Oriental languages and civilizations

The course will last for 24 weeks and will be divided into two 12 week semesters; it will be dedicated to cover the main grammatical constructions of the Chinese language, such as: a) aspectual markers ('le', 'guo', 'zhe') b) verbal complements: - complement of degree, - complement of result, - complement of quantity, - directional complement (simple and complex), - potential complement; c) comparison; d) verbal measure words; e) ‘bei’ and ‘ba’ sentences; and a number of syntactic constructions of the Chinese language: - coordinate complex sentences, - subordinate complex sentences, - indefinite expressions, - rhetorical questions Part of the course will be focused on the acquisition of the theoretical and practical fundamentals of translating written and oral texts of various sorts from Chinese into Italian.

Previous attendance of the Chinese language I course is recommended, even if the student has not passed the exam yet.

Masini F. et al, Comunicare in cinese 2, Hoepli, Milano 2022. A reference grammar is recommended alongside the textbook, such as D.J. Li, M.Z. Cheng, A Practical Chinese Grammar for Foreigners (Beijing Language and Culture University Press, Beijing 2008). The supplementary textbooks can be consulted in the Department's library and do not need to be purchased unless otherwise preferred.

Students will attend the course offline.

Evaluation exams are composed of a written and an oral test; the written test consists of two parts: first, a grammar section composed of exercises of various sorts, to be done without a dictionary; then, translation of a short text in Chinese characters into Italian, to be done using a dictionary. The oral test is composed of two parts: 1. a conversation with the native professor about topics covered during the course; 2. reading and commenting a text in Chinese characters with the Italophone professor. The final grading will also take into account the students' participation to classroom activities.

The course will be held by the Italian-speaking professor (2 hours a week w/ joined groups) and a native professor (4 hours a week/group). The Italian-speaking teacher will deal with grammar explanations on the basis of the texts included in the adopted textbook, supplementing them, if necessary, with handouts distributed in class or via the course's Google Classroom page. With the mother tongue teacher, students will practise to improve their speaking, listening and writing skills in short compositions relating to their everyday life.