Peking University

北京大学 Běijīng dàxué, also known colloquially as 北大 Běidà

Peking was the first formally established modern national University of China, founded in 1898 and known originally as the Imperial Capital University. Peking is one of nine mainland Chinese Universities making up the C9 league, formed in 2009 by the nine Universities originally identified by the Chinese government as “prestigious universities” eligible for increased funding as part of Project 985 initiative in 1998. Peking regularly ranks in the top two Universities in mainland China in both national and international rankings, along with Tsinghua University, also located in Beijing.

Throughout its history, Peking has distinguished itself as one of China's leading universities and has produced some of the country's most prominent leaders. Renowned for its teaching and research centers, over the past century more than 400 Peking University alumni have gone on to become the presidents of other major Chinese universities.

*Students must be over 18.

CSA Program Prices: Peking University

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Our two cents...

Arguably China’s top university (along with Tsinghua and Fudan in Shanghai), our sudy abroad program at Peking University is the most rigorous Chinese language program we offer. You must have a base knowledge of at least 800 Chinese characters in order to apply and the program books up quickly - the deadline is typically three months before the semester begins so if you want to attend, apply early! For those who have studied Chinese before and are ready to take on an intense semester of Chinese study with potentially fantastic results, this is the choice for you. Find out more about what it's like to live and study in Beijing...

Course Descriptions

Peking University offers 9 levels for 1 semester and 1 year 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.

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.

So what's around Peking University?