Easy websites for practicing reading charcters?

[Jonny Wang]

I'd like to find some websites in Chinese characters that are written simply enough for someone who isn't quite able to read a newspaper-type publication yet. I'd like to practice reading by reading about current events, sports, politics, etc. But I can't handle stuff that's too complicated.

I know about newsinchinese.com and like it, but would like something that has stories oriented either towards young Chinese students, or foreigners studying Chinese.

Any suggestions?

[Kathy]

Hi Jonny,

We have a little forum for practicing English and Chinese at www.eslwebcamforkids.com/forum. I orginally started it for my younger students studying English, and later Chinese, but now folks of all ages are practicing reading and writing. The moderator, XiaQing, is always available to answer students' questions about Chinese. So, if you would like to know the vocabulary used to talk about a topic, you can either post to the forum or Private Message XQ. He just finished a list of computer terms, if you are interested in that. You will find that sometimes we use traditional characters, sometimes simplified, and sometimes both. We also like to provide pinyin whenever possible.

The forum also offers help to new students whou are just learning about how to look words up in the dcitionary, convert traditional to simplified, or visa-versa, and how to add pinyin.

On the site, you will see a link to our work-in-progress for teaching the very easiest Tang Dynasty poems. Native Chinese speaking university computer science majors have been busy uploading voice recordings and worksheets to practice with, as well. The address is http://newstore2005.googlepages.com/index If you visit, your location will show up as a little dot - a big bit of visual encouragement that the folks working on the site can surely use after the tedious work that the site requires. Although this is just a little mock-up page, it has the recording on it, as well as the poem texts. We are working on a real site, but that will take a little longer.

Let me know if you need anything you think we can provide. We are also happy to make custom voice recordings for material you want to study - free of course.

Best regards,

Kathy Felts

[Jonny Wang]

Kathy,

Thanks for the introduction to your website. I'll definitely check it out!

[Hero Doug]

Yeah that site does look interesting, I may have to check it out myself.

[trevelyan]

This was announced a while ago, but if you like the NewsinChinese style of annotation and are still looking for reading material you should check out the new Adso textbook site:

http://textbook.adsotrans.com

There are a number of difficult and literary texts up there, but there are also some simpler stories, rhymes and poems for children. We even have a drinking song. All of the texts have been annotated NewsinChinese style and manually reviewed. I got the rights to some children's stories (fables and fairy tales) written explicitly for Chinese children aged 5-6 and will be putting them up in the near future.

To view the texts just click on "Library" and then select your level of difficulty. Or you can just look through the crowd and see if anything catches your fancy. This San Mao story is probably my favourite piece on the site, although it may be a bit above your level of difficulty if you're having trouble with news articles.

[Strawberries513]

oh! I Know! I know! Pick me!!

http://www.uiowa.edu/~chnsrdng/Chinese_reading/Beginning/beginning.html

its super good for beginner and intermediate readings AND audio!! it has helped me so much.

good luck!

[Jonny Wang]

Thanks for both of your recommendations. I'll definitely check them out.

[MgAlbert]

Thank (Kathy, trevelyan, and Strawberries513) for your links. It help me a lot.

[CatfishAttack]

You can also check out www.LearnEZChinese.com

They offer one Chinese phrase each day with audio to help people learn how to speak Mandarin.