Online shop for native Chinese books for beginners/intermediates in North America

[phyrex]

Hey guys,

I recently launched an online shop in which you can buy real native Chinese media (books, with movies in the near future), categorized by difficulty level.

The (very) short history of that is that I started learning Chinese a couple of years ago and have a major aversion against classroom-learning and textbooks, so that was (for these and other reasons) no way for me. I had learned both my native language and later English by reading and watching movies so I figured I'd do the same again with Chinese. However, I had problems finding stuff that was appropriate for my level, which made progressing more difficult than it had to be. Now it's a couple of years later and I'm in the position to open a store like the one I always wanted.

So if you're interested in real Chinese media but you're facing the same problem and you find it really hard to find something at your level (between "I only know a couple of words" and "I'm already pretty good but it's not like I can take any novel and have fun with it"), have a look at the store. The address is: www.forlearnersmedia.ca . There is all sorts of (imho) interesting stuff there, so even if you don't buy anything, have a look! There’s nothing to lose and lots to gain

Thanks,

Max

(Dear mods: As I mentioned in the other post, this is an advertisement, and I hope that's okay - it's for something I really believe in. If you're not okay with leaving it like this, please contact me so we can work something out! Thanks!)

[abcdefg]

It's a good idea, but when I visited the site, elementary and intermediate sections only had childrens' books. I was hoping for material aimed at adult elementary and intermediate learners, along the lines of "Chinese Breeze."

I like the concept, and hope that the selection of media evolves over time. "Kami Wets Herself" is not my notion of a good read.

[phyrex]

Hi abcdefg,

I didn't really like the Chinese Breeze series - I'm not a big fan of dumbed down stuff (I remember they once forced us to read a 'simplified' version of 'Brave New World' in English class, where not only the language, but also the content had been considerably changed). I'd rather read Kami Wet Herself than having to suspect that I'm being fed 'purified Chinese' all the time [And those books are actually quite entertaining - even when you're not spending most of your time wrestling with the language itself].

That being said, I know what you mean, but it's hard to find *native* media that is easy enough for learners. I plan to add things like Ducktales and Doraemon and perhaps something like Harry Potter soon, but these things are still aimed at teenagers. If you want simplified adult material, I guess you'll have to look for things like Chinese Breeze, the Graded Chinese Reader series, and perhaps the Little Prince (小王子) - that one's very readable. The good news is that there are many 'Chinese Learner' stores that sell these kinds of things!

Thanks for having a look and your comment though!

[roddy]

As I mentioned in the other post, this is an advertisement, and I hope that's okay - it's for something I really believe in. If you're not okay with leaving it like this, please contact me so we can work something out! Thanks!

Deleted the double topic. Thanks to those who sent in post reports. I would have thought normal practice in this case is to ask first, but I'll assume you're a new member who obviously had no idea how to contact admin staff.

[feihong]

@phyrex

I took a look at your Intermediate section and I think that all those books would probably be too easy for most middle school students. When I was teaching middle school (7th grade) in China my students were reading things like One Piece and the earlier Harry Potter books.

[phyrex]

Hey Feihong, thanks for having a look.

I was teaching 3rd and 4th grades in China and some of those things might be too easy for even them too (except for some of the characters). But the shop is geared toward non-native speakers, and I think for them, it's fair to call that material intermediate. You can read up on the criteria I used to classify something as 'intermediate' here: http://www.forlearne...ls#intermediate

PS: I just saw that I wrote 'middle school' in the description. I hadn't thought of that! You're right there, that's not correct for much of the material! I just changed it!

[Gleaves]

Good luck with this effort. I am a big fan of using native material myself.

As the site and content expands, I'd love to see some additonal layers of difficulty. Maybe ten different tiers/levels. I would find it interesting if you rated books like graded readers (taking into account rough estimates on how much vocab is needed, complexity of grammar, cultural/historical references, etc.) on a gradually increasing scale. That could be especially helpful from the range of childrens' novels (like the level of Goosebumps) all the way up to the classics (like 红楼梦)。

[phyrex]

Thanks, Gleaves!

