Xiao Ming, Boy Sherlock: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Breakthrough Level, Simplified Chinese Edition

Breakthrough level

by John Pasden, Jared Turner, Shishuang Chen (Editor)

Even at a young age, Xiao Ming (boy Sherlock Holmes) has a reputation among his peers for his keen powers of observation. His budding skills are put to the test when he is tasked with finding a thief at school. However mysteries always seem to find him when strange fires start out of seemingly nowhere and a classmate begins anonymously receiving flowers from a secret admirer. With the help of his older brother, Xiao Ming employs his skills of wit and deduction to unveil the truth hidden behind every mystery.

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.

The Breakthrough Level is written using only 150 unique Chinese characters and is intended for Chinese learners who have obtained a low elementary or novice level of Chinese. Most learners will be able to approach this book after one year of traditional formal study, depending on the learner and program. This level is designed to help learners begin to read full-length texts in Chinese and combines simplicity of characters with an easy-to-understand storyline that helps beginners grow their vocabulary and language comprehension abilities.

Genres: China, Language, Fiction, Mystery

82 pages, Paperback

Published December 17, 2019

Reviews

[Natalya Voronina]

Not the best one. Considering people who read this already might struggle with comprehension, continuity is a mess.

[John Osborne]

This book was similar to Zhou Haisheng in that it consists of three stories. I found this much more interesting than Zhou Haisheng and would recommend it. That said it felt too easy, but I am now excited to start reading my first Level 1 Mandarin Companion today.

[Sarah]

This is the first book I've ever read in Chinese! I think the stories are really good considering that the authors could only use 150 unique characters in order to make this book appropriate for us beginners. I learned a lot from this book and gained confidence in my language learning. I'm looking forward to learning more with Mandarin Companion!

[Ian]

Mandarin graded readers for beginners are severely lacking in the US book market today. However, even these "breakthrough level" books still require a good 50+ hours of exposure to extensive reading or listening in Mandarin at one's comprehension level to really enjoy. Because of that, I do think the name "breakthrough" might be somewhat misleading, and I think there is a need for books that target genuine beginners with zero Mandarin experience. Graded readers such as "Shéi haokan?" and "Haokan shi bu gou de" by Li & Krashen, which include pinyin, or some of the books by Terry Waltz, are certainly a better starting point.

Du Chinese is the only tool I know of that can help learners effectively and efficiently bridge this gap in early literacy development.

That being said, the stories are engaging, and the audio tracks are very helpful. It would be nice if readers did not also have to spend an extra few bucks to purchase the audio tracks, considering each book is already ~$15.

I would recommend these books to anyone who is trying to learn Mandarin, without a doubt. However, the audio tracks are absolutely essential to comprehension. I do not recommend that new learners attempt to read these without the audio track, at least the first time around. Trying to read hanzi without pinyin support or audio to help you along as a fresh Mandarin learner is incredibly challenging, and in my opinion, a waste of time.

The advice John and Jared give in the beginning of the books is spot-on, and I appreciate that they emphasize extensive reading as key to language learning. Many do not understand this, and a lack of extensive reading in a language learning routine will inevitably slow progress and lead to burnout.

5/5

[Silvia Luoni]

Anche se potrei scrivere la recensione in inglese, preferisco dedicarla alle persone che, come me, non sapendo quali libri prendere per fare un po’ di pratica con la lingua cinese, possano, comunque, avere una base per poi decidere, autonomamente, se vale la pena l’acquisto di questo libro. Nella mia piccola esperienza, ho incominciato a leggere questa collana di libri (sì: ce ne sono un paio) durante i miei tre anni di cinese universitari, e devo dire che mi hanno aiutata moltissimo. Non richiede necessariamente un livello alto di inglese (perché solo le parole evidenziate hanno la traduzione dal cinese in inglese) e il testo si presenta diviso in brevi capitoli tutti in cinese. Io ho comperato la versione digitale, molto comoda, comunque. Non costano tanto e si dividono in tre livelli (base, elementare e intermedio) con i rispettivi colori. Questo libro in particolare, fa parte della prima sezione, base, e non è stato per nulla difficile da seguire. Le parole non sono tante, le storie molto interessanti, divertenti e, secondo me, è ottimo da affiancare a un testo scolastico di cinese. Ah, e presentano anche una versione in cinese tradizionale, quindi attenzione a prendere quello con scritto «mandarino».

[Vicky]

My 4th graded reader! Continuing to read these aloud with my tutor. We both noticed my speed beginning to pick up with this one. Almost all the words are familiar now, but the repetition in the format of a narrative is so helpful. It's very encouraging to be able to read a story at my level.

This book is structured into vignettes, little mysteries solved by Xiăo Míng. It was "ok" compared to, say, 花马 (Huā Mă) in the series, that had a little more "surprise." But I heard that there's continuity with 小明 into the later Sherlock Holmes books (level 1 + 2). Looking forward to it 😊

[小肉桂卷机]

Almost halfway through the old HSK3 course in a span of 4 months, I was pleasantly surprised to realise I managed to get through this short story! Admittedly with small breaks inbetween, I was able to grasp the plot although a few words were unfamiliar to me (the struggle when you recognise 500+ individual characters but not every new meaning their combinations can form).

Onwards I would like to reread this story by the end of my course to track my progress, in addiotion to read other similar graded books.

[Janine R. Lutchman]

This is a good book series for beginner Mandarin Chinese learners and I love that it includes comprehension questions. They work well for personal practice or as a fun classroom activity for teachers.

[Ethan]

Simple story. Good for learning Mandarin as a beginner.

[Tiff]

Love Mandarin Companions, especially Sherlock stories. The mystery keeps you wanting to find out more. Perfect for struggling Chinese language readers.

[Paige]

My first Chinese book 🥲 very cute stories!

[Amelia]

Really excited to read more from this publisher

[dennis]

clunky sentences, one dimensional characters, and a confused plot 😮‍💨

[Lillian]

This was an interesting mystery at the breakthrough level within the limitations of being short and with simple vocabulary.

[Lisa]

Popsugar Reading Challenge 2024: A book that starts with an X (read in 2025)

[Sarah]

The Mandarin Companion graded readers are a really great set of books for Chinese language learners. Xiao Ming, Boy Sherlock is such a cute story and the writers stayed faithful to their commitment to limited vocabulary and easy-to-understand grammar. Even so, they still produced interesting characters and an engaging story that made me sometimes forget I was reading in another language. I was definitely one of those intermediate Chinese learners that never read anything besides textbook sample dialogues. Xiao Ming is the first Chinese book I have ever read and now I'm trying out a book from the Mandarin Companion Level 1 series. I look forward to reading more of these books. I really appreciate the word list provided with each book and also the grammar breakdown for each chapter (which is also available online) at the end of the book. In the back of the book there's also discussion questions for each chapter. I don't really use those but I foresee myself revisiting the discussion questions for future writing or speaking practice. Highly recommend.

[Bill Squires]

The book is broken into three stories. I found the first two stories to be fairly uninteresting but the third was more clever.