A fun and beautifully illustrated way to learn Chinese!

[YingZi]

The Epic Adventures of Princess Moonface is a high quality, hip and modern language-teaching multimedia series for tweens, teens and young adults.

The Epic Adventures of Princess Moonface (PMF) is a boxed kit containing a bilingual graphic novel, five accompanying CDs, five workbooks, and a character writing practice book. PMF will couple a traditional-style audio book with a dynamic, fully interactive web site on which young users have a safe and fun platform to further practice their Chinese through games and chat.

PMF focuses on a group that is left out of language learning – teens and young adults. There are plenty of engaging books and DVDs for infants and toddlers; adults are expected to devote time to dry and boring programs. We recognize the need for a program that not only teaches Chinese in a clear, systematic way, but is imaginative and entertaining too.

We have self-funded the creation of the first chapter of Princess Moonface. The next four chapters are written and ready to go, but we are in search of people like you to help us fund their translation, illustration, professional voice recording, and printing. We’re short of our goals for startup capital and would like to ask you to become a part of this exciting process!

To support us click the link below: http://www.kickstart...incess-moonface

[roddy]

This wouldn't normally have got approved, but I'm curious - have you actually already got pledges of $4000 for this? And what is the "patent-pending Synchronous Translation Method™, which allows for concurrent absorption of English, Chinese characters, and pinyin.", exactly?

[renzhe]

Well, the illustrations certainly look very nice.

[skylee]

The cat looks frightened. Poor cat.

PS - What does "他嚷嚷到" mean? Why are traditional characters (like 幾點) mixed with simplified characters?

[Guest realmayo]

Roddy, here you may find patent-pending Synchronous Translation Method™, along with a youtube video.

[roddy]

Well you're not getting a patent for putting English and pinyin above / below the Chinese. The idea of having the literal translation isn't new, either. If you manage to get a patent for having all four stacked up like that, I'm patenting bricks.

Concentrate on the stories and getting the content right*, and send them to a publisher. The Chinese Breeze and Graded Reader stuff is very popular, can't see why this wouldn't be, if done properly. Four 'layers' is too much though.

*You've got pinyin errors, some kind of character to pinyin transcription failure, and dubious choices for your 'literal' translation. All on the sample page. Not sure if any of the other Dragons are interested, but I'm out.

[Guest realmayo]

There are other Dragons here? And I thought you were the only self-made millionaire tycoon on the forums...

[jbradfor]

adults are expected to devote time to dry and boring programs.

We are? Darn, time for me to stop reading comics, watching TV programs, and listening to interesting podcasts.

[YingZi]

Thanks for all the comments. 感谢大家的热烈回帖。 I am surprised that there are so many people are learning Chinese now! 很激动 ！！ I am the Illustrator of this Book, Hope you like my drawings I am a Chinese working in the UK at the moment as an animator. To become an illustrator is my ultimate dream. I was really lucky to be asked to work on the first Charpter. I dont know much about how hard it is to learn Chinese for a Foreigner, but I had HARD time to learn English!! I have lived in the UK for many years, but I still feel very uncomfortable with English 真的是很郁闷啊， 我一点语言的天赋都没有， 很杯具！！ 不过我还是得硬着头皮去说英语， 哎哎。。。。

I remember when I was studying English, the text books bored me to death, and I always failed tests at school. Never Mind Then I started to read Manga which were translated into English, and that was so much more Fun, I have got piles of them now ， then I moved on to HarryPotter, it was pretty hard 汗~~

I didn't realise there were errors on the sample pages, 真是很惭愧/// I will talk to the Translator about that, and check the book many times before publishing. so far we have got pledges of $5000, 希望我能够集资足够的钱。 I think this book has a pretty interesting story and nice illustrations( 我王婆卖瓜自卖自夸一下先， 嘿嘿）， should be much more fun then the normal Language text books. wish my school books were as pretty 相信对于想学习中文的外国友人有所帮助。

the "patent-pending Synchronous Translation Method™, which allows for concurrent absorption of English, Chinese characters, and pinyin." makes sense for me. they were translated again back to English to match individual Chinese Characters, so you know what each character means.

真的很感谢大家的意见和回帖， 也希望大家多支持这本书， 我们会继续努力提高和改进它。

I really appreciate all your comments. give me a shout if you have any questions

给大家在多欣赏一下里面的插图：

@SkyLee： 他嚷嚷到 means he shouted. 就是大声的说道， 不耐烦

[Daan]

the "patent-pending Synchronous Translation Method™, which allows for concurrent absorption of English, Chinese characters, and pinyin." makes sense for me. they were translated again back to English to match individual Chinese Characters, so you know what each character means.

