Beijing Language and Culture University

北京语言大学 Běijīng yǔyán dàxué, also known colloquially as 北语 Běiyǔ

BLCU was founded in 1962 as a specialist centre for teaching Chinese language and culture to foreign students. It is the only international university of its kind in China and is the largest centre for Mandarin Chinese study in the country, having seen more than 100,000 foreign students from 176 countries and regions in the world enrol in its programs.

BLCU is also the premier university for providing training courses for teachers specializing in teaching Chinese as a foreign language, and offers predeparture training for all candidates intending to work abroad. The university also offers prominent undergraduate and postgraduate courses in foreign languages, humanities and social sciences to its Chinese students.

BLCU has a long-standing tradition of international exchanges has launched joint undergraduate and postgraduate programs with several universities around the world, notably Macquarie University in Australia, the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, and Harvard University in the United States. Find out more about what it's like to live and study in Beijing.

CSA Program Prices: BLCU

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Our two cents...

BLCU is the largest Mandarin language learning center in China, with over 9,000 international students attending its courses annually. No matter where you come from in the world, at BLCU you are virtually guaranteed to meet someone from your home country there. It is a vibrant, cosmopolitan campus ideally located in the Wudaokou area of Beijing. While the standard of teaching is equal to Peking or Tsinghua, universities the workload isn’t quite as intense, making this an ideal choice for students who also interested in getting out and seeing more of the city. Find out more anout what it's like to live and study in Beijing.

Course Descriptions

BLCU has six levels for short term students, with a wide range of programs including one semester, twelve weeks, summer study abroad and winter study abroad programs.

Elementary Level: The purpose of this course is to lay groundwork for the study of modern Chinese. The course has an emphasis on oral skills with classes in listening and speaking with initial presentation of the written language, both reading and writing.

A large emphasis is placed on mastering the phonetic system so as set a good foundation for further Chinese studies with the correct pronunciation and intonation. While the learning of sentence patterns is a major component of the course, efforts will be made to help students handle simple everyday tasks such as greeting, introducing friends and relatives, identifying people or objects, asking for one's personal information (including name, occupation, nationality, address, phone number), expressing gratitude to someone, sending someone your regard, making a reply to a complimentary remark, talking about your family, your school and your studies, looking for someone, seeing a guest off, asking the time, making an appointment, making an invitation, making a suggestion, asking for someone’s opinion, buying something, and offering congratulations.


Intermediate Level: The purpose of this course is to continue to lay groundwork for the study of modern Chinese by expanding on the base of elementary Chinese. The course will provide instruction in all four language skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading, and writing.

Many of the grammatical constructions introduced in first year Chinese will be repeated in this course with increasing sophistication in terms of style and usage. While many of the linguistic tasks students will learn to handle are similar to those of first year Chinese, the level of language required to carry out these tasks is more advanced. In this course students are required to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese.

By the end of this course, students are expected to deal with daily-life related Chinese in a target language environment with no difficulty. Topics covered include: buying things, making an invitation, making an appointment, offering congratulations, asking for one's age, asking for opinions from others, presenting a gift, asking the way, making a telephone call, refusing politely, shopping, entertaining a guest, asking for information, complimenting, making a plan, asking for permission, welcoming a guest, waiting for someone, proposing a toast, talking about ball games, seeing someone off, traveling, and buying tickets.


Advanced Level: The purpose of the course is to continue to develop their skills of aurally understanding, speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese.

Students will continue to improve their linguistic skills with a manageable degree of challenge. At the functional level, this course aims at helping students solidify their ability to comprehend and produce paragraph-level Chinese. It seeks to enable students to understand face-to-face conversations on most familiar topics, give factual accounts, read materials written in formal expression, and write simple essays, reports and other types of correspondence. There is a heavy emphasis on reading from this level covering topics such as current events, social sciences, history, and literature. Discussions on the reading materials will be conducted regularly to develop students' skills of abstract reasoning, narration and description.

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