Chinese Reading Practice
Seeing as how I just got back from a trip to the Wall myself, I figured I’d stay on that theme. This traditional and very famous story, called 孟姜女哭长城 mèng jiāng nǚ kū cháng chéng, is set in the Qin Dynasty, and is super sad in the way that only East Asian stories can be […]
This is an upper-beginner or low-intermediate level text. It’s good for beginner readers in the sense that a) it’s short, and b) it’s extremely repetitive – if you can puzzle out the first two or three sentences, the rest should be clear. To get you going, it might be worth noting there that the protagonist […]
And now a break from all the intermediate and advanced exercises I’ve been posting lately. This one is a straightforward beginner Chinese diary-style essay about a student whose mother is displeased with his (or her, it’s never clarified) homework.
This is probably the longest text I’ve ever posted. The first few sentences are much more intermediate as we learn new vocabulary words and set up the story, but after that the reading is mostly a dialogue which is very smooth and fairly simple, so press through the first paragraph or two if you can.
In this essay you’ll learn to read Chinese martial arts words – well, a few, anyway – but it’s not really the vocabulary that places this in the “advanced” category. It’s more that most of the text is full of wax-on, wax-off Karate Kid statements, as the martial arts master talks about how putting oneself […]
This is the backstory behind the Chinese idiom 鹬蚌相争 yù bàng xiāng zhēng, which translates to “The Sandpiper and the Clam Fight Each Other”, and means “Two parties fight and a third party benefits.”
I apologize for not posting a month or so, I’ve been in the process of – ta da – moving back to China, so life’s been exciting but busy. On the upside, looks like I’ll have some interesting new posts from here. But today, in place of something interesting, we’ve got a slightly insipid story […]
This news story covers a new government initiative to help protect women from sexual harassment by providing special women-only taxis in the capital city Kuala Lumpur.
A short, sweet, very simple read about a boy, his dog, and a new pair of shoes.
Welp, you can’t get more forcefully patriotic than this. This transcript of a student’s classroom speech reads like a political call-to-action and includes rousing images of bloody soldiers, strong Chinese athletes and Chinese workers throwing off the yoke of imperialist might. This might be upper intermediate level reading, but I’m classifying it as advanced, as […]
While we’re busy prepping for our holiday season, I figured I’d post something about a Chinese holiday. This is a culturally-rich and comfortably intermediate essay describing how one family celebrates the Dragon Boat Festival (端午节 duān wǔ jié. If you’re curious what the typical Chinese household does on this late-spring holiday (held on the fifth […]
A short, easy (very) beginner read about a child going ice-skating. The word “ice skating” appears about a bazillion times in the space of these few sentences, so, after reading this, you may expect to recognize the word for the rest of your natural life.
This short tale addresses the background story behind the Chinese idiom 一暴十寒, which literally translates to “One day of sun, ten days of frost”, and which means “to bust butt for a little while and then get lazy”, or “to only work for a short time and then fail”. The story below really applies to […]
A quick child’s essay about two toy bears – a present from mom.
A young child’s thoughts and description of watermelon, their favorite fruit.
A short first-person essay about a kid lighting firecrackers with his parents. I went back and forth on whether to classify this as “beginner” or “intermediate”. It’s easier than most of my intermediate stuff, but it’s got a tighter density of higher-level words than my beginner stuff. But it’s only a few sentences long. I […]
A sweet essay about a young child doing something nice for her mother.
Just in case you were wondering, below is a short intermediate essay on How to Make Friends.
This is definitely my favorite find so far, as it falls solidly within my favorite Chinese story genre with my favorite Chinese archetype: the clever government official who catches a crook.
Another super-simple and very short children’s joke.