Studying specially constructed dialogues and learning Chinese grammar are helpful when learning a language, but if you can learn Chinese while having fun, it is even better.  Mandarin Companion books help you do just that.

The Mandarin Companion series of books take advantage of pleasurable reading with the goal of speeding up the time to fluency.   Ever struggle retaining those vocabulary words  you learn from the textbook?  By using a learning technique called “extensive reading” you can naturally pick up and retain vocabulary by repetition which takes place in the course of reading a story.

Research in language acquisition indicates that it takes exposure to words 10-30 times before they are truly mastered, even more if the word is abstract or somewhat difficult.  After reading my first book, I saw how effective the repetition was.

When you pick up one of these books, you’ll most likely recognize the titles “The Secret Garden” (my first purchase!), “The Prince and the Pauper“, “Emma“, etc.  The interesting thing about these book are that they are not translations of these classics, but Chinese adaptions.   Character names don’t go through awkward transliteration, but take on Chinese names.   The locations are also adapted to Chinese locations.  For example, a Sherlock Holmes adaptation is set in Shanghai rather than London.

If you have had about one year of Chinese, at the upper beginner level, you should know about 300 words.  Mandarin Companion’s Level 1 books are suitable for this level.  The series has about 400 unique words.  Level 2 books are designed for the lower intermediate student and assume that the student has learned a core set of 450 fundamental characters.  This series contains about 650 unique words.

The appendices  are well designed.  Not only are the keywords listed, but there are discussion questions for each chapter to make certain the reader grasps the plot of the story.  There is also a grammar index which highlights grammar points for each chapter.

Mandarin Companion books are available in paperback and e-formats, as well as in simplified and traditional Chinese characters.   After you purchase your first book, you’ll thank yourself!