Mandarin, Cultural, and HSK Resources

Chinese Track Homepage

Mandarin and Cultural Supplements
Local resources:

Confucious Institute - Cultural events and language support. Provides inexpensive courses in calligraphy, tai chi quan, and more.

Ted Mimms Foreign Language Learning Center - Rosetta Stone and other resources.

Walker Institute - Provides connections to Asian countries via distinguished lectures by scholars, field trips, and recruiting of talented students. Appears to focus in Taiwan based areas.

Online resources:

Chinese Open Course Ware (OCW): An excellent, open resource with downloadable grammer text, workbook, and sound files. Very straightfoward work presented in a sequence excellent for beginners and intermediates.

HSK Information
Hanyu Shuiping Kaoshi (汉语水平考试), or HSK, is China's only standardized language proficiency exam for non-native speakers. It is the equivalent of the TOEFL and is sometimes used as a business assessment for those wanting to work in China. At a minimum, a high score is a resume boost, indicative of the hard work you put into learning a difficult language and your willingness to understand Chinese culture.

Created and supported by BLCU, the HSK was reformatted in 2010 to rank students in 6 levels:

Where To Test:

The Confucius Institute on campus provides a yearly examination. The 2013 test date was Oct 20, 2013. More information can be found at Confucius Center HSK. Future dates can be found be contacting the Confucius Center or USC language department.