Graded readers, by the numbers (characters/words, page count)

[character]

Added some information about the Rainbow Bridge Graded Readers.  These books are more nicely produced but have less content per book than the Chinese Breeze books.  The 150 word level is especially light.  Each book includes an English translation which is obviously very helpful for self study.  For learners of Simplified, I think they are worth considering if they can be purchased around their listed price of 15 RMB / $2.30.

[Flickserve]

These are two beginner graded readers published by the Commercial Press in Hong Kong. (there are others for beginner up to advanced)

 

ISBN 978 962 07 1956 1

 

ISBN 978 962 07 1890 8

 

 

12 short stories in each book, each story divided into three parts. There's an English translation with every story.

 

They cost HK$118 each.

 

I only found them in the Causeway Bay branch of the Commercial Press.

[Mati1]

Posting here too for the sake of completeness.

 

Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners Series: 500 - 1200 Characters (BLCUP)

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/52359-graded-readers-for-chinese-language-learners-series-500-1200-characters-blcup/#comment-403120

[mlescano]

Hey, guys. I'm already down to my last two Kindle books in the Chinese Breeze and Mandarin Companion series.(both Level 2).

 

Any more recommendations for readers available in downloadable formats? iBooks, Kindle, anything that I can put on an iPad. I see most of your recommendations are paper books, but shipping costs to my country are too high, so I prefer digital. Better without pinyin. Doesn't matter if there's no audio. Thanks!

[Mati1]

Looking at the list in the first post, there should be a section for e-books.

I don't know of others.

Chinese Breeze isn't available as Kindle book via the German Amazon. Where do you live?

Shipping and customs are unfortunately a bit expensive, yes. Maybe you can find Chinese Breeze level 3 without having to order from China.

[mlescano]

Thanks for your answer. I'm in Ecuador. I can buy Kindle books from American Amazon with no problem. Only Amazon Video is blocked here.

 

I re-checked the first post and, except for the Chinese Breeze and Mandarin Companion series, which I already have, all of them seem to be paper books.

 

After finishing with the ones I have left, I'm going to tackle a Chinese children's book I bought in China: 笑猫日记，会唱歌的猫. This "smiling cat" series seems to be very popular, and has like 20 volumes. I only brought one, but I could bribe my cousins to bring more when they return from China in the summer. Has anyone tried it?

 

EDIT: I just noticed in Purple Culture's website that they're carrying two level 4 Chinese Breeze books. Great. If anyone knows how to purchase these as e-books, I'm all ears.

[Mati1]

If the first three levels of Chinese Breeze were indeed published for the Kindle than it should only be a matter of time. I already sent an order for the paper version of level 4

 

In case you (have to) switch to paper check out my earlier post, 4 posts above this one.

[Mati1]

Oh I just noticed, what happened to Chinese Breeze level 3, it's not in your Kindle store? Of course get those and level 4 too

[character]

On 3/7/2017 at 9:35 PM, mlescano said:

Any more recommendations for readers available in downloadable formats? iBooks, Kindle, anything that I can put on an iPad.

I'm not aware of other such readers, but there are a lot of Chinese books online and "learn Chinese" websites and iOS apps.  https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/51989-a-short-list-of-resources-for-studying-chinese/  would be a good place to start; it lists http://www.thechairmansbao.com/  and http://justlearnchinese.com/ as examples.

[werewitt]

Something I picked up on Pleco forums a couple of years ago - a plain text file.

Chinese reading practice.txt

[Rufus]

Mandarin Companion has released two more books not on the list.

 

Level 1: 300 Characters

The Prince and the Pauper

 

Level 2: 450 Characters

Journey to the Center of the Earth

 

I have it from a very reliable source (me) that there are 3 more books due out this year: Emma, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and The Ransom of Red Chief. 

[character]

@Rufus, thank you, I've added those two to the list.  If you would care to share page counts I can add that info as well.  Glad to see you're releasing more readers!

[character]

Updated the list to add more Rainbow Bridge releases.

[Mati1]

@character Is there a special reason for not adding the series I've posted before to the list? Already two levels with 30 books released.

[character]

Hi @Mati1!  I definitely wasn't trying to exclude your contributions or anything like that.  As I said early on in this thread, "People should feel free to add their own info to this topic on these and other readers."  And they should!  You can see elina's, OneEye's, etc. contributions are not incorporated into my first post.  Maybe it's just a difference of cultural norms?  On some forums I've been on it can be considered bad manners to take other's later contributions and incorporate them into your own, earlier post.  Perhaps I've been inconsistent in what gets included in the first post and what doesn't (even all of my DeFrancis coverage isn't included) but there is definitely no bad intent toward you or compensation required for inclusion or anything like that.  I guess I included Rufus' new books for the same reason I included other new books in series already listed in the first post: to keep all graded readers in a series together.

