Final review of the essentials

Final recap by theme

English summary of what you practiced in blocks 1–14: examples to jog your memory. For Chinese and pinyin, use the other blocks, Vocabulary, or Grammar.

• Numbers — examples: one, two, three…; twenty; larger numbers; “how much is this?” for prices.
• Date, time, money — examples: “today is Wednesday”; “it's two o'clock”; “thirty-five yuan and fifty mao”.
• Fruit and drinks — examples: “I like tea”; “do you want coffee or tea?”
• Places — examples: “I'm at school”; “I work from home”; “I'm going to the café.”
• Countries and languages — examples: “I'm Brazilian”; “what language do you speak?”
• Colors and qualities — in Chinese you use 是 for colors (e.g. “this apple is red”) and 很 with many adjectives; for weather, say something natural like “nice weather today”—avoid word-for-word calques.
• Family — examples: “how many people are in your family?”; “my father and mother are at home.”
• Basic questions — examples: “what's your name?”; “what time is it?”; “what's today's date?”
• Pronouns and 是 — examples: “I'm a student”; “she's not a teacher”; “he's Chinese.”
• Adverbs — examples: “I'm fine”; “me too”; “they're all at school.”
• 会 / 能 / 想 and 在 / 有 / 去 — examples: “I study Chinese”; “I can't drive”; “I want to learn Chinese”; “there's a shop at the school.”