Mini-Book 6- 象想要飛

象想要飛 (Xiàng Xiǎng Yào Fēi, Elephant Wants to Fly)- This may be a big leap in vocabulary and grammar structure from Mini-Book 5, but please forgive me.  I post these books as the children I know need them and it has been over a year since my last Mini-Book post.

This is the sixth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

Unlike other books I've posted, this one was written by another person- Kendra from ChineseReadingPractice.com.  She offers leveled text on her blog and writes a post about once a week.  With her permission, I have reformatted it into a book and added pictures.  I also enlisted the help of a native Chinese speaker (from Taiwan) to look over the text.  A few words have been adapted and this may reflect the Taiwanese way of saying things.


象想要飛- traditional characters with 注音符號
象想要飛- simplified characters with 漢語拼音(Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Buying Books Online

This spring marked the completion of 3 years of official Chinese study for my kids.  They've come along way.  The first year was spent get comfortable with the sounds of the language and learning the phonetic alphabet.  Now they can recognize approximately 200 characters, are reading short stories in their textbook, and asking & answering simple questions.  I'm very proud of them, BUT most of this is happening inside the classroom.  I want to move their language practice into everyday life.

I don't speak fluently.  At this stage in the game, I have only completed the first year of Chinese language college classes and it's hard to use Chinese with the kids often when in the chaos of everyday life.  So, I started looking for books my kids could read or ones I could read to them.  Guess what?  It is really  difficult to find Chinese language books for kids.  There are a ton of books, videos, and games that promise to teach your family Chinese (usually the basics like numbers, colors, and fruits), but it is actually very time consuming (and not very productive) searching for Chinese language picture books in the United States.

So what's a parent to do?  Well, I've decided to order books straight from the source.  A friend has sent me the links to some bookstores in Asia and I'm going to pick out the books I want!  One problem, the websites are in Chinese!  So below is a quick (and incomplete) list of vocabulary you will run into if you want to buy books online through a Chinese website.

Publishing Information

·         作者 (zuò zhě, author)

·         繪者 (huì zhě, illustrator)

·         (翻)譯者 (fān yì zhě, translator)

·         語言 (yǔ yán, language)

·         英語/英文 (yīng yǔ/yīng wén, English)

·         漢語/華語/中文 (hàn yǔ/huá yǔ/zhōng wén, Chinese)

·         簡化版 (jiǎn huà bǎn, simplified (character) version)

·         繁體版 (fán tǐ bǎn, traditional (character) version)

Age Groups

·         教養 (jiào yǎng, parenting)

·         童書 (tóng shū, children's books)

·         嬰兒成長書 (yīng'ér chéng zhǎng shū, toddler books)

·         幼兒成長書 (yòu'ér chéng zhǎng shū, early childhood development books)

Categories

·         分類 (fēn lèi, category)

·         多媒體 (duō méi tǐ, multimedia)

·         (圖畫)繪本 (tú huà huì běn, picture book)

·         主題繪本 (zhǔ tí huì běn, theme picture books)

·         童話傳奇寓言 (tóng huà chuán qí yù yán; fairy tales, legends, and fabels)

o   童話 (tóng huà, fairy tales)

o   傳奇 (chuán qí, legend)

o   寓言 (yù yán, fable)

·         幻想冒險 (huàn xiǎng mào xiǎn, fantasy and adventure)

o   幻想 (huàn xiǎng, fantasy)

o   冒險 (mào xiǎn, adventure)

·         小說 (xiǎo shuō, novel/fiction)

·         漫畫 (màn huà, comic books)

·         卡通人物 (kǎ tōng rén wù, cartoon characters)

·         百科(全書) (bǎi kē quán shū, encyclopedia)

·         生活百科 (shēng huó bǎi kē, encyclopedia)

·         文學 (wén xué, literature)

·         歷史地理(lì shǐ dì lǐ, history and geography)

o   歷史 (lì shǐ, history)

o   地理 (dì lǐ, geography)

·         自然科學 (zì rán kē xué, natural science)

·         傳記 (zhuàn jì, biographies)

o   名人 (míng rén, celebrity/famous person)

·         語文學習 (yǔ wén xué xí, language learning books)

·         學習評量 (xué xí píng lián, curriculum books)

·         藝術美勞 (yì shù měi láo, arts and crafts)

o   藝術 (yì shù, arts)

o   美勞 (měi láo, crafts)

·         遊戲教具 (yóu xì jiào jù, games that teach)

·         遊戲練習 (yóu xì liàn xí, practice through games)

Prices

·         折 (zhé, the percent you pay (see example below))

·         9折 means you would pay 90%.  The “0” in “90” is dropped.

·         定價 (dìng jià, original price)

·         特價 (tè jià, special offer/price)

·         優惠價 (yōu huì  jià, favorable/best price)

·         價會期限 (jià huì qí xiàn, price expiration/deadline/limit)

 

Mini-Book 5- 我是 . . . .

我是 . . . . (Wǒ shì . . ., I am . . .)- This is the fifth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

The fifth Mini-Book is designed to reinforce the use of 我是 . . . . (Wǒ shì . . ., I am . . .).  It also continues to expose the reader to common characters in order to reinforce character recognition.

This Mini-Book was created to be personalized by your child.  Please, take the time to paste photos of them into the books.  This makes reading more fun for your child and encourages them to practice reading.  Also, when you print be sure to print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

我是 . . . . - traditional characters with 注音符號
我是 . . . . - simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Fun Books to Read

Toon Book has a collection of books in English and foreign languages including Chinese.  There is no pronunciation guide, so readers must be strong in character recognition.  However, some of these books don't require much vocabulary beyond one or two semesters at the university level.  A parent with such a background could easily read at least a couple of these books while encourage a child to read the characters he/she knows.

Mini-Book 4- 妹妹和哥哥

妹妹和哥哥 (Mèimei hé gēgē, Little Sister and Older Brother)- This is the fourth book in the series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

The fourth Mini-Book is designed to reinforce the use of 和 (hé, and).  It also includes common everyday actions such as 吃早飯 (Chī zǎofàn, Eating breakfast) and 去學校 (Qù xuéxiào, Going to school).

This Mini-Book is a large file (35kb) so give it time to load.  It is larger than the others because it includes photos.  Please feel free to paste your own photos over these so that your Mini-Book is personalized to your children.  Also, when you print be sure to print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

妹妹和哥哥- traditional characters with 注音符號
妹妹和哥哥- simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)

Mini-Book 3- 我的朋友

我的朋友 (Wǒ de péngyǒu; My Friend)- is the third book in the Mini-Book series.  To locate other Mini-Books, click on the "Mini-Book" label on the right hand side of the web page.

This book supplements the teaching of the words 我的 (wǒ de; my) and 他的 (tā de; his).  It discusses a boy who is Chinese and his friend who is American.  The book discusses how to two boys are alike and reinforces the idea of friendship between cultures.

This Mini-Book file is much smaller than the first, so if you had difficulty downloading the first you may be more successful with this one.  Also when you print, print on both sides of the paper.  Page 2 prints on the back of page 1, etc.  Then stack the pages so that when they are folded along the center line, the page numbers proceed in numeric order.

我的朋友- traditional characters with 注音符號
我的朋友- simplified characters with 漢語拼音 (Hànyǔ Pīnyīn)