[character]

Some from the 2017 Chinasprout catalog:

 

Contemporary Chinese Short-Short Stories

"Language Through Literature: An Advanced Reader of Contemporary Chinese Short-Short Stories is specially designed for North American students at the intermediate high and advanced levels. It includes twelve short-short stories which have been published in the past ten years. Each short-short story has approximately 1,200 to 1,800 characters."  Simplified, MP3, 224 pages

 

This is My Book - Guided Reading in Chinese

"This Is My Book establishes a system of reading levels based on the high frequently used Chinese characters from authorized Chinese textbook as well as the standards of International Curriculum for Chinese language Education by Hanban, China. 13 levels of Chinese reading set up in a range of 50 to 1,200 Chinese most frequently used characters. Reading text is leveled according to various parameters, including total character count, number of new words, sentence patterns, sentence length, and sentence complexity."

30 books in all, simplified, 50 to 1,200 characters, 9 pages per book

 

Chinese E-JoyReader

"JoyReader is a reading App designed for young students who are studying Chinese language. The App runs on both iPad, iPhone and all Android phones and tablets. It contains over 1500 Chinese and 500 English storybooks, more than 50 titles will be added on a monthly basis." [Emphasis added as lots of people want an electronic option]

Simplified

 

Graded Readers - Four Chinese Classics

"Each volume in the Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners series is an abridged version of a Chinese classic novel."

Simplified, 500, 800, 1200 characters and 92-107 pages depending on the book

 

Mutant Love

"Mutant Love has a graded reading level of 800-1000 Chinese vocabulary words for middle and high school students.  This story takes place in China in the year 2050."

Simplified, 800-1000 characters and ~70 pages depending on the book

[character]

This post by @laurenth makes me wonder if anyone has been helped by this topic (3 years old now) on their road to literacy.  If it has helped you it would be neat if you could create a topic about your journey so far like laurenth did so others could benefit.

 

Also, if you have experience (good or bad) with any of the graded readers here, a topic reviewing them or adding a reply to an existing topic would be beneficial as well.

[character]

IronMandarin (forum topic) graded reader website, Simplified/Traditional, uses HSK.

 

The Chairman's Bao (forum topic) news-based graded reader website, Simplified, uses HSK.

[character]

imagin8

Rise of the Monkey King, audio online, Simplified/Pinyin/English, 600 characters, HSK 3, 120 pages

Trouble in Heaven, audio online, Simplified/Pinyin/English, 600 characters, HSK 3, 106 pages

Forum topic

[Mati1]

@character Right. It's just that I feel that a sticky post should make life easier for readers and include the most important information. I can't create my own sticky and (partly) copying threads might be counter productive / inappropriate.

In this context "most important" for me personally means the only three series of graded readers available to us, where one can get enough material while actually reading novellas instead of just short stories. These are Mandarin Companion, Chinese Breeze and "Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners". The first two are great for beginners but only slowly getting into the higher levels, while the third series can finally help you get to an intermediate level beyond 1000 characters (more precisely 1200 characters once level three of "Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners" is released).

Given the current (still incomplete) state of these series and the fact that I had a hard time in the past to find enough quality reading material you can see that I have a strong opinion about this matter. Also, I guess the series "Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners" is harder to find (depending on the shop) and / or some learners may shy away from it, because it's Chinese only, even on the cover.

You mentioned elina's and OneEye's entries, but again, it's more of textbooks and short stories. Don't get me wrong, I have many textbooks and short story books too, but I prefer longer stories for extended reading if I can understand them and they are easier too.

I am not trying to "bully" my way onto the front page, apologies if you felt that way.

 

Wow, a lot of material in the Chinasprout catalog mentioned above.

On 18/06/2017 at 10:46 PM, character said:

Graded Readers - Four Chinese Classics

"Each volume in the Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners series is an abridged version of a Chinese classic novel."

Simplified, 500, 800, 1200 characters and 92-107 pages depending on the book

The Chinasprout catalog entry is a bit misleading. This is actually level two of "Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners", which is divided into four story arcs, each arc covering four to six books. Chinasprout seems to sell the story arcs as a whole, but the price given should be per book (if not, get it while it's cheap).

 

 

Read Chinese Everyday Ⅰ (Hanyu tiantian du) (Including 1 MP3) , Simplified, 500 words, 179 pages, as mentioned by @elina

I bought this textbook maybe two years ago without much information, being under the impression (and hoping) that it's easy enough at the 500 words level. But it was too difficult for me. I have no idea how many characters one should learn prior to using this book comfortably without a teacher. I quickly moved on to my other easier material again, but I still want to read it at some point.

Let me just quote the preface for you:

 Elementary (Part I):

 "Designed for students with elementary reading ability. The objective is to master simple sentences and learn 500 Chinese characters within 12 weeks."

Soo ... one should know x-hundred characters to learn 500 new characters comfortably.