Er...patent pending? If you ever get a patent for this under UK patent law, you stand to make a killing. All you need to do is ask every linguistics journal for licence fees for using interlinear glosses! A practice that's been around since, well, at least the 19th century, so there's obviously plenty of prior art they could point to in a request for invalidation. But I'm not a lawyer, of course, so perhaps the fact that you've elected to print the translation first and only then the characters, Pinyin and glosses means this is a novel invention and thus patentable. If you ever get a patent for this, let us know. I'd be thrilled to read it.

At any rate, good luck with your project

[Silent]

The internet is full of silly patents and actually the world is. I sometimes have the impression that every variety on a theme is patentable. So why not 4 lines in a certain order possibly even with some spacing rules? Apart from that, isn't the patent pending just a marketing trick to suggest an innovative approach? Who cares or the patent is ever granted? Or filed for...

[jbradfor]

If anyone cares enough, I think this is their patent application.

[Silent]

If that's the one it doesn't sound encouraging to me.

processing based on statistical concept, any sentence is also translated by calling machine translation technology,

Machine translation is still well behind human translation AFAIK. It may explain (in part) the errors that Roddy reported.

[YingZi]

thanks for the feedback, as what I said, I am only working on the illustrations, I do not know much about this patent-pending Synchronous Translation Method™. but I am sure the story and the art will be fantastic, really hope it will get published， then it will be my first illustrated book! 开始做白日梦啦， 哈哈哈， 哈喇子都流出来了。。。。。

sure, if it ever get a patent for this, will let you guys know la .

还希望大家多多指教。 多谢

[renzhe]

I wish you luck because I really like the artwork, and it's an interesting concept.

Like others said, there are issues with the Chinese teaching part, and I hope you sort them out.

[skylee]

@SkyLee： 他嚷嚷到 means he shouted. 就是大声的说道， 不耐烦

Thanks for the response. But then shouldn't that be 他嚷嚷道?

[roddy]

That doesn't look like the same patent, it's just got the same name. I'd be surprised if there's even a patent application in for this, to be honest.

Thanks for sticking around to answer questions Yingzi, but you should perhaps ask the people doing the language bits to read it too - if the books have the same problems as the sample page, they're in trouble.

[xiaocai]

Hey do you watch anime or read manga? For a minute I thought I saw Kusanagi Motoko from Ghost in the Shell in the first illustration.

I like your work a lot, especially some details. Hope you can keep it up and reach your goal soon.

[YingZi]

@renzhe I am sooooo happy that you like the illustrations. ;) you are sweet! sure we will fix the problems. everyone is 火眼金睛， 我来这发帖就对了。 we will make sure there will no mistakes in the book before its sent to printing.

@Xiaocai: yes! I am a massive manga fan! and always want to be a mangaka! I dont read Ghost in the Shell manga, but I have watched the film. hmmmm... I think Kusanagi Motoko is quite MAN ~~~~ our girl is not as 强悍， 嘿嘿 we have raised more than 50% of the money we need. hopefully it will be a dream come ture. Thanks for your support

we have a facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Epic-Adventures-of-Princess-Moonface/108396967316

you will see more sketches and drawings here.

谢谢

[feihong]

I personally recommend foregoing the paper book and just go straight to publishing it as an iPad application. You'll save a lot on printing fees. And you probably won't need to print out the text on four lines, which takes up a massive amount of space. With that space freed up, you'll have more room to let the artwork breathe.

From what I've seen so far, it looks more like a picture book (绘本) than a comic. Calling it a graphic novel might raise expectations that can't be met. If you decide to actually make a graphic novel, then I feel publishing it as a book would make more sense.

If you do go down the graphic novel route, I would recommend taking a look at The Courageous Princess. This is a graphic novel for younger readers, but extremely well done. I think this approach only works if the story is truly interesting, and not bent too far to meet certain educational goals. For example, don't put a toaster in the panel because you think the reader needs to learn the word for toaster, put it in if it serves the story.

Another one to look at for somewhat older readers is The Unsinkable Walker Bean. I realize that both of these books are not really aimed at teenage readers but I feel they are interesting enough that even teens would still be willing to read them.

Anyway, I wish you the best of luck.