An orphan girl gets help from a goose. A poor family receives a magical gift. A boy is stranded alone on a ship in a storm. And two magicians perform a deadly trick.Believe it or not, it's possible for you to read and understand the four wonderful stories in this book even if you start off not knowing a single word of Chinese! We won't lie to you and say it will be easy, but with time and patience you can certainly do it.Each page of Chinese faces a page of pinyin ...

The Qin dynasty lasted only fifteen years, yet it transformed China forever.The story begins in the violent world of the Warring States period, when seven competing kingdoms battled for supremacy. At the center of the drama is Ying Zheng, the son of a hostage prince who became the king of Qin, defeated all rival states, and declared himself Qin Shi Huang, the First Emperor of China.Through sweeping military campaigns, bold reforms, and strict Legalist policies, Qin Shi Huan...

A young boy shares a little house in Beijing with twenty three cats. His friend comes to visit, but the two of them can't sit down, can't study, and can't even eat dinner together because of all the cats. What to do? The answer, which involves a very large dog, will surprise and delight you.This wonderful little tale is for beginning Chinese students of all ages. Its tiny vocabulary of just 101 words is taken from the HSK-1 list of words used to teach beginning students of Chinese....

The story of Cinderella is possibly the world's most popular folk tale. The earliest known version is from Greece around two thousand years ago, and over the next thousand years, it traveled to France, Italy and Germany, and eventually to the Walt Disney studio in America.But as the Cinderella story traveled from Greece to Western Europe, it was also carried eastward to Asia along the Silk Road and other ancient trade routes. The story of Ye Xian in this book is the oldest known As...

A young boy finds himself alone in a ship in a terrible storm. All the other passengers and crew are dead. Suddenly he sees a bright yellow ball of fire on the mast...This is a short story in Simplified Chinese, pinyin and English, excerpted from the short story collection "Learn to Read Chinese, Book 1" by Jeff Pepper and Xiao Hui Wang. It's based on stories told by Norman Hinsdale Pitman in "A Chinese Wonder Book" originally published in 1918.Folk tales are immen...

Sang is a young scholar living alone in a small village in 18th century China. One night a strange and beautiful woman arrives at his house, and he soon falls deeply in love with her. But later, a second even more beautiful woman arrives, and things become extremely complicated. This is a story about fox spirits and ghosts, love and lust, and the unpredictable nature of the human and the not-quite-human heart.This book is a retelling of a Chinese short story called "Lotus Fragrance...

Two thousand years ago, an empire rose from the ashes of war to become one of the greatest civilizations the world has ever seen.The Han Dynasty begins with one of history's most unlikely founding stories: a lazy but charming minor official named Liu Bang who somehow outmaneuvered the most fearsome general of his age to unite China and start a dynasty that would last four hundred years. But this is not simply a story of emperors and battles. It's about the people who made the empir...

Two friends find a golden nugget on the ground. A young girl meets a fox spirit. A dog saves a life, a tiger takes a life. A girl runs away from her fishing boat. And a boy saves the spirit of his grandfather.Believe it or not, it's possible for you to read and understand the stories in this book even if you start off not knowing a single word of Chinese! We won't lie to you and say it will be easy, but with time and patience you can certainly do it.For each of the...

Before the Tang dynasty rose to power, China stood on the edge of collapse. The Sui rulers had reunited the country and built grand projects such as the vast Grand Canal linking north and south, but these achievements came at a heavy cost. Farmers were forced from their fields, taxes grew harsh, and families struggled to survive. Across the land, anger and hardship slowly turned into rebellion. Roads became unsafe, villages emptied, and the authority of the emperor began to weaken. As the ...

The Yuan Dynasty: China Under Foreign Rule tells the dramatic story of China during the century when it was ruled by the Mongols. It is the 5th book in the Dynasties of Ancient China series of graded readers, written for English-speaking readers who are learning Chinese.Beginning with a divided China and the rise of the Mongols, the book describes the country's conquest by Kublai Khan, the founding of the new dynasty, and the challenges of foreign rule. Readers wil...

A wealthy girl runs away with her cousin, a poor stonecarver. A scholar finds true love inside a book. Two lovers defy death to be together. And a young man finds love with two ghosts.Believe it or not, it's possible for you to read and understand the four wonderful love stories in this book even if you start off not knowing a single word of Chinese! We won't lie to you and say it will be easy, but with time and patience you can certainly do it. Each page of Chinese faces ...

The Yuan Dynasty: China Under Foreign Rule tells the dramatic story of China during the century when it was ruled by the Mongols. It is the 5th book in the Dynasties of Ancient China series of graded readers, written for English-speaking readers who are learning Chinese.Beginning with a divided China and the rise of the Mongols, the book describes the country's conquest by Kublai Khan, the founding of the new dynasty, and the challenges of foreign rule. Readers wi...