Easy Chinese Readings in 500 Characters

[Raoul]

I've had a partial photocopy of one of the books from this series (Easy Chinese Readings in 500 Characters) on my shelf for a while, and I've just started reading it. I've no idea where it came from, but I'm finding to be very useful, and would like to buy the series. Unfortunately, the only copies I can find are on Amazon for between US$50-180. Needless to say, I'd like to find another source...

Anyone know where I get get them from? Authors are Zhu Jian and others.

Cheers!

[flameproof]

Looks really interesting. The Chinese title is "生活在北京". It's USA published and probably not available in China. Seems to be out of print and very, very hard to find.

However, I found this link:

http://asianbookone.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=5168

There seem to be more books in that series.

Gato suggested to me:

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)

It's only rmb20 incl. the CD. It claims to use 1750 ... (words or characters??) . I find it manageable to read (I try to avoid "easy"). The short stories are quite interesting too. I try to do one a day now. There is also a 2nd book out there (which I also bought) with the same difficulty.

The books writes something about 3 levels, 1000, 1750, 2500 ... (words or characters??), however, seem only those 2 1750 level books ever got published.

[Raoul]

Thanks flameproof (cool handle by the way), I saw that discussion and gato's suggestions. I guess I'll have to shift directions and try that instead.

Cheers

[gato]

It claims to use 1750 ... (words or characters??) .

It's 1750 words.

Glad the books worked out for you. Not a lot of PRC-published Chinese learning materials provide interesting reading (and audio recording on an accompanying CD at the same time). Maybe more people should check it out.

The two books again are:

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

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

http://www.lovemandarin.com/book.asp?id=3273

Wit and Humor an Easy Chinese Reading Series: An Honorary Answer (with CD)

Here again is a correspondence between the number of characters to number of words in the HSK vocab list:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/11620-character-to-words-ratio&highlight=hsk

Your first 1000 words need 800 characters

Your first 3000 words need 1500 characters

Your first 5000 words need 2100 characters

Your first 8800 words need 2800 characters

[flameproof]

Not a lot of PRC-published Chinese learning materials provide interesting reading

At least not on that low entry level. But I did see A LOT of bilingual readers, where one page is in Chinese, and the opposite page is in English. They are designed for Chinese people that learn English, but could be used of course for "us" too.

There are AT LEAST 100+ titles in the huge books shop in shanghai, fuzhou lu. But reading "Ulysses" or "Tales of two cities" will be quite a challenge (I guess). Well, the "The Wizzard of Oz" looked fairly easy - but i am well stocked now with reading material. At my current learning speed that will last till about 2025

[adrianlondon]

I saw, and bought, some of those dual-langauge books from the bookshop near the west gate of the BNU campus.

As they're designed for people learning English, the mandarin page is complex and the English translation is quite simple. They're better than nothing, though.

[flameproof]

As they're designed for people learning English, the mandarin page is complex and the English translation is quite simple.

I think that's the way they are. That's why I would buy those only when I am far more advanced. They are not written for easy Chinese reading...

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

I just listened the first time to the CD. It has the 20 stories as Audio, about 3 Minutes each. The sound quality is excellent, real studio quality. The speaking is done by one woman. Her reading style is very good too. A true story teller. The CD is even included in the modest rmb20 price.

One side note, the book has no English, but the Chinese has also Pinyin, and the Pinyin is grouped into words for easier reading.