The Sixty Year Dream: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Level 1, Simplified Chinese Edition

by Washington Irving, John Pasden (Editor), Renjun Yang (Editor)

Zhou Xuefa (Rip Van Winkle) is well loved by everyone in his town, everyone except his nagging wife. With his faithful dog Blackie, Zhou Xuefa spends his time playing with kids, helping neighbors, and discussing politics in the teahouse. One day after a bad scolding from his wife, he goes for a walk into the mountains and meets a mysterious old man who appears to be from an ancient time. The man invites him into his mountain home for a meal and after drinking some wine, Zhou Xuefa falls into a deep sleep. He awakes to a time very different than what he once knew.

Mandarin Companion is a series of easy-to-read novels in Chinese that are fun to read and proven to accelerate language learning. Every book in the Mandarin Companion series is carefully written to use characters, words, and grammar that a learner is likely to know.

Level 1 is intended for Chinese learners at an upper-elementary level. Most learners will be able to approach this book after one to two years of formal study, depending on the learner and program. This series is designed to combine simplicity of characters with an easy-to-understand storyline which helps learners to expand their vocabularies and language comprehension abilities. The more they read, the better they will become at reading and grasping the Chinese language.

Genres: China, Fiction

90 pages, Paperback

First published October 13, 2013

About the author

People remember American writer Washington Irving for the stories " Rip Van Winkle " and " The Legend of Sleepy Hollow ," contained in The Sketch Book (1820).

This author, essayist, biographer and historian of the early 19th century wrote newspaper articles under the pseudonym Jonathan Oldstyle to begin his literary career at the age of nineteen years.

In 1809, he published The History of New York under his most popular public persona, Diedrich Knickerbocker.

Historical works of Irving include a five volume biography of George Washington (after whom he was named) as well as biographies of Oliver Goldsmith, Muhammad, and several histories, dealing with subjects, such as Christopher Columbus, the Moors, and the Alhambra, of 15th-century Spain. John Tyler, president, appointed Irving to serve as the first Spanish speaking United States minister to Spain from 1842 to 1846.

Reviews

[Roel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished reading my first ever Chinese book! The story is an adaptation of the classic short story Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving, in which a man falls asleep and wakes up 20 years later as an old man. In the Chinese story, however, the protagonist falls asleep in 1939 and wakes up 60 years later in the industrialised and modernised People's Republic of China. Many things have changed, among which, as the the man's daughter says:

"中国再也没有皇帝了。中国再也不是一个人的中国，是我们每一个人的中国。"（There are no more emperors in China. China is no longer a one-man China, it is a China for each of us）

It is amazing how much can be said with so little words. This book only contains 400 unique words, and when a more difficult word appears it is explained with a footnote and repeated multiple times shortly thereafter. This is an great technique, since language learners need to encounter a word 10 to 30 times on average before they will truly understand a word and how it is used in different contexts. So this is a very good book to study Chinese!

[Mikko Ikola · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book by Mandarin Companion, this was my fourth one. The story is interesting with a nice twist in the plot in the middle, and ending that leaves room for interpretation.

I’m already at HSK 4/5 level, so I read this book as fast as I would read an English language book, so it was a bit too easy. HSK 2-4 level students would get much more out of this. For HSK1 students this is too difficult, though

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

好玩

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm definitely past the point of reading from these graded readers, but I figured it's not a bad idea to read one anyway to test myself on reading speed given the low overall level. Well, I was able to get through the book quickly - it took roughly an hour or so - but it got to the point where the repetitive phrases and sentences and super simple vocabulary was really annoying.

I still think Mandarin Companion is a decent series to get beginners to start reading, but after having read a few actual adult novels (yes, some parts were a struggle, but it was doable), going back to this was just painful - like going from high school lit to first grade picture books, except less fun. I think if Mandarin Companion series had more than two levels it would have a lot more potential in the language learning community, but as it stands, it's really good for people at the very elementary level and there just doesn't seem to be much benefit once you've passed that.

This version of Rip Van Winkle was okay and I think it's probably one of the more interesting adaptations in the series. I've read nearly all of them at this point since my library offers them as ebooks, and the two I liked best were The Country of the Blind and Journey to the Center of the Earth.

[Rob Hocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one was actually a bit interesting, beyond simply as a learning exercise, because it touched on the changes that have occured in China over the last century. Guy falls asleep in Bejing in 1937, wakes up in 1997. At first I thought it was going to be essentially communist propaganda, because of this hilarious line by one of the characters (in 1937, before the guy falls asleep):

以前的中国不是一个人的国家，是我们每一个人的国家!

But actually, apart from one character repeating this line in 1997, the book gave a quite balanced portrayal of the changes that taken place. I almost feel like this line was added as insurance just in case any CCP official ever happened to pick up the book.

[John Osborne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really fun story. This was probably my second favorite that I have read in the series after The Secret Garden. When I first started reading my first Level 1 Mandarin Companion the first chapter took me close to an hour, but now I can read an entire Level 1 graded reader in about 2 hours. I'm excited about starting my first Level 2 Mandarin Companion today!

[Carl Van Valkenburg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am now reading Level 2 in Chinese Breeze, then listening to their inexpensive audio versions. Reverse order (listen then read) works well for Mandarin Companion Level 1 at this pt, and Inexpensive Audible audio is available.

[Iman Eyitayo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historie sympa à suivre : mon premier livre en mandarin lu et écoute (Audio et numérique).
Seul bémol : la ME ne propose rien au dessus du niveau 1 en audio et que 3 textes en niveau 2 en numérique. Qu’en est il des niveaux plus avancés ? Comme d’habitude c’est un peu le désert...

[Keruonedz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nepochopila jsem pointu :D

[Tobias S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuck, this was bleak. Great reader though.

[Tiff · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a strange and intriguing story. It leaves one thinking. Lovely way to keep a struggling Chinese reader on their toes! Bravo!

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

I miss reading these Chinese books :-)

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Popusugar reading challenge 2024: A book in which a character sleeps for more than 24 hours (read in 2025)

[Bill Squires · Rating 3 out of 5]

I feel that this is the weakest of the level 1 books among those that I've read. Still enjoyable and good practice but I was left with a feeling that the story didn't really go anywhere.

[Flapidouille · Rating 2 out of 5]

Trop abrégé pour conserver un intérêt. Phrases vraiment trop répétitives, donnant l'impression de tourner en rond. De plus, les dessins sont assez laids. Il est vraiment dommage qu'il n'y ait pas de traduction en annexe...
Utile certes, mais on souhaiterait mieux dans le genre. Malheureusement je n'ai rien trouvé d'autre.

[Antxón Castillo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of mandarin companion are very good because they use extensive reading.

[Finlay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good graded reader for practice.

[Jakob · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very useful as study materials. The story had a slow start, but ended up strongly moving. Warmly recommended for any Chinese learner.