Self-Study Chinese Curriculum
Module 5: Chinese Tense and Chinese Voice
Welcome to Module 5 of your Self-Study Chinese journey! Module 5 is the highest advancement on top of the previous four modules. After Module 1, you learned how to say any Chinese sentence when it is technically a statement. After Module 2, you learned how to ask any question in Chinese. After Module 3, you learned how to use attributives in Chinese sentences. After Module 4, you learned how to apply "adverbials" in the complicated Chinese sentences.
Module 5 enables you to create even the most complicated Chinese sentences, which involve more than "attributives" and "adverbials" in whatever form they take. This module focuses on different tenses, such as past, present, future and continuous tenses, and different voices, such as active and passive voice. If you are planning to enable yourselves to read local Chinese classics of books and works equal to or even better than a normal native Chinese), Module 5 can help you to reach that goal. In order to understand Module 5, you should either finish the previous 4 modules, or your Chinese is already at a native level at this point. Please be ready to have at least 4 weeks to finish this module.
Each module includes three parts: Grammar, Pronunciation and Vocabulary. Module 5 will cover the following concepts:
1. What are the most commonly-used Chinese tenses, past, present, future and continuous tenses, used in modern Chinese language?
2. How do you apply "literal translation" and "free translation" in terms of Chinese tenses and voices to make your Chinese translations professional, accurate, expressive and elegant?
3. How do you apply "past tense" in the Chinese language?
4. How do you apply "present tense" in the Chinese language?
5. How do you apply "future tense" in the Chinese language?
6. How do you apply "continuous tense" in the Chinese language?
7. How do you apply the ancient four-characterized Chinese phrases in your Chinese language to make it articulate, persuasive, expressive, deliverable, accurate and elegant?
8. How do you understand "double objects" in the Chinese language?
9. How do you apply "active voice" in the Chinese language, and how do you apply "active voice" when different tenses of time are also involved in a Chinese sentence?
10. How do you apply "passive voice" in the Chinese language, and how do you apply "passive voice" when different tenses of time are also involved in a Chinese sentence?
11. How does the philosophy of "literal translation" and "free translation" impact the tense and voice of the Chinese language? How do we culturally explain these linguistic phenomena?
12. Where does the "translatability" between English and Chinese come from?
13. How does "the truth between space and time" shadow the application of forming Chinese sentences? How do you "program" the Chinese tenses and voices in the linking, transitive and intransitive sentences, especially when complicated attributives and adverbials are involved?
14. What do you need to know about Chinese pronunciation, vowels, consonants and tones? (Every module shares the same instructive readings, practices and teaching videos about Chinese pronunciation)
15. What are the advanced Chinese adjective/adverb phrases that you need to know? Module 5 includes a separately 12-day study of another 97 advanced Chinese verb phrases, and most of these phrases are formed by three or four words/characters.