This unit studies basic Mandarin Chinese across the following components: writing, reading, orality and listening skills. The course thus introduces the pinyin phonetic system, basic characters, basic grammatical notions and basic vocabulary with the contextualization of simple everyday situations. The course constitutes an introduction to Mandarin Chinese and the basics for its subsequent study. At the same time, students acquire further knowledge about certain aspects of Chinese society and culture and certain themes are therefore addressed, such as the evolution of writing, Mandarin and the other dialects and languages spoken in China.