這門課是開給中文系國際學士班一年級的學生，希望能夠引導班上外籍學生有系統地認識漢語。課上將討論漢語的語音、音韻、文字、詞彙、語法、語用、言談、修辭等方面。每週都有特定的主題（詳見每週進度），原則上依照課本章節逐一講授，教師另會編製講義。課上除由教師講述各語言現象，也會讓學生練習分析語言現象，並視情況安排課後作業。希望透過這樣的方式，學生能夠切實理解所學，並將之運用於日常語言分析，培養出一定的語言觀察力和警覺性。
This class is designed for international freshmen of the Department of Chinese Literature, and aims to help them to systematically understand and grasp the essentials of Chinese linguistics. We shall discuss the following topics of Chinese: phonetics, phonology, writing system, morphology, semantics, syntax, pragmatics, discourse, rhetoric, etc. Basically there will be one topic for each week (see the syllabus below), and the course will go through the whole textbook. Each course includes lecturing the linguistic phenomena, practicing various kinds of linguistic analysis, and occasionally assigning a certain amount of home works. In this way, the students shall be equipped with rigid knowledge of Chinese linguistics, and be able to observe and analyze everyday language more acutely.