The Rise of the Monkey King: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin 600 Word Vocabulary Level (Journey to the West in Simplified Chinese)

The Rise of the Monkey King: A Story in Simplified Chinese and Pinyin 600 Word Vocabulary Level (Journey to the West in Simplified Chinese)

This book is a retelling, in easy-to-read Chinese, of the legendary story of how a little stone monkey was born, became king of his troop of monkeys, left his home to pursue enlightenment, received the name Sun Wukong (literally, “ape seeking the void”) from his teacher, and returned home to defend his subjects from a ravenous monster. Sun Wukong, the Handsome Monkey King, is one of the most famous characters in Chinese literature and culture. His legendary bravery, his foolish mistakes, his sharp-tongued commentary and his yearning for immortality and spiritual knowledge have inspired hundreds of books, television shows, graphic novels, video games and films. This is the first book in the best-selling Journey to the West series of stories for students learning to read Chinese. It is based on the events in Chapters 1 and 2 of the epic 16th century novel of the same name by Wu Chen’en. This story is told using only 507 Chinese words, most of which are in the standard HSK3 vocabulary. All new words are defined on the page where they are first used. The book uses Simplified Chinese characters and includes pinyin, an English translation, and a full glossary. A free audiobook is available on YouTube’s Imagin8 Press channel and on www.imagin8press.com. "I've got kids in a Mandarin immersion program and they said this was at about a 5th of 6th grade level for them. I liked a lot that the English was not on the same page as the characters - too many books do that and then the kids don't read the Chinese. Seeing as many MI programs have the kids learn the Monkey King stories, it's nice to have a version in Chinese that's readable for MI students. Too many of the versions out there, especially the picture books, are meant for native Chinese speakers and presume a much higher level of literacy than students in the US could have. This really hits a nice sweet spot for middle school kids in MI programs." - 5-star review of first edition by Elizabeth Weise on Amazon December19, 2017. Verified Purchase. "This book is excellent for Chinese learners looking to improve their level. The format of the book has the pinyin on the left hand page with matching simplified characters on the right hand page, plus a full English translation and glossary at the end. This provides a lot of "training wheels" for learners until they have worked with the material enough to be able to read all the characters without assistance. The occasional illustrations with quotes from the story are a nice touch. Overall the design of the book is very clean and easy to read. The full Chinese audiobook is available to listen to on Youtube. After receiving this book I ordered the rest of the series and can see that this will be good material to work through to help me reach the next level of my Chinese learning. I think this series would be most useful for someone who has already attained at least an HSK2 level and is working on reaching HSK3 and beyond. I definitely recommend it." - 5-star review of first edition by David Brown on Amazon February 25, 2020.Verified Purchase. "As someone who's been learning Chinese for several years, I have struggled to find interesting reading materials for my level. Enter my new best friend Jeff Pepper (No relation to the Sargeant). Reading has been far from priority for me over my learning and I've recently started to put in extra effort to improve that facet of my Chinese ability. I was so excited to find this series of graded Chinese readers because not only is it level appropriate (maybe a hair above my comfort but that is what I need to improve)but it is an interesting story that I have heard about often and wanted to read for some time. Too often the reading material available is either news (not bad, but not always captivating), or uninteresting, repetitive conversations or stories. "What do you want to buy? Four apples please! Here are four apples! How much?" and so on. If you're considering this book chances are you know what I mean haha." - 5-star review of first edition by M.B. on Amazon Oct 30 2018. Verified Purchase. The book was incredibly interesting and I loved reaching the end of each page. The left hand page has pinyin. The right page has mandarin characters. At the very bottom of each page in the story there are small definitions for any newly introduced vocab.The very back of the book has the English translation and a little farther contains a dictionary of mandarin to English. This book aims to help, not hinder, every step you take in learning mandarin. The Monkey King was a tad short (a bit over 100 pages). However, the book was incredibly interesting and I loved reaching the end of each page! Some Chinese readers are so bland that it feels like my eyes are eating stale bread. There was a lot of care put into making this reader exceptionally smooth and well paced for the learner as well as enjoyable. A++ (Satisfied)" - 5-star reviewo f first edition by Andrea on Amazon June 8, 2018.