Where do you see the advantage of having ten tiers instead of four? I have chosen the current model because I figure that 1) native language simply is messy and defies strict categorization and 2) at some point you're competent enough to choose stuff for yourself and you don't need me anymore for that That being said, I'm always open to suggestions and would be happy to hear your reasoning!

[Silent]

Sure, at some point you can pick your own stuff, but that's only when you're really advanced and can read everything or when you go to a physical shop and can browse the book. From a distance it's very hard to judge and only 4 categories means there's a wide range of levels within one categorie. Ideally you have a list of books ordered according to difficulty. That is of course very tricky to achieve. The vocabulary may be easy, but the grammar may be horrible. The number of words may be low, but it may consist of very rare words etc.

[phyrex]

Hi silent,

I can only speak from my own experience of course, but I think that after you have passed 2000 characters (my metric of choice), you should be good enough to judge the level of books by yourself and to read a good part of everything you come across. By 2500, you should be comfortable ordering from sites like dangdang.com and to read just about any fiction you care to order from there (you won't always understand every single character of course, but you should understand enough to enjoy reading it). I have yet to add books to my 'Advanced' category (writing up reviews takes forever, and I wanted to launch the store rather sooner than later), but I believe that studying a couple of books of each category, from Newbie to Advanced, should put you solidly into at least the 2000 character territory, likely higher than that. So I think you might make the happy mistake of overestimating the effort needed to reach the level at which you can choose your own books

[gato]

I was teaching 3rd and 4th grades in China and some of those things might be too easy for even them too (except for some of the characters). But the shop is geared toward non-native speakers, and I think for them, it's fair to call that material intermediate. You can read up on the criteria I used to classify something as 'intermediate' here: http://www.forlearne...ls#intermediate

But on your site, you say:

Intermediate media:

The media you will find in this category are intended for older elementary school kids, in some cases for early middle schoolers. Media in this category does not feature pinyin anymore, but still goes easy on things like 成语 (chéngyǔ, idioms), technical vocabulary, and complicated grammatical structures.

It's not clear by "middle schoolers", whether you mean middle schoolers in China, or foreign learners who are middle schoolers. But from the context, it's clear you are referring to middle schoolers in China.

It's incorrect to say that materials intended for 7th/8th graders in China would be at the "intermediate" for foreign learners. Elementary school students in China typically can read about 2000 characters by the time they enter 3rd or 4th grade. Obviously, reading material for middle students would be way past "intermediate" under your classification.

I do agree with your focus on providing "native" material for those who know less than 1500 characters, as that's where the vast majority of Chinese learners are and where the market is.

I don't quite understand your aversion to the "Chinese Breeze" series. Though I've read only one story from the series, it seems very well done and the stories seem more interesting that the typical children story. It takes much more work but is still possible to tell a sophisticated story using a simple vocabulary.

[Gleaves]

phryex - Just speaking from experience, I think there is a much wider range of difficulty among novels than I expected. It usually still takes me a chapter to figure out the level (everything seems tough at first because you have to learn new characters/places, etc.). I probably would have benefited from a more gradual incline than the path I took, so I was just thinking your site could be an opportunity to provide some granual rankings/content. That all said, it sounds like your focus is getting people to the point that they are ready to read novels. So I think I initially misunderstood the scope of your site. I like the looks of that learn characters book CD set. I would have been all over that.

Also and completely unrelated to Chinese, your mention of Duck Tales forced me to look up the

song, which brightened my Friday considerably.

[phyrex]

Hey gato,

I was googling if I could find some official stats on the number of characters learned by grade in China, but couldn't find anything. Would you happen to have a link anywhere? When I was in China I didn't have the impression that the 3rd/4th grade kids knew 2000 characters, but I might be wrong.

