China Studies | Chinese Language Requirement

Chinese language study is given heavy emphasis at SAIS in recognition of the reality that the ability to converse with Chinese in their own language and to read Chinese-language materials has become a critical ingredient determining how far one may go in the China field, whether in business, government and public policy, journalism, or academics. The China Studies program makes no exceptions in waiving the Chinese-language requirement, even though students may be able to demonstrate proficiency in another language accepted at SAIS and even though SAIS waives the general language requirement for students whose native language is not English.

Chinese language instruction at SAIS includes Novice, Intermediate and Advanced courses. The Novice course provides students with the essentials of pronunciation (using the Pinyin system of romanization), basic grammar rules, sentence structure and the writing system (simplified characters). Students acquire the ability to discuss, read and write about simple, everyday topics. 

The Intermediate courses offer consolidation and improvement upon the foundations which students have begun to build in their previous studies. Students gain further knowledge of sentence structure and expand vocabulary in the subject matter of Chinese history, geography, society, politics, economics and international affairs. Reading comprehension and aural/oral skills are further developed through work with authentic newspaper texts and selected news broadcasts. At the conclusion of the Intermediate courses, students will have mastered between 1800 and 2000 characters, and are expected to have achieved an Intermediate-Mid level of proficiency in listening, and an Intermediate-High level in speaking and reading, with an emphasis on international political and economic topics. Students must reach these levels of proficiency in order to satisfy the language requirement in Chinese. 

Advanced Chinese (post-proficiency course) aims at further development of overall language proficiency through work on reading and listening comprehension exercises and oral presentations and discussions of contemporary Chinese materials, including newspapers, magazines and selected business readings. 

Students with a high proficiency in Chinese are encouraged to participate in the program offered by the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies jointly run by the Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University. Please visit the Hopkins-Nanjing Center website for more information.