News

Developed by the Chinese team led by Dr Kan Qian at the Open University, this free new Chinese character learning app provides fun and interactive activities to help you write, recognise, and memorise some of the most frequently used characters in a clear and enjoyable way. Introducing over 200 characters which feature in Beginner’s Chinese courses as well as the GCSE Chinese syllabus, you’ll also be able to form a further 200 phrases and sentences using your new found knowledge!  

As we know, Chinese is one of the six official languages of the United Nations.  UNESCO (part of the United Nations) first created Chinese Language Day in 2010 to celebrate multilingualism and cultural diversity and to promote the equal use of the six official languages at the United Nations.  Since then, 20^th April has been designated as Chinese Language Day. The day also celebrates Cangjie (仓颉), who invented Chinese characters about 5,000 years ago.

To celebrate Chinese New Year, the OU Online Confucius Institute held a celebration on campus with live Guqin music, spring roll making, writing the Chinese character for ‘happiness’ in brush and ink and Chinese tea with snacks. We were delighted that over 150 people attended the celebrations.

Now open for registration! Enrol anytime and study at a pace to suit you. If you have previous basic knowledge of Chinese, either gained from our Beginners Chinese short courses, or via your own studies, you can now build on that knowledge and take your learning further with our new suite of Elementary level courses.  Over 16 units, you will work with audio and interactive text-based materials and have access to a dedicated website, forum and support from one of our dedicated learning advisers.

The 19th International Conference on Chinese Language Teaching in Higher Education hosted by the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University was successfully held between 24th- 25th June at the OU’s Milton Keynes campus. The two-day conference was jointly organised by the British Chinese Language Teaching Society and the Online Confucius Institute at The Open University. The hybrid conference offered both online and in-person attendance, attracting over 100 participants from around the World.

Our new WeChat public account is now open! 

WeChat is a communication app with multifunctions, one of which is to allow organisations and individuals to set up a public account to publish news stories.

The OU has today launched the world’s first Online Confucius Institute (OCI) in partnership with Beijing Foreign Studies University (BFSU).