When I wrote this description I was mainly thinking of comics like "Doraemon" (which I hope to add to the page soon), and I know for a fact that many middle schooler (and young adults ;) ) like to read that. The books that are in the intermediate category right now look much simpler than that, what with the pinyin and the pretty pictures and all, but the language is surprisingly hard (definitely at least Doraemon level), so I couldn't put them into the 'elementary' category with a good conscience. Maybe I should really introduce another 1-2 levels to make that clearer.

[phyrex]

Gleaves, it's a good point. I do think getting to the point where you can basically read most things is where you need the most help, but that shouldn't stop me from giving some recommendations for easier novels. Maybe it would make sense to at least split the 'advanced' category into two levels or something like that. I'll think about that!

re: ducktales: I don't know how popular these things are where you guys are from, but in Germany they are immensely popular and have been a staple of my childhood (and, I admit it, my teens ;) ). I loved them to death and was really happy to find out that you can get them in Chinese as well! I'm actually reviewing them at the moment for my shop and am having a blast

[gato]

I was googling if I could find some official stats on the number of characters learned by grade in China, but couldn't find anything. Would you happen to have a link anywhere?

I usually search with the keywords "gato characters grade" on this board when I'm looking for some stat like that.

Here you go:

http://www.chinese-f...dpost__p__64963

According to this article by a mainland teacher, by the end of second grade, a student should be able to recognize 1600-1800 characters and be able to write 800-1000, recognize 2500 characters by the end of fourth grade and write 2000. See http://zw.juren.com/zjdx/index.html

But this list of commonly used words from Taiwan has 360 characters for second grade, and 870 characters for fourth grade. That is less than half the number of characters learned by mainland students in the same period. Maybe it's the difference between "commonly used" and "know".

See http://residence.edu...nerwordgrd9.htm

[phyrex]

Haha, awesome, thank gato!

[skylee]

This is relevant -> 2000年 九年义务教育全日制小学语文教学大纲(试用修订版)

低年级 ... 认识常用汉字1800个左右，其中1200个左右会写

中年级 ... 认识常用汉字2500个左右。其中2000个左右会写

高年级 ...认识常用汉字3000个左右。其中2500个左右会写

[phyrex]

Thanks skylee! Do you know which grades count as as 低年级? 1-4? That seems to differ by country.

3000左右 sounds lower than I would have expected for 高年级.

PS: I just asked my old friend google and it said 低年级 is grades 1-2, and 中年级 is grades 3-4, in which case 1800 characters sounds like a lot. Can 6-7 year old kids really learn that much characters in two years? ^^

[skylee]

I have no idea. The link is merely the full version of what gato referred to before.

You might also wish to note for reference what happens in Hong Kong. Take a look at the introduction of the Hong Kong Chinese lexical lists for primary learning -

Chinese - http://www.edbchines...jiu_jianjie.htm

English - http://www.edbchines...u_jianjie_e.htm

詞語表最終確定收錄 9,706 詞語，其中絕大多數是兩岸三地共有的詞語，少數是香港地區獨有的詞語。第一學習階段(小一至小三)收錄 4,914 詞語，第二學習階段(小四至小六)收錄 4,792 詞語。兩個學習階段的分布情況，與香港、北京兩份小學詞語表接近。不計附表在內，詞語表包含 3,171 字。

it was decided to reach a collection of 9,706 words in the final lexical list, where the majority of words are common in the three regions across the Strait and a small portion are words solely found in Hong Kong. There are 4,914 words and 4,792 words in Key Stage I (Primary 1 to 3) and Key Stage II (Primary 4 to 6) respectively. The distribution of the two Key Stages of learning is close to the two word lists made by Hong Kong and Beijing. There are 3,171 characters in the lexical lists, excluding those in the supplementary lists.

[phyrex]

Interesting stuff, thank you. I just talked with a colleague of mine and he confirmed that he learned about 3000 characters by grade 6. I think I underestimated Chinese kids.. very impressive!