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)

 

36 Strategies or 36 Chinese Idioms

HuaYu World- This company has provided 36 Chinese idiom stories for free!  These stories provide an explanation for why certain phrases are said the way they are said.

You can choose to read the story or listen to it in Chinese.  You can read the story using either traditional Chinese characters with ㄅㄆㄇ or in English.  To view a story in English-- after following the link above, click on one of the 36 idiom stories and then choose the "ABC" button on the left side.  At the end of the story is an explanation of how the idiom relates to the story.

If that wasn't enough, the company has also created beautiful pdf's that include both the Chinese characters/ㄅㄆㄇ and the English translations.

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)

Auto-immersion

This list is from the Bringing up Baby Bilingual blogsite, a record of a mom's efforts to teach French to her children as a non-native speaker.  I'm reposting her list here just in case her blog gets lost.  This is a direct copy and paste.


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Friday, January 27, 2012 

Auto-immersion

Those of us who are doing our best to raise our kids with something other than the community language know that we have to seize every possible moment to barrage them with lots and lots of input in the target language.  (This is especially challenging for those parents who work full-time and have a very limited number of hours most days to share their language with their children.)

When we're at home, we can take advantage of games, books, toys, videos, and the simple fact that we're engaging in face-to-face interactions with their accompanying gestures, expressions, and props--we have a lot of tools to provide contextualized prompts for conversation and activities in the target language.

But what about those endless hours in the car, chauffeuring from one playgroup to another lesson, running errand upon errand?  The parent is driving, facing forward, no eye contact, hands occupied--not ideal conditions for practicing another language with small (or bigger) children.

So here's my challenge to us: let's take advantage of the fact that the kids are a trapped audience to immerse them in our language of choice! Let's brainstorm as many as possible ways to engage our kids in the target language when we're driving them here and there and everywhere!  Here, I'll start:

Music (duh): Listen to songs in the target language--children's music, yes, but also pop music, rap music, folk songs, music from all the countries where the language is spoken.  Sing songs to (or with) your children.  (Griffin, approaching age four, has learned to sing in a round, which sounds so lovely to my ears.)  And don't forget the nursery rhymes!

I still remember the trip Griffin and I took to visit with a friend in another city, a 45-minute drive, when he was about six months old.  I turned off the tape player (yeah, my twelve-year-old Toyota, Earl Grey, is so basic that he doesn't have a CD player!) to see if I could sing French children's songs the whole way there.  To my surprise, we made it to my friend's house without my repeating a single one!

Rhyme time: You say a word in the target language; your kids reply with words that rhyme.  Then let them pick the words to start with.

Counting: Count to 100 together, then count solo and pause for the kids to fill in the next number, then alternating (you count the odd numbers, your kids the evens), then by tens, fives, twos, then backwards (whatever the children are capable of); count objects that you pass (stop signs, cows, blue cars).

Twenty Questions: Play this vocabulary-rich game that involves guessing what object someone is thinking of, where the guessers can only ask yes/no questions.  A child who can't form complete sentences (much less questions) can still show his understanding of your questions by answering them while you guess!  (Unless your interlocutor is like three-year-old Griffin, whose answers tend to lead to things like "something green that's made of metal and bigger than the universe").

I Spy: Another fun and easy game that involves sighting an object (inside or outside the car) and giving clues so that the others can guess the object.

Un truc dans un machin: "A thingy in a whats-it" is what I call this activity, where I pretend to misunderstand something Griffin said, repeating it back to him as inaccurately as possible (and making it as silly as I can).  For example,

Griffin: Regarde, Maman!  Il y a un chien dans la camionnette!  (Look, Mommy, there's a dog in that pickup truck!)
Maman: Quoi?  Il y a un dinosaure dans ta poche?  (What?  There's a dinosaur in your pocket?)
Griffin (giggling): Non, il y a un chien dans la camionnette!
Maman: Quoi?  Il y a un extra-terrestre dans l'arbre?  (What?  There's an alien in the tree?)
And so on; Griffin usually joins in and makes up other strange combinations.  We can do this for a good ten or fifteen minutes before one of us (okay, moi) tires of it.

And a related activity: sing a familiar song but insert other silly words here and there.  For instance, "Au feu, les pompiers/Voila la maison qui brule/Au feu, les pompiers/Voila la maison brulee/C'est pas moi qui l'ai brulee/C'est la coccinelle/C'est pas moi qui l'ai brulee/C'est l'arraignee" (instead of "la cuisiniere" and "le cuisinier").

Storytelling, of course!  I find that listening to audio books in French in the car is too challenging for Griffin at this point, unless it's a story he's already very familiar with because I've read it to him multiple times and he's seen pictures illustrating it.  (We have a small handful of stories-on-tape like Boucle d'or et les trois ours.)  Rather, I'll pick a story he knows much less well and tell it to him, simply at first, then   gradually adding details and length.  Changing my voice for each character helps him follow along (Occasionally I change it up to see how quickly he notices the differences, a la "Boucle d'or et les trois girafes.")

Ni Hao Kai-lan

Ni Hao Kai-lan is a good resource for young children who are just being introduced the Chinese.  Not only is some Chinese introduced, there is also an attempt to familiarize viewers with the Chinese culture and traditions.  Check out the website for a complete list of the activities they have available.

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)