Course Description

Learning humorous stories is an excellent way of learning daily language: the vocabularies in humorous story are among the most frequently used, colloquial words that appear at highest frequency in daily communication. The syntax in humorous stories utilizes the most commonly used grammar in Chinese language. Despite its accessibility and commonality, the entertaining, hilarious nature of humorous language makes the language impressive, skillful， (even comically artistic) and highly memorable, thus makes language learning process entertaining, easy and fast. This course chooses 20 hilarious humorous stories that covers a diverse realm of topics, daily situations, and therefore vocabulary range: family, love, marriage, school, law, army, sports, health and medicine, profession, archeology, travel, competition and contest, etc. You will find your daily spoken and written language progresses speedily after learning the course, soon being able to use the most common words and syntax to communicate in Chinese about comprehensive realms of daily life. Each story is taught in two lectures: the first lecture is the text practice of the story. You will learn the vocabularies ranging from the elementary to the advanced intermediate level on the vocabulary list, learn the most commonly used grammar and Chinese syntax, listen to my explanation in English of the paragraph of the story phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence, so you thoroughly understand it. You will read after me the text twice sentence by sentence to ensure the accuracy of your pronunciation, and listen to my reading, and answer questions about the text orally before I provide each correct answer. The second lecture is an acting video of the humorous story, you will listen to my vivid story telling, my emphatic tone and performance will make you memorize the language more and help you to review the story, and you will tell the story yourself after you are sufficiently familiar with the language. Now choose this course and see your daily Chinese language soar with your acquisition of the most commonly used Chinese vocabularies and grammar---amid bursting laughter and in a refreshed, happy mood.

Professor of Chinese, English and Comparative literature

Hong Zeng

I am an award-winning professor of Chinese, English and Comparative Literature. I have taught Mandarin Chinese at all levels in prestigious American colleges altogether for 16 years. I have taught nine years as a tenure-track professor of Chinese and comparative literature at Carleton College, ranked No. 1 in undergraduate teaching in all liberal arts colleges in America, and have directed the Chinese program for two years at Hamline University (the first university in Minnesota). In both my second year coming to Carleton and Hamline, I more than doubled their Beginning Chinese Class enrollment. I have also taught at Swarthmore College, College of William and Mary and University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Before I came to United States, I have taught English and American literature for 3 years at Beijing Foreign Studies University. I have two PhDs, one in Chinese and comparative literature from UNC, Chapel Hill, the other in  English and American literature, literature translation and second language education from Beijing Foreign Studies University. I have published five books in America (including two from Macmillan) on Chinese, English and comparative literature, film study, language study and language philosophy that are well-endorsed by world-renowned experts and book review journals in my field. I have earned 30000 dollars large grant from Asian Network in Chinese study.

Course curriculum

  • 1

    Chapter 1： Introduction

    • promo video
  • 2

    Chapter 2: First five stories

    • 1. 不得了了 text practice

    • 1. 不得了了

    • 2. 牛吃草 text practice

    • 2. 牛吃草

    • 3. 谁跟老虎比text practice

    • 3. 谁跟老虎比

    • 4. 变聪明了text practice

    • 4. 变聪明了

    • 5. 近视眼text practice

    • 5. 近视眼
  • 3

    Chapter 3: second group of five stories

    • 6. 走后门text practice

    • 6. 走后门

    • 7. 我也不会text practice

    • 7. 我也不会

    • 8. 三分之三 text practice

    • 8. 三分之三

    • 9. 视力太差 text practice

    • 9. 视力太差

    • 10. 怕老婆 text practice

    • 10. 怕老婆
  • 4

    Chapter 4: the third group of five stories

    • 11. 不安 text practice

    • 11. 不安

    • 12. 戒指 text practice

    • 12. 戒指

    • 13. 假肢 text practice

    • 13. 假肢

    • 14. 健忘 text practice

    • 14. 健忘

    • 15. 念数字 text practice

    • 15. 念数字
  • 5

    Chapter 5: The fourth group of five stories

    • 16. 作业 text practice

    • 16. 作业

    • 17. 注意你的同桌 text practice

    • 17. 注意你的同桌

    • 18. 拿破仑的牙签 text practice

    • 18. 拿破仑的牙签

    • 19. 如果我是你的丈夫text practice

    • 19. 如果我是你的丈夫

    • 20. 如果你跟我结婚 text practice

    • 20. 如果我跟你结婚