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

[ThorOdin]

Mandarin Companion Graded Readers:

 

Breakthrough Level: 150 Charaters

In Search of Hua Ma, 150 characters

Just Friends ?  150 characters

The Misadventures of Zhou Haisheng, 150 characters, Simplified or Traditional

My Teacher is a Martian, 150 characters
Xiao Ming, Boy Sherlock, 150 characters
 

Level 1: 300 characters

Emma,  300 characters, Simplified or Traditional

The Secret Garden, Simplified, 300 characters, 61 pages Group read

The Monkey's Paw, Simplified, 300 characters, 53 pages

The Country of the Blind, Simplified, 300 characters, 58 pages

The Ransom of the Red Chief, 300 characters

The Sixty Year Dream, Simplified, 300 characters, 58 pages

The Prince and the Pauper, 300 characters, Simplified or Traditional

Sherlock Holmes and the Red-Headed League, Simplified, 300 characters, 60 pages

 

Level 2: 450 characters

Great Expectations Volume 1, Simplified, 450 characters, 70 pages

Great Expectations Volume 2, Simplified, 450 characters, 74 pages

Journey to the Center of the Earth, 450 characters, Simplified or Traditional

 

Grammar used in the readers

[ChTTay]

There’s a series of readers that was mentioned here (page 2) but that I really like. They’re by Hanban and BLCU and the series is called 好朋友. 
 

Each book has a title which is more like the theme. Then the book is divided into multiple short stories. There are some exercises at the end of each short story. 
 

The publishers say that the books are levelled by HSK level. Personally I’ve found level 5 books a little easy, unless years of not studying as seen an improvement in my level... could be! 

I’ve found them less dry than some readers. The fact they’re short makes it easy to set goals (e.g. re-read a story and read a new story each day). 

I attempted to upload some photos ... 

 

[suMMit]

6 minutes ago, ChTTay said:

I attempted to upload some photos ... 

 

It amazes me that they actually highlight Meiguo.......as if somehow its new vocab........it's one of those words that are inescapable from day one of Chinese vocab words. Ffs, why can't they sometimes use other countries besides meiguo, the occasional yinguo and the daring jianada?

[ChTTay]

Just now, suMMit said:

 

It amazes me that they actually highlight Meiguo.....

Hahaha. I agree! Especially as it’s a level 5 book, too. 
 

I haven’t read that one yet. It was just the first one that popped up in taobao. 
 

I am enjoying the series though. More than others I’ve attempted... 

[Rufus]

@character I just realized the books from Imagin8 Press are missing from the list! It's a great addition for intermediate readers. Their Rise of the Monkey King series is great! 

 

You can check out the books here: https://imagin8press.com/

[wibr]

Some graded readers from Abby (https://talktaiwanesemandarin.com podcast), in simplified and traditional characters with a vocab lists available on the website:

虎姑婆 - The Tiger Aunt, 300 characters, 20min audio

廖添丁 - Liao Tian-Ding, 500 characters, 54min audio

咖啡店愛情故事 - Lost in Translation, 500 characters, 42min audio

[Zhonghua]

Hey everyone… first post on these forums but I’ve been following this thread and others anonymously for months. I came across a new reader from Vivian Ling called Chinese Stories for Language Learners and highly recommend. The book guides you through stories of 22 chengyu and each story has a second story that applies the chengyu to a modern situation, increasing the amount of new vocab. 

 

I’ve read a handful of native materials - a couple yu hua books, Shoe Dog (Nike) in chinese, San mao etc. and I’m learning dozens of new vocab on each chapter. 

 

I picked up this book last weekend and am now about 2/3 of the way through. It’s so great! Anyways, wanted to come on here to share! Has anyone else used this book since it came out last year? 

 

https://www.tuttlepublishing.com/china/chinese-stories-for-language-learners

[Moshen]

Review of Graded Readers for Chinese Language Learners, Level 1

(Published by Beijing Language and Culture University Press)

 

This series consists of 10 illustrated books, each a bit less than 100 pages, each narrating a Chinese folktale.  Level 1 is written for a knowledge of 500 characters, making it correspond somewhat to HSK 4.  I suspect that if you were at HSK 3 you would struggle.  

 

As it was, although I knew almost all of the characters in these books, that didn't mean I knew all the words.  This is one factor that kept the reading interesting.  Rarely did I have to look up characters, but pretty often I had to figure out what 2-character words meant where I knew both characters yet had not encountered that word.  In addition, there were numerous native Chinese expressions that I hadn't encountered before, and sometimes I had to consult a native Chinese speaker to ask what an idiomatic sentence really meant.

 

The editorial notes say the books are intended for children, foreign adults and minorities within China who are learning Mandarin.  I thought this would make the plots simplistic, but for the most part I didn't find this to be the case.  The stories are G-rated but very well plotted and emotionally rich, and I especially liked the way they explained various kinds of background relating to ancient China.  For example, one of the books spent a whole chapter explaining the examination system in ancient China, and another explained the primary foodstuffs that people grew and ate in those days.

 

I'm quite sure my vocabulary grew reading these books because of another helpful feature - lots of repetition in the story telling.  If I were reading in my native language that would make the experience boring, but here whenever there was a new word (such as for "fairy" or "sedan chair" or "monster") it would be repeated almost right away in context and again in the next few pages.

 

There is no English whatsoever in the books!  That's smart on the publisher's part.  What they do is that whenever there is a new word outside of the 500 characters, they either provide a footnote explaining the word in Chinese or just give the pinyin in parentheses within the text.  I wasn't able to figure out why they sometimes did one and not the other, but having the pinyin for new words made it easy for me to look up the definition in English on Google Translate.

 

There is no audio for these books (that I'm aware of).  But that's OK because these volumes are the best planned out and best executed graded readers that I've encountered so far.  I even liked the illustrations (one or two per chapter) and felt they added to the reading experience.

 

I've already gone on to the Level 2 volumes, which consist of abridged versions of the 4 classic Chinese novels.  I started with Dream of the Red Chamber.  These say they're edited for an 800-character vocabulary.  As before, when I have trouble with the text, it's not because I don't know the characters but rather because the dialogue is idiomatic in ways I'm unfamiliar with (and that I'm told by a native speaker is a bit archaic, in keeping with the setting in the past).  All in all, I strongly recommend this series for any Chinese learner who's beyond HSK 4 and who's not yet ready for native content.

 

(And P.S.: If you'd like to buy these 10 slim paperbacks for Level 1 from me, contact me by private message.  I made no marks in any of the books, but they do look a bit used.  I bought them from PurpleCulture.net for US $5.80 each plus shipping.)

[suMMit]

I’m reading this Sinolingua book series at the moment. It’s billed as being Hsk 5/6 and I’d agree with that. I know some people complain about the hanzi grid system which this series use. It’s not perfect, but it doesn’t bother me. I read each page once with the grid and skip over anything unknown, trying to get the general meaning. Then I re-read it without the grid and with the help of pinyin. There are ten books in the series, each one focuses on a different cultural aspect like Food, Education, Art, etc. What I especially like is that each story is around 5 pages(approx 10 stories in each book), perfect to read just before going to sleep or when getting up in the morning. These books don’t come with any audio, but I’ve been trying to make up for that by searching some videos that are closely related to the text after I finish reading one. This has sent me down some interesting rabbit holes, for example the Kite museum in Weifang, and I will visit Weifang next time I get a chance to take a trip to Shandong. The  tone of the books feels similar to a Chinese documentary like "Bite of China", which is not a bad thing. The printing is full-color and nice photography throughout each book. No English translation. I think the set of ten books was around 250rmb on Taobao.

 

 

 

 

 

The other books I’ve been reading at the moment is “Practical Chinese Graded Reader Series”, BLCU. These are from 2009 and follow the old old Hsk levels. I saw the one on Education, gave it a try and really liked it, so I picked up another. These the 2nd level , which strikes me as around Hsk 5 and it seems there are around 6 books or so at this level, and then 2 higher levels. It seems that the texts are written by Laowai and then translated/edit into Chinese. The Hanzi is on one page and the pinyin is on the facing page, which is extremely easy to use, some words are also highlighted. The books come with cd audio. Since I also had some other older books with cds, I decided to invest in an external cd reader that I can connect to my Mac, 50rmb on tobacco and it does the trick. These books have a really nice vibe and are enjoyable to read. I am definitely going to buy all of these at the this level. These books are also divided into 3-5 page texts of hanzi, with around 12 different texts. No English translation. 20ish rmb on Taobao.

 

 

[TheWayfarer]

On 10/16/2023 at 7:20 PM, suMMit said:

The other books I’ve been reading at the moment is “Practical Chinese Graded Reader Series”, BLCU

 

I can recommend these to anyone interested. I have ten of them (not sure if that's the lot, but it's enough) and . They cover a variety of issues, and come with have good clear recordings. Also, having the pinyin on the facing page instead of over the characters is a much better way to do it, in my opinion. The number of articles per book varies from about 12-20, and all the articles are fairly short, which makes these readers a great supplement to your regular study.

[Moshen]

Quote

“Practical Chinese Graded Reader Series”, BLCU

 

I'm not finding this series available for sale online in any of the places where I normally buy books.  Any clue where to get them from someplace that ships to the US?

[suMMit]

On 10/20/2023 at 7:38 AM, Moshen said:

I'm not finding this series available for sale online in any of the places where I normally buy books.  Any clue where to get them from someplace that ships to the US?

I looked it up by the title of one of the books in the series and found it here:

 

https://www.purpleculture.net/im-the-most-humorous-person-in-the-world-p-4623/

[markpete]

Hi, folks. There's a lot of great info in this thread. I just rediscovered a website I put together a couple years ago and then abandoned before finishing. It was kind of a passion project because I was frustrated by not being able to tell how suitable a particular graded reader would be for me. So, a question for the group:

 

Is this sort of website useful to people? https://www.gradedchinesereaders.com/

 

Any feedback is welcome. Mostly, I'd be curious to hear if people think it's A) super helpful and they'll actively use it; B) mildly interesting and browse-worthy, or C) a total waste of time.

 

It's not very easy to navigate (sorry!), but the meat of it is some basic info about each different title, including how the content maps to the HSK vocab lists, like this:

 

 

Cheers,

    Mark

[wibr]

Looks good, but it would be good to be able to sort and filter based on some data like simplified/traditional, number of words etc. . An option to download the word lists in different formats (Pleco/Anki) would be great. There are some readers from Taiwan that I've personally used and mentioned in this thread that could be added to the list.

[Elliott Jones]

On 3/15/2024 at 11:11 AM, markpete said:

Any feedback is welcome.

 

I think a site like this is very much needed, but as @wibr mentioned, some sort of filter would be nice.

 

I would also love to see stats for TOCFL attached too, and you may need to update the HSK stats to HSK 3.0.

[markpete]

Thank you, @wibr and @Elliott Jones. Good points!

[Pomelofruit]

Hi @markpete thanks for putting this together.

 

On 3/15/2024 at 11:11 AM, markpete said:

Mostly, I'd be curious to hear if people think it's A) super helpful and they'll actively use it; B) mildly interesting and browse-worthy, or C) a total waste of time.

In terms of your original question, I would be in the A-B camp because I'd actively use it (and find it helpful!) for a couple of days to decide which graded reader to buy, but then forget about it until the next time I need to buy something more advanced.

 

For example, I just used it to buy the Rainbow Bridge HSK 5&6 graded readers. I'm based in Beijing at the moment so bought all four of the abridged Chinese classics on JD (Journey to the West, A Dream of Red Mansions, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Water Margin - please note that your site only shows three of them and not Red Mansions, but I wonder if that's because not all four are available overseas).

 

Once I'm finished with these, I will go back and look for more advanced texts.

 

I also think a filter for HSK levels/number of words would be useful 😊

[calculatrix]

On 3/15/2024 at 4:11 AM, markpete said:

Is this sort of website useful to people? https://www.gradedchinesereaders.com/

 

@markpete Thank you!!!!  Yes it is useful.

If this site had been available maybe one year ago, I would have used it excessively. Currently my todo-stack of bought but not read graded readers is still high.

So: One year ago I would have been an A-user, currently I am B, and (hopefully soon) I will oscillate to A again.