Chinese Program

Why Study Chinese?

Chinese Garden 2

First, Chinese is spoken by over 1.2 billion people, making it the most widely spoken language in the world!

Second, China plays a major role in world affairs. As China has opened up to the West, there are growing opportunities for employment in all areas. So China is important for your career.

Third, traditional Chinese culture, from Confucianism and Chan Buddhism to martial arts and Chinese cuisine, has an enormous influence on East and Southeast Asian nations. Chinese culture has also greatly inspired the western world.

Fourth, learning Chinese is an extraordinary and agreeable experience through which you can immerse yourself in a different culture. Unlike most languages, Chinese has a unique ideographic writing system, which provides visual comprehensibility. The grammatical structure of Chinese is not only logical, but also pragmatic, related to the particular way of Chinese thinking. Knowledge of the written language opens up the culture of one of the world's oldest civilizations.

Last, but not the least, our University has one of the largest and most established Chinese language programs in North America. Our quality Chinese language education enjoys strong support from well-developed China studies programs and resources on the campus and, in turn, provides our students with a solid foundation in Chinese language and culture.  

Chinese Language Program Faculty

Wei Liu, Program Director

        Qinghai Chen                

        Laura Grande            

        Karen Gu   

        Jinyi Li  

        Haiqing Yin  

        Qiuli Zhao 

Chinese Textbooks in Use

Click here for a comprehensive list of the Chinese textbooks used in ALC course.