Realizing that the language of Chinese is growing in interest for many people, MiraCosta College is offering a comprehensive six-week Chinese language workshop.
People have an incentive to learn Chinese since the country remains a popular travel destination, and the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympics, hosted in Beijing, makes learning the language even more enticing.
“This course offers easy Chinese for beginners and travelers, and that is exactly what all of our not-for-credit language classes are about,” said Linda Kurokawa, director of community services and business development at MiraCosta College.
“Our courses are an introduction into a language to help get people excited about the language and teach them those important key phrases if they are about to travel.”
Knowing those “key phrases” are extremely helpful when traveling abroad. According to Kurokawa, phrases that will be taught, for example, will include: asking for directions, counting to 100, introducing yourself to others, ordering food.
This particular course, said Kurokawa, will be taught by Aubry Kuan-Roderick, who grew up learning Chinese. The students will see a little bit of the writing characters; but, for this class, Aubry wants to focus on helping her students speak the language, she said.
All language courses offered at MiraCosta College are taught by well-versed instructors. “We don’t offer any of our language class with anyone who has less than complete fluency in the language,” shared Kurokawa.
This six-week Chinese course, offered on Monday evenings, is part of the new conversational language expansion program for community services. Each session will last approximately two hours in length.
The course is in a non-threatening learning atmosphere, and, at the same time, said Kurokawa, the class will move at a good pace. “Students will be expected to study the week before each class,” she said.
The tonal systems in Mandarin Chinese will be instructed, as well. “In Chinese, each word has three different tones, and each tone means something different,” said Kurokawa. “There is such a fascination for this beautiful and ancient language.”
Kurokawa went on to say that her own vacation to China was outstanding and she was impressed with both the country and the people. “When you get out of the big cities of Beijing and Hong Kong, the smaller towns and villages are just astounding,” she said. “It feels like you have stepped back hundreds of years.”
Along with the Chinese conversational travel course, other languages MiraCosta College offers are Italian, Japanese, Spanish and French. “If someone really loves the class, we encourage them to take a credit class, and there is also a credit class for Chinese,” said Kurokawa.
Chinese classes began this semester on June 30, with roughly 15 to 25 students per class. Registration reveals there has been a good response to this course. “I think students will find Chinese a delightfully fun language to learn, because it has and interesting tonal quality that makes it fun to learn,” said Kurokawa.
For information about this MiraCosta workshop and others, call 760-795-6820 or log onto www. miracosta.edu/commsvcs.
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