Search: (simple) reading for pleasure suggestions

[flameproof]

I am looking for some good suggestion for books that are easy to read for beginners with a limited character knowledge.

Best are probably something graded. But I don't really want to go for primary childrens books.

Any suggestion is welcome.

PS: what is http://www.shuku.net - they have lot's of online reading stuff, but is not graded. More from this site:

http://sousuo.shuku.net/cgi-bin/contest/vlist.pl?issue=1 ...up to....

http://sousuo.shuku.net/cgi-bin/contest/vlist.pl?issue=59

[elina]

Flameproof, in the following thread you asked me to make some comments on graded beginners reading material:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/11967-change-chinese-cd-to-electronics-file&page=2

Now here they are. Since you don't want to go for children’s books, I will not give the relevant links to you, although I think some of them are interesting.

How about these books?

Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-Step Approach

http://www.lovemandarin.com/search.asp?keyword=Chinese+Fast+Reading%3A+A+Step-by-Step+Approach&Dclass=0&submit1=GO

Chinese Reading Course for Grade One (1)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=2599

Short-Term Chinese Reading

http://www.lovemandarin.com/search.asp?keyword=Short-Term+Chinese+Reading&Dclass=0&submit1=GO

Chinese Reading Series (1)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=2518

Elementary Chinese Reading Course (1)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=1333

Practical Chinese Study Series: Chinese Humorous Stories

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3066

[gato]

Elina, I think the titles for the "Chinese Fast Reading" series have been mistranslated. For example, shouldn't this one below be 5000 words instead of 5000 characters (词, not 字)? 5000 characters would be a lot even for native Chinese.

Also maybe you can list the table of content for these books. It would be helpful to know what the subject matters of the reading materials are.

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3454

Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-Step Approach (5000 Characters in the fifth level)

汉语阶梯快速阅读（第五级5000词级）

flameproof, maybe you can try this one. The table of content's not listed, but it sounds like a book of jokes in Chinese intended for beginners who know about 1500 words. The accompanying CD has audio of the readings.

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3272

Name：Wit and Humor an Easy Chinese Reading Series: A Simple But Difficult Problem (with CD)

[elina]

Gato, you’re right about the books’ titles, we have corrected them now. Thank you very much! Sometimes, the publishers don’t give the English names of the books, and we have to translate them by ourselves. You can imagine it’s a hard task for us who only have poor English level.

You’re also right to suggest that we should add the 目录/ catalogs to the books, which is what we want to do. Now some of our books already have catalogs, for examples:

Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-Step Approach (1750 Words in the second level)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3451

Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-Step Approach (2500 Words in the third level)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3452

Chinese Fast Reading: A Step-by-Step Approach (3500 Words in the fourth level)

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3453

In addition, we also want to add 内容页节选/ selected pages to the books. There’re several thousands of books on our site, please give us some time to accomplish it. And thank you again for your valuable advices!

[flameproof]

Thanks a lot to you too! That will keep me busy for a few month!

I checked also this link just now from the "when to learn characters" threat:

http://www.yale.edu/fep/catalog/mirror2.html

There are a few more good suggestions in there...

Today I went to Book City in Shenzhen. Their "for "外国人" selection is rather small. And no "readers" at all. Just study material.

Since I don't wanted to leave empty handed I finally checked the children section and bought a story book for primary kids. I think it's OK for now and me.

Interesting side note: The book I chose has many short stories (so far nothing special), but some uncommon characters in the text have the pinyin after it in brackets.

Will take some time to check all those links and books........ Thanks again!

[shuizhuniurou]

Maybe this is too basic for you, but when I was studying Mandarin, I found that comic books, Rin Tin Tin, Calvin & Hobbes, etc were really great practice. A lot of repetition, some new words and practical for dialogues (well, if you like to sound like these characters I guess) and I could finish the strips or stories in a short time - where as reading a book would take so long (using the dictionary again and again and coming across grammar that was way beyond my level) that I would quickly grow bored of it. Brought Dan Brown's Angels and Demons back to the states for practice - way over my head. Magazines were great while I was in China - read one similar to Maxim - an article, especially an interesting one is a much better read - brief, may learn something fun, and quite different than the usual textbook variety. Wish I'd loaded up before I came back.

[flameproof]

shuizhuniurou

Thanks. I moved on a little. I found http://clavisinica.com/CVP/voices.html a little frustrating. Even after translating it, incl. all the double character meanings, I can not catch the meaning. Still need a local to explain it to me.

I had no chance to look at the other suggestions give. But I will be in Shanghai after next week and will go to the Fuzhou Lu Book Shop (or any better options??)

Anyway, me, too eager to wait, went to a bookshop in Shenzhen and bought this one:

http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/261411.html

It's a short story book for primary children, maybe for 9 year olds. It's easier to understand. Still need to look up many, many characters. However, it's getting a little easier by the day.

Tintin / 丁丁 is a good idea too! Actually I got one in simplified Chinese! 丁丁 在美国, but for now I will stick to my primary book, the stories are really a little funny and enjoyable. I try to do one in a day or two.

I will keep on with that. It's quite encouraging to notice the own progress.

PS: I know, there is also learning material, but I tend to find it boring before I even look at it. It carries a stigma....

[roddy]

Been said before on here a few times, but joke books are a good place to look. They're bite-sized pieces of text, always simple narrative, and one in about a hundred are actually funny.

[flameproof]

joke books are a good place to look.

You mean as in written jokes? Not comix, right? I think if they play with the language I have not chance to understand it.

Next time in the book shop I need to grab an 8 year old and let him find something for me...

[roddy]

There will be some puns, but still plenty you should be able to follow. What's "What would the circus want with a frog?" in Chinese?

[Koneko]

As "马戏团要蛙干嘛？"?

K.

[flameproof]

I will have some time in Shanghai and will try that too. Actually the large book shops are usually full of kids sitting around a reading. I am sure some will be glad to help.

For the curious I attached one page of TinTin, and two of the short stories.

I wonder what the more advanced readers think about the stories...?

tintin.pdf

story1.pdf

story2.pdf

[Koneko]

Re: Tin Tin - Not bad.

See page 3, that's actually a 回力标 (boomerang) not 飞碟 (Frisbee)。

K.

[flameproof]

A few days ago I suggested this primary school short story book:

新语文读本(小学卷5)

http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/261411.html

When I was in the book shop in Shenzhen I just took it for no real apparent reason. It does challenge me a lot. I do get to the meaning, still, it's an effort.

I thought the "5" had no big meaning. But actually the books are graded from 1 to 12. So today I bought also 1, 2, 3 + 4 for a reasonable rmb31 altogether.

Book 1 + 2 still have pinyin above each character. Book 3 is then characters only, but fairly simple. I think they are quite good for early learners.

Here are books 1-4:

新语文读本(小学卷1) http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/73968.html

新语文读本(小学卷2) http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/298855.html

新语文读本(小学卷3) http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/261355.html

新语文读本(小学卷4) http://www.haoplus.com/1-book/261362.html

What I want to say is, I think it's better to have a look at children's short story books rather then checking the adult learners corner, which had none in Shenzhen. Or only written text in combination with lessons. Just my rmb0.01...

[flameproof]

flameproof, maybe you can try this one. The table of content's not listed, but it sounds like a book of jokes in Chinese intended for beginners who know about 1500 words. The accompanying CD has audio of the readings.

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3272

Name：Wit and Humor an Easy Chinese Reading Series: A Simple But Difficult Problem (with CD)

As mentioned before, that book is absolutely excellent! The CD is excellent too. Audio quality is superb too. On top, the (female) story teller really tells the story with great emotions.

Stories are 400-500 characters long. One thing you can argue whether it's good or bad is the Pinyin. I prefer to have no pinyin. With pinyin I look automatically mainly at the pinyin. To avoid that I re-type all stories with Chinese characters only.

One problem I face (and i guess I am not the only one), even I know all characters in a sentence I very often can not get the meaning. Any suggestion how to increase comprehension? Reading a lot stuff that ain't too difficult is probably one way.... maybe the only way, or?

[flameproof]

A little update on: http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3272

Wit and Humor: An Easy Chinese Reading Series: A Simple But Difficult Problem (with CD)

简易汉语趣味阅读－简单的难题

I re-typed so far the first 10 stories, they use about 4500 characters, and 980 different ones. So I guess the whole book will have well over 1000 different characters. I will keep you posted once I typed in all. Means it's not THAT easy to figure out for a beginner.

[elina]

I’d like to change our website’s link of http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3272 into the updating one:

http://9822629.s31.sqnet.cn/book.asp?id=3272

Wit and Humor: An Easy Chinese Reading Series: A Simple But Difficult Problem (with CD)

简易汉语趣味阅读－简单的难题

EDIT: the newest link for the product:

http://www.studychineseculture.com/book.asp?id=3272

[gato]

Elaine, you should get your domain name fixed soon. It's bad for business to have a weird domain name like that.

[elina]

I use google to search lovemandarin now, there’re still 1620 results appearing, if we use a new international domain name from now on, then plus http://9822629.s31.sqnet.cn/, there will be 3 different names directing to our site. I remember to see from somewhere before that if a same site has several names (don’t know if it includes 3 names or not, it’s the secret of google), google will think the site is 作弊/ cheating in order to attract 流量/views, then the site will be punished by google. So I think we’d better not to risk now. When the lovemandarin disappears totally in google, we will start a new international domain name. I could be wrong though, thoughts?

Elaine,

Thanks for the new name for me, it’s nice, I like it

[roddy]

The sooner you use the new name the faster the old entries will disappear

I wouldn't worry about Google kicking you out over having too many domain names - they're much friendlier than Paypal. I'd just get the new name up and running ASAP. We know you're wonderful, but to the rest of the world it looks a bit unprofessional.