The Lady in the Painting: A Basic Chinese Reