Chinese Breeze (汉语风） Graded Readers

[Silent]

I've seen 'a nice lady in shanghai' and 'bicycle kingdom' of this series before. Never seen the brochure before or other meaningful info on them. They appear to be nearly identical to the 中文天天读 series. See: http://www.studychineseculture.com/search.asp?keyword=%D6%D0%CE%C4%CC%EC%CC%EC%B6%C1&thetype=bookname&submit1=SEARCH

If I look at it at a glance 'bicycle kingdom' in the 中文天天读 series has the same stories as the Macmillan version plus a couple extra. Also for the purple books there's a clear overlap. The story page in the brochure is seems identical to the one in the 中文天天读 series. The grammar/exercise page in my books contains an extra language point and an extra photo and is restyled on a few minor points.

[JenniferW]

Is there anyone studying Chinese in the UK who would like a copy of the Level 2 Chinese Breeze book, 'Our geese have gone' / 我家的大雁飞走了？ I've just finished reading it and am living somewhere in England that there's no-one to pass it on to and I'd happily post it to someone in this country who wants it.

[HuShiwei]

I was looking to do some extra work on the website so I guessed the name instead of looking in the book, try www.chinesebreeze.com the web developer doesn't seem too pleased. The websites listed in the books don't work either.

[mnanon]

I have 'Can i dance with you?Chinese Breeze book (Level 1)'. It is beyond my level (I know only 100 words) but I am able to read it with the help of the Android/iPhone app Pleco http://www.pleco.com/androidbeta.html

Bought two add-on modules - Optical Reader, and Stroke Order. I also bought the ABC Chinese-English DeFrancis dictionary. The optical reader is wonderful.

[character]

For personal use only, I was thinking of scanning in one of the Chinese Breeze books to use with Pleco's OCR. Has anyone done this? I worry about having to scan/clean up ~50 pages (removing the reference numbers, underlines under names, vocabulary, pictures, etc). OTOH holding the iPad and reading is much less awkward than trying to hold the book and look up individual words in Pleco.

[jbradfor]

Others may disagree with this, but IMHO the Chinese Breeze series is better used to practice reading, not (as much) for vocabulary acquisition. If you find a high percent of words you don't know in them (and can't figure out from the context), they might not be right for you.

Also, from a time-spent perspective, there is a decent amount of learning that goes on when you try to look up a word in a book w/o using OCR. The time spent OCR-ing the entire book is more-or-less wasted in terms of learning. So, to me, I'd rather spend my time looking up a word in a dictionary (which, by focusing on the word for a minute or two, helps me learn it), versus cleaning up an OCR page.

[character]

@jbradfor, I agree these books are not mainly about aquiring vocabulary. Most of my Chinese study time is on a bus, so having one thing to hold would be much better than trying to juggle an iPhone and the book on a moving (and vibrating) bus.

[jbradfor]

Good point.

I was thinking about this, and..... an idea. I'm not sure a good one or a bad one.

What if you read Chinese Breeze on paper, and if you don't know a character / word, you close the book and try to look up the word by radical, either in paper or electronic dictionary. That way you will only have one thing open at a time, and not having the character in front of you will force you to keep it in your mind.

If you want to get fancy, then close the dictionary, open a notebook and write in the new character and the pinyin.

It may not be very (time) efficient, but it keeps only one thing open at once, and I think the time spend on each character will help you remember it.

I don't know what you are using to ensure you remember characters long-term, and how that would fit into your system. Personally, I can almost never a character just by seeing it ones. [众 and 尖 were exceptions....]

[character]

@jbradfor, thanks. I guess I will just have to try scanning in a book and see how reading it that way compares.

[character]

Just some followup: I scanned in some pages from one of the books. Just trying it for a few minutes, it works incredibly well to read on the iPad in Pleco OCR.

[patphilly]

Hi everyone,

I am planning to start this book series to practice my reading skills. I was wondering what was the status of the publications as of now?

It seems that level 1 has 6 books:

1. Wrong, wrong, wrong!

2. I really want to find her

3. Two children seeking..

4. Left and Right

5. Can I dance with you?

6. Whom do you like more?

How many titles are there for level 2? what about level 3? anything about the upper levels?

Looking them up on Amazon or other websites doesnt necessarily give a complete list. Thanks for your help!

Other question: I read that user flameproof used to give detailed and interesting stats about the number of individual characters in each book. Any update about that?

[elina]

Currently there’re 6 books at level 1, see the first 6 books with red color:
http://www.studychineseculture.com/search.asp?keyword=%BA%BA%D3%EF%B7%E7&thetype=bookname&submit1=SEARCH

7 books at level 2, see the books with blue color:
http://www.studychineseculture.com/search.asp?keyword=%BA%BA%D3%EF%B7%E7&thetype=bookname&submit1=SEARCH

1 book at level 3, see the book with orange color:
http://www.studychineseculture.com/search.asp?keyword=%BA%BA%D3%EF%B7%E7&thetype=bookname&submit1=SEARCH

The next book will be 画皮, which may be published in May or June. And then the next book will be 留在中国的月亮石雕. The upper level 4 will be out next year, the authors are still in the process of writing the stories.

[patphilly]

Interesting, thanks a lot!

[character]

Just saw the Chinese Breeze books (the ones with 300 and 500 characters) as Amazon Kindle edition ebooks!

[roddy]

Have you got a link? Couldn't spot them on .co.uk or .com

[Flying Pigeon]

Looks like they might only be available from .com. Didn't see them on .co.uk.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Chinese+breeze

Wonder if they'll be available from the iBooks store.

[roddy]

Ah, there's a drop down to set your region, that's why I couldn't see them. Anyone tried a sample chapter?

[Manos]

Very interesting thread! I was really looking for something fun besides NPCR to improve my chinese.

I just ordered the 6 books of the Level 1 Chinese Breeze and i cant wait to start reading them!

As someone already mentioned, its a great reward being able to read a book, even if its a piece of cake for most.

[character]

Anyone tried a sample chapter?

I got the 500-character ebooks and the ones I've looked at seem of good quality; instead of just images of the pages, they have Chinese text. So it is much better than something like the Kindle version of Chinese Demystified, where all the Chinese text was images.

ETA: These ebooks don't have the few pages of questions about the story the print books do. The print books also include a CD with audio. I've never used either of those features.

Aside: Is it too much to hope for that these inexpensive, nicely-produced, useful ebooks won't be pirated and kill off interest in making more such educational ebooks?

[Lovvir]

Aside: Is it too much to hope for that these inexpensive, nicely-produced, useful ebooks won't be pirated and kill off interest in making more such educational ebooks?

Can you buy those books in kindle format now? When I go to:

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=Chinese+breeze

all of them are "Currently unavailable". At the same time, maybe Amazon blocked them for specific countries, like mine :/

Cheers