Websites to Improve Reading (Beg-Intermediate)

[SumChoi]

Right now, I'm in the middle of the NPCR's second book, so my guess is my reading level is mid to high beginner. Do you guys have any good websites that I can practice my reading? Of course, if you suggest sites like newspaper websites, they would be too hard for me. But, if you guys have a good place for me to practice my lowly skills, please share them with me.

Thanks!

[ThatBlokeDave]

This is a nice little website. It is not updated that often as I think it is just one persons effort but there is lots of stuff already on there at different levels to have a read over with some nice explanations to boot.

http://chinesereadingpractice.com/

[Susu]

Hello SumChoi,

I have exactly the same problem and find Chinese websites overwhelming!

If you have a smartphone I think that http://decipherchinese.com would be good for your needs - they have a bunch of really interesting articles and stories selected for learners, the app also has an dictionary and reads out the article too.

[ThatBlokeDave]

Another site is http://chineselevel.com/

This site gives you a quick test to see where you are at level wise (only takes about 5mins) then attempts to provide level appropriate content from around the web.

[abcdefg]

#2 -- Very nice.

#4 -- The jump between testing levels seems quite large. At one level I know all the words, and at the next level I know very few.

[HedgePig]

There's also http://www.chinesestoriesplatform.com

This has stories aimed at two levels - those who know the old HSK level 1 vocab and those who know the old HSK level 2 vocab.

It also has audio, transcripts (in both traditional and simplified), pinyin and a vocab list of "new" words (which includes examples)

No English translation though.

It seems that since last year, the new stories being added are not kept in the history list but there are still several hundred articles available.

Regarding #4 - this site doesn't seem to work, at least for me. I did the test and then got no recommendations (maybe my score was too low!).

[abcdefg]

Regarding #4 - this site doesn't seem to work, at least for me. I did the test and then got no recommendations (maybe my score was too low!).

I also got no recommendations.

[SumChoi]

Thanks for all the responses. I've been busy these couple of days but I promise I'll go through those websites and let you know what I think.

And Susu...unfortunately, I don't have a smartphone (I'm low-tech) but I have an iPod touch. I wonder if that'll work.

[ThatBlokeDave]

I also got no recommendations.

Just tried it again.... I also am coming up with nothing. Sorry for the dud!

It worked a few months back when I last tried it.

[parmarossa]

A site I sometimes use is the free tool - http://newsinchinese.com from the PopUpChinese guys. It takes snippets out of articles from Sina News, and presents it in a clean way with instant annotation..

I guess I like it because it doesn't overload you with content, but you can read the full article if you need more.

The annotation is also very well done (adsotrans translator)

(note: I don't have any affiliation with these guys)

[Susu]

Hi SumChoi, I think the app should work on an iPod Touch... you can download apps on it, right? I am a big ChinesePod fan (Echo and Brendan are so funny!) but the news content is quite scary for me - I guess my mandarin needs a lot of improvement! The Decipher app grades the articles by HSK level so you end up reading things that are a bit more manageable.

[SumChoi]

Thanks ThatBlokeDave.

I tried http://chinesereadingpractice.com/ last night. Only went through two of the beginner passages. They were pretty helpful. Overall, I understood most of the content but there were some words that I couldn't read, so it's good that it wasn't too hard or too easy.

I still have yet visited the other websites. I'll definitely give them a shot once my schedule opens up.

[SumChoi]

ThatBlokeDave - I just went to http://chineselevel.com/. I breezed through the first reading. It got progressively more difficult. By the time I reached the last reading, most of the words I highlighted red (words I didn't understand). I was surprised by the result. According to the test, I should understand 81% of the vocab in newspapers (which I highly doubt) and I know 5641 Chinese words (which I highly doubt as well).

It's an interesting site. But I really doubt it's accurate.

[yjwan1981]

I come here , and read your post for improving my English competence as I'm a English learner from China(so my English is a little crappy)

I think I'd like to recommend you this : 上下五千年

http://www.tianyabook.com/5000nian/

because this is history book for Chinees children ,actually ,I read this when I was a kid and it's very impressive for me ,it tell you so many chinese history story and could help you understand chinese culture ,and you could know so many chinese famous characters ,like 诸葛亮 ,岳飞

[smurese]

For a fuller record of "websites that I can practice my reading", I have a collection of 15 websites listed on this LearnchineseOK Chinese Reading Practice page, 11 of those websites which specifically have reading material for beginning levels. There are literally hundreds of graded reading items available through those websites for free, many of which have accompanying reading comprehension activities as well.

The sources include 6 universities and a couple of government related institutions such as the U.S. National Foreign Language Center and the Singapore Ministry of Education. If you want I could list them all here; but to save space and avoid having a long descriptive list on this board, you can just have a look at that page first.

So those are more than a few places, as you say, "for me to practice my lowly skills". They're handily accessible and free!

[Demonic_Duck]

Tried the link in #4, looked promising, but it ended up saying that I know 5000 Chinese words (I'm fairly sure it's considerably less than that) and that I could read 80% of words in newspaper articles (sounds highly dubious), then recommended me a load of articles in traditional Chinese (although I took the test in simplified), most of which looked like they'd be a good way beyond my capabilities even if they were simplified.

[ThatBlokeDave]

Here is a great site for anyone learning traditional.

It contains a series of short stories with ZHUYIN alongside. You can also click on the words to hear the story narrator read the story (with a nice story-telling tone of voice). Finally, you can watch the entire story as a cartoon as well.

http://edu.ocac.gov.tw/biweekly/animation1/index.htm