Graded Chinese Reader 1500 Words. Selected Abridged Chinese Contemporary Short Stories

by Shi Ji

1.Abridged versions of mini-stories and novellas written by contemporary Chinese writers, reflecting the everyday lives of ordinary Chinese people;

2.The vocabulary in this book consists of 1500 essential Chinese words, which are mainly chosen based on the first 1500 Chinese words in the International Curriculum for Chinese Language Education (2008). The book also includes some of the 1200 Chinese words of the Chinese Proficiency Test Syllabus Level 4 (2009). The 1500 high frequency words along with some HSK Level 4 words that appear in the book are all included in the glossary;

3.Commonly used words appear in high frequency to form concise and short sentences with complete structure;

4.Pinyin is added to the complete text, English notes or sample sentences for difficult words and sentences are provided;

5.Guide to Reading and About the Author in English, and Questions in Chinese are
provided for each story;

6.Accompanied by original illustrations and a CD in MP3 format.

Genres: China

338 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2013

Reviews

[Evie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I did it!!!!

[Rob Hocking · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the most challenging graded reader that I've read so far. The reduction in the length, vocabulary, and complexity of the grammar was smaller than the first two books in this series (500 word and 1000 word). One of the stories was 100 pages long (altogether the book is a little over 300), and I encountered complex grammar and vocabulary that I don't find in other graded readers which are ostensibly at the 2500 word level. I think the difference is that the authors of those graded readers *make up* a story, and so the thought process is "what grammar/vocab can we put in this story that is simple enough for our readers to understand?", whereas in this case you *start with* a story and the thought process is "what do we have to take out of this existing story so that it becomes simple enough for our readers to understand?". I think with the latter approach you end up with a better product.

Some of the stories in this book read like real stories, and I was occasionally interested enough that I genuinely wanted to find out what was going to happen. I especially enjoyed a story about a guy who decides he wants to find a girlfriend, so he looks for one, and finds one. But then later he falls in love naturally, but can't do anything about it because he has a girlfriend already. Then his girlfriend leaves him for another guy. In the end, the guy realizes that he was too focused on trying to get into a relationship - exerting all his energy figuring out how to make girls like him - rather than investing in finding a girl that he likes. And he foolishly let his sense of obligation to his existing girlfriend get in the way when he found a girl he actually liked. The moral of the story (1) All is fair in love and war (2) don't overinvest in making girls like you.

I also enjoyed a story that was about a kid who wanted to go to military school, but his parents made him apply to medical school instead, which he didn't get into. So he spent a year being bored and then applied again, this time to military school. The second time around he got in. Moral of the story: don't listen to your parents.

Most of the other stories were about men leaving the countryside to find work in the cities and then cheating on their spouses left in the countryside, or about officials being corrupt but then eventually getting there comeuppance.

Today I've started the "Graded Reader 2000 words".

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the first book of the series that I've read. It was a good graded reader all around and I'll continue on with the 2000 word graded reader. My only complaint is that the stories weren't extremely engaging which caused me to set the book down often and when I'd pick it back up I would be a bit lost on what happened earlier in the story.

[莓妮 .ᐟ ֹ ₊ ꒱ · Rating 3 out of 5]

definitely more enjoyable than the previous volumes in the series.
the first two stories were a slog + not particularly engaging. once past that, the selection improves (at least pacing wise).

Overall a decent graded reader.

[Joe Tingle · Rating 4 out of 5]

這本書裏面有六個短小説，都有意思。它們都不一樣，都寫得很好，讀這本書的時候不沒有什麽“看課文”的感覺。只有一部分不好，後面的詞典太小，沒有很多故事裏面的詞匯，你用自己的詞典就好了。