Kilo Lingo

Mandarin · Curriculum

The Mandarin curriculum, in one view

Twelve chapters. The first three lay the foundation: word order, the top hundred lemmas, and the present tense. Chapters four through twelve drop a new band of high-frequency vocabulary every hundred ranks, weave in the AQA Foundation grammar that activates each band, and end with a graded reader you can finish using only the words you've learned so far.

Chapters
12
Lessons
131
Grammar primers
18
Story milestones
10

The grammar arc, chapter by chapter

Every chapter from 4 onwards interleaves grammar with the rank batches, so a learner alternates between drilling words and unlocking the construction that turns those words into sentences. This is the arc:

  1. 1

    Word order in Mandarin

    Foundations

  2. 2

    Top 100 words foundation

    Ranks 1-100

  3. 3

    The copula 是 (shì): to be, and when not to use it

    Also: Possession with 有 (yǒu): to have, Verb-object verbs: 吃饭, 说话, 唱歌, 看书, Modal verbs: 会, 想, 要, 应该, 可以

  4. 4

    Classifiers (measure words)

    Also: Possession with 的 · ranks 101-200

  5. 5

    Adjectives as stative verbs

    Also: Comparatives: 比, 比较, 最, 跟…一样 · ranks 201-300

  6. 6

    Aspect markers: 了, 在/正在, 过

    Ranks 301-400

  7. 7

    Co-verbs: 从, 到, 在, 用, 坐, 给

    Ranks 401-500

  8. 8

    Question formation in full

    Ranks 501-600

  9. 9

    Conjunctions: paired and single

    Ranks 601-700

  10. 10

    Complements of direction, degree, and manner

    Ranks 701-800

  11. 11

    Location and existence: 在, 是, 有

    Also: Modals and future intent · ranks 801-900

  12. 12

    Numbers, time, dates, currency

    Also: Requests and imperatives · ranks 901-1000

What you can do when you finish

  • Read the rank-1000 graded reader at the end of Chapter 12 with no lookups - every content word is from the chapters you've just worked through.
  • Hold a present-and-past tense conversation: ask questions, talk about routines, narrate something that happened yesterday.
  • Hedge a request politely with the conditional ("I would like...", "could you...").
  • Recognise (and partly produce) the AQA GCSE Foundation grammar inventory - the formal benchmark for the curriculum.