Content review.

A practice edition.

The core curriculum comes from CSL Hello, CSL Name Game, and CSL Meeting Someone. Tone, phrase-flow, recall, drink and pinyin activities adapt the supplied CSL lab sheets. Lesson 2 characters and illustrations provide continuity.

Text and pronunciation conventions

Simplified Chinese and word-based, tone-marked Hanyu Pinyin. Main text retains base tones; separate spoken-shape notes explain nǐ hǎo → ní hǎo and wǒ hěn → wó hěn. Neutral syllables in shénme, míngzi, rènshi, xièxie, māma and bàba are unmarked. Third tone is taught as low in connected speech, with an optional isolated/final rise. Longer third-tone sequences are modeled as complete phrases rather than simplified into a universal substitution rule.

The shorter 很高兴认识你 and fuller 我很高兴认识你 are both included. 你好吗 is framed as an available check-in exchange, not a mandatory greeting for every first meeting. English sound clues are optional approximations, not phonetic transcriptions.

Audio

38 locally bundled synthetic phrase and word recordings use Microsoft Huihui. Eight explicit-tone clips are reused from the CSL Sound Lab. The slow button reduces playback speed while requesting pitch preservation. Full dialogues sequence complete turn recordings, not isolated syllable splices.

Human pronunciation review is pending, including name readings, lexical neutral tones, isolated syllables, synthetic tone contrasts, and third-tone sequences. Source text has been reconciled with the CSL sheets; primary dictionary entry verification remains pending. No claim of fully verified language or human-recorded audio is made.

The neutral shi tile plays 认识, so the light ending is heard in its lexical context. Neutral-tone listening uses 妈妈 / 爸爸; no fixed isolated neutral-tone contour is presented. Custom names use a recorded “My name is…” stem followed by the learner’s spoken name. Place phrases use an ellipsis slot and require the learner to add a place aloud.

Privacy and access

No account, server-side learner data, third-party analytics or network speech service. Optional microphone recording is processed locally in the browser, capped at 30 seconds, and never uploaded. An entered name stays in memory for the current page session. Preferences, fictional people met, and conversation counts use this browser’s local storage; reset clears them.

Before a public teaching release

A qualified Mandarin reviewer should listen to each audio-manifest entry, the ma / ba contrasts, and complete dialogues at normal and slow speeds. Record any revisions in the content file and replace matching recordings before describing the edition as pronunciation-reviewed.