There is a unique teaching style of Chinese as a second language that we can find, among other sinologists from Pedro Nolasco da Silva (1842–1912) and Luís Gonzaga Gomes (1907–1976). Pedro Nolasco da Silva was a Macanese and a famous Chinese–Portuguese interpreter, translator and teacher. He wrote many books for teaching. Among them, we find a grammar book and manuals of Chinese language. Nolasco da Silva taught Chinese using the method of translation that was, and still is, very important to understand, by comparison, not only the position of elements in a sentence, but also cultural influences.
Much time has passed since Pedro Nolasco da Silva and the nineteenth or twentieth centuries’ sinologists of Macao, but as I will show in my contribution, fundamental ideas in teaching Chinese as a second language persisted.