commonly used Chinese Characters (both simplified and traditional) and learn to write them correctly; (3) to understand and use correctly basic Chinese grammar and sentence structures; (4) to build up essential vocabulary; (5) to read and write level appropriate passages (100-150 characters long); and (6) to become acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials.

CHIN-SHU 102 Elementary Chinese 2 (sample syllabus)
This course is the second part of a one-year elementary-level Chinese course designed for students who have completed NYU-SH’s Elementary Chinese I or equivalent. It is designed to reinforce and further develop language skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing as it relates to everyday life situations. The objectives of the course are: (1) to continue mastering the Chinese phonetic system (pinyin and tones); (2) to become further familiarized with the construction of commonly used Chinese Characters (both simplified and traditional); (3) to understand and use correctly basic Chinese grammar and sentence structures; (4) to continue building up essential vocabulary; (5) to read and write level appropriate passages (150-200 characters long); and (6) to become acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials. (Prerequisite: Elementary Chinese 1 or via Chinese placement exam.)

CHIN-SHU 111 Elementary Chinese 1 for Advanced Beginners (sample syllabus)
This course is the first part of a one-year elementary-level Chinese course designed for students who can understand and speak conversational Chinese related to daily-life situations, but have not learned to read/write Chinese characters. This includes students who were raised in a non-Chinese speaking country but in a home where the Mandarin Chinese dialect was spoken, and/or students who have acquired a certain level of Mandarin Chinese language proficiency (primarily speaking and listening) by living or working in a Chinese speaking country/region for an extended time. Though speaking and listening will be an integral part of the course, the major focus will be on developing students’ competence in reading and writing. The objectives of the course are: 1) to master the Chinese phonetic system (pinyin and tones) with satisfactory pronunciation; 2) to understand the construction of commonly used Chinese Characters (both simplified and traditional) and write them correctly; 3) to build up essential vocabulary needed to read and write about topics covered in the textbook; 4) to understand and use correctly basic Chinese grammar and sentence structures; 5) to comprehend level appropriate passages and to be able to perform simple sentence analysis; 6) to write level appropriate essays (250-300 characters long) with grammatical, accuracy as well as cohesion and coherence; 7) to become acquainted with and be able to discuss in speech and writing aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials. (Prerequisite: based on NYU Shanghai Chinese placement.)

Note: This course is intended only for students who have much better Chinese listening and speaking skills than reading and writing skills. It is designed to focus on the learning of Chinese characters and culture.

CHIN-SHU 201 Intermediate Chinese 1 (sample syllabus)
This course is the first part of a one-year intermediate-level Chinese course designed for students who have completed NYU-SH’s Elementary Chinese II or equivalent. It is designed to consolidate and develop overall aural-oral proficiency. Objectives are: (1) to be able to obtain information from more extended conversation; (2) to express and expound on, in relative length, feelings and opinions on common topics; (3) to develop vocabulary needed to discuss common topics and begin learning to decipher meaning of compound words; (4) to develop reading comprehension of more extended narrative and expository passages; (5) to write, in relative length (200-250 characters long), personal narratives, informational narratives, comparison and discussion of viewpoints with level-appropriate vocabulary and grammatical accuracy, as well as basic syntactical cohesion; (6) to continue being acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials. (Prerequisite: Elementary Chinese 2 or via Chinese placement exam.)

CHIN-SHU 202 Intermediate Chinese 2 (sample syllabus)
This course is the second part of a one-year intermediate-level Chinese course designed for students who have completed NYU-SH’s Intermediate Chinese I or equivalent. It is designed to continue consolidating and developing overall aural-oral proficiency, gradually focusing more on semi-formal or formal linguistic expressions. Objectives are: (1) to further develop competence in obtaining information from more extended conversation; (2) to express and expound on, in more extended length, feelings and opinions on socio-cultural topics; (3) to develop more specialized vocabulary needed to discuss sociocultural topics; (4) to improve students’ ability to decipher meaning of compound words; (5) to further develop reading comprehension of extended narrative, expository and simple argumentative passages; (6) to learn to solve simple syntactical problems independently; (7) to write, in relative length (250-300 characters long) informational narratives, expository and simple argumentative passages with level-appropriate vocabulary and grammatical accuracy, as well as basic syntactical cohesion; and (8) to continue being acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials. (Prerequisite: Intermediate Chinese 1 or via Chinese placement exam.)

CHIN-SHU 211 Intermediate Chinese 1 for Advanced Beginners (sample syllabus)
This course is designed for students who have at least one year of Chinese language learning at NYU and who, before registering for this course, already command above-elementary aural-oral proficiency in Mandarin Chinese. The objectives are: to be able to obtain information from extended written passages; to both express and expound on, in relative length, feelings and opinions on common social and cultural topics; to expand vocabulary and learn to decipher the meaning of compound words; to develop reading comprehension of extended expository and simple argumentative passages; to solve non-complex textual problems with the aid of dictionaries; to write in relative length personal narratives, informational narratives, comparison and discussion of viewpoints with level appropriate vocabulary and grammatical accuracy, as well as syntactical cohesion; to continue to become acquainted with aspects of Chinese culture and society related to the course materials. (Prerequisite: Elementary Chinese 1 for Advanced Beginners or based on NYU Shanghai Chinese placement.)

Note: This course is intended only for students who have much better Chinese listening and speaking skills than reading and writing skills. It is designed to focus on the learning of Chinese characters and culture.

CHIN-SHU 211 Intermediate Chinese – Accelerated (covers Intermediate 1 & 2 in one semester)
To take this 8-credit course, students need to be interviewed by the lecturer to get the permission code. Students are expected to demonstrate a good mastery of Chinese language knowledge learned before, a proactive learning attitude, and strong motivation. The students should make sure they have adequate time to commit to this course, which not only meets four days a week for 2.5 hours everyday, but usually also requires 1-3 hours of daily devotion after class. 

CHIN-SHU 301 Advanced Chinese 1 (sample syllabus)
This course is the first part of a one-year Advanced Chinese course designed for students who have successfully completed Intermediate Chinese II at NYU-SH, or who have at least the equivalent knowledge of Chinese upon registration. It is designed to reinforce and further improve students’ overall communicative competence by incorporating semi-formal or formal usages. The objectives of the course are: (1) to learn to apply formal linguistic expressions in speaking and writing; (2) to acquire specialized vocabulary and patterns necessary for conducting formal discussions of socio-cultural topics; (3) to develop reading comprehension of texts with more advanced syntax; (4) to learn to make context-based guess about the meaning of a new word and further enhance students’ ability to analyze as well as produce sentences with more complex syntactical features; (5) to learn to write expository and argumentative passages in more extended length; and (6) to learn to employ basic rhetoric devices in writing. (Prerequisite: Intermediate Chinese 2 or via Chinese placement exam.)

CHIN-SHU 302 Advanced Chinese 2 (sample syllabus)
This course is the second part of a one-year Advanced Chinese course designed for students who have successfully completed Advanced Chinese I at NYU-SH, or who have the equivalent knowledge of Chinese upon registration. It is designed to reinforce and further improve students’ overall communicative competence by incorporating semi-formal or formal usages. The objectives of the course are: (1) to enhance further students’ oral and written communicative competence using formal linguistic expressions; (2) to expand further specialized vocabulary and patterns necessary for conducting formal discussions of socio-cultural topics relevant to today’s China; (3) to improve further students’ reading comprehension of texts with more advanced syntax; (4) to develop further their competence in making context-based guess about the meaning of a new word, and further enhance ability to analyze as well as produce sentences with more complex syntactical features; (5) to improve further their ability to write expository and argumentative passages in more extended length; (6) to improve their ability to effectively employ basic rhetoric devices in writing. (Prerequisite: Advanced Chinese 1 or via Chinese placement exam.)

Course descriptions of courses above Advanced Chinese 2 can viewed in Albert Course Search.

If you have any questions about Chinese language placement, please email the Chinese Language Program at shanghai.chinese.program@nyu.edu.