Elementary Chinese Reader 2

[Jaunita Rousu]

Afew summers ago I became addicted to the language-learning app Duolingo. I was a complete beginner in Chinese having spent the previous year attending a few scattered elementary classes and, like many people in my situation, was searching for a magic app that could transport me to fluency.

A friend who I met on a trip to China and whose Chinese was more advanced than mine told me he had been using an app that helped him build vocabulary and learn sentence structures. Out of curiosity I downloaded it and was soon hooked.

For the uninitiated, DuoLingo is an app that turns language learning into a simple and addictive game. The app lets you take courses that are split by topics, starting with basic introductions and progressing to more complex themes like business and travel.

I disagree that communicating in Chinese has much to do with learning rules and I disagree even more that encountering isolated, unnatural sentences that native speakers would never actually say is an effective way of acquiring grammar.

Alternative tools, such as graded readers are much more effective than DuoLingo at immersing learners in grammar patterns because they are designed to enable those with a small vocabulary to read extensively rather than translating one random, isolated sentence at a time. However wacky DuoLingo sentences might be, they will never be as compelling as good stories and meaningful articles on interesting topics.

Shortly after completing Duolingo, I discovered Mandarin Companion graded readers starting from as few as 150 words. The website LingQ also has a series of mini-stories aimed at beginners in Chinese. If I had known about these resources earlier I would have quit DuoLingo sooner. In the end, it was these tools combined with taking every opportunity to practice speaking the language, not DuoLingo, that transported me to fluency.

In one limited sense, DuoLingo has a valid claim to being useful; as an aid to vocabulary building in the initial stages of learning Chinese. Learners who know fewer than 150 words will struggle to read the simplest beginner books or articles and DuoLingo can help bridge the gap to meaningful content. Learning your first few dozen words in Chinese can feel like a slog and the app is at least as fun as your average textbook.

Wow, I really enjoyed the presentation of your article and I agree! I have been using Duo Lingo for several years and have experimented with all the languages they offer, but I have narrowed it down from 37 to just 17 languages to work on. I agree with you that a person should put more energy into language learning than just one program, regardless of which one it is. I am thrilled with Ninchanese and the link to it! I had never heard of it before so I really appreciate you sharing it.

The longitudinal predictive power of four important reading-related skills (phonological skills, rapid naming, orthographic skills, and morphological awareness) to Chinese word reading and writing to dictation (i.e., spelling) was examined in a 3-year longitudinal study among 251 Chinese elementary students. Rapid naming, orthographic skills, and morphological awareness assessed in Grade 1 were significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese word reading in Grades 1 to 4. As for word spelling, rapid naming was the only significant predictor across grades. Morphological awareness was a robust predictor of word spelling in Grade 1 only. Phonological skills and orthographic skills significantly predicted word spelling in Grades 2 and 4. After controlling for autoregressive effects, morphological awareness and orthographic skills were the significant longitudinal predictors of Chinese word reading and word spelling, respectively. These findings reflected the impacts of the Chinese orthography on children's reading and spelling development.

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Tian Tian Zhongwen is a carefully graded Chinese reader series for high-elementary Chinese language learners and above. This anthology of stories contains a rich and colorful selection of enjoyable reading about China, covering a wide range of topics including modern China, ancient fables, history, culture lifestyle and the Chinese language. Besides gaining a greater insight into China, these stories help learners increase their Chinese reading and Simplified Chinese characters recognition skills through meaningful and stimulating contexts. Colorful illustrations to explain the main ideas of the story. Each book in the series contains 20 stories, divided into four levels:

Currently A Nice Lady in Shanghai and Other Stories and Bicycle Kingdom and Other Stories in Turquoise level, and Teahouse in China and Other Stories and Beijing's Courtyards and Other Stories in Violet level are available. Gold and Violet levels are coming soon.

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