How much time can I spend reading at the intermediate level?

[TheBigZaboon]

ITo continue with this discussion, let's move to a very, very important category of books that originally appear in Chinese. Every Chinese person, probably without exception, knows of the series "十万个为什么." This title covers maybe hundreds of subjects and categories, usually grouped into loosely related two's, three's, four's, or five's in one volume: science and technology; animal and human biology; earth sciences and weather; etc. A closely related book series that is formatted in the same way will have titles like "少儿百科," or the like.

 

The most useful feature of these books (although some will dispute this no end) is complete pinyin readings for the entire text. This leaves looking up the meanings as the most significant task, and maybe makes the creation of flashcards much, much simpler. Remember, these books are not the end-all of this method, but only the introductory step.

 

For your searches, useful keywords like 儿童，青少年，and 百科 will be indispensable.

 

In addition to sites like Amazon, sites that cater to the Chinese diaspora in foreign countries, and even your local Chinese grocery store that always has a little corner stuffed with Chinese publications, will yield unexpected treasures. And don't forget (in addition to asking your Chinese friends) to ask Chinese mothers, if you know any. They will often be in the same situation as you are, desperate to find something to keep little 建军 interested in Chinese culture, even though he's more interested in whether or not Otani is going to make MVP this season.

 

I'll try to upload some pictures of an example of a 少儿百科 that I used in my studies. It has about 35 items divided into two-page spreads, each answering a single question, each providing a little vocabulary essay on the subject in the question/title. 

 

As I mentioned in my original post, I'm not interested in debating the merits of my method. It worked for me, and that's really all I care about. But as it can be a bit tricky to get started, I think it's only fair that I should try to help someone else who might want to try this method of finding appropriately leveled reading material in other fields. There's also a number of little tricks to wording a search that I might not think of offhand, but might come up in working through an example with someone.

 

I'm afraid that I had some trouble adding pictures to this post, so they're all over the place. I don't have time to do this again, so if the moderators can group the pictures in the right place and in a logical order, I'd appreciate the help.

 

TBZ

 

[Jan Finster]

12 hours ago, TheBigZaboon said:

As I mentioned in my original post, I'm not interested in debating the merits of my method. It worked for me, and that's really all I care about. But as it can be a bit tricky to get started, I think it's only fair that I should try to help someone else who might want to try this method of finding appropriately leveled reading material in other fields. There's also a number of little tricks to wording a search that I might not think of offhand, but might come up in working through an example with someone.

 

Thanks for sharing these ideas.

(The one and only thing that would put me off is the paper books. It would take me ages to look up all the words)

[TheBigZaboon]

Due to the overwhelming demand for me to continue with revealing my path-breaking ideas for finding relevant reading material, or at least reading material closer to one's own interests, I'm going to include one more level of easily obtainable book that should put a cap on what I have to say. The materials I've suggested up to this point are aimed at children aged about 7 to 11 or so, possibly even a few years younger. But they start introducing the specialized vocabulary that a kid has to know to continue reading in this field. One of the keywords I mentioned to be included in your searches was "∼百科". This phrase, however, spreads across a wide range of material aimed at kids from about age 7 to maybe age 15 or 16. 

 

To differentiate between the books for younger kids, and those for older kids when you're ready, look for words like 图说， 图解百科，or 学生版 on the cover illustration. These books are almost always paperback, so cover illustrations will be the overwhelming norm. Another dead giveaway might be the two western children whose faces adorn the classification of the book on the cover. Younger Westerners indicates content for younger children, older ones mean the content is suitable for older children or students.

 

I'll try to include pictures of an example of the last book I studied from before I stopped using these types of books as anything more than a reference, and moved to real popular science books  (科普) for older teens and adults. I will include a page or two to demonstrate that this is as close to adult native content you're gonna get before you have nothing left to read but, well, real adult oriented native content. Then I'll try to tack on a fly leaf advertisement showing a dozen or more books in totally unrelated fields that are of a comparable level to that of my rocket science book.

 

Remember, the key to all of this is finding self-contained vocabulary essays that cover the desired field.

This should give you all the reading practice you could want, while at the same time providing a ton of relevant and accurate usage examples.

 

Unless anyone has a different field that they want to try to work through as an example I'll consider this the last time I'll bother anyone about this idea, and surrender control back to the forum moderators.

 

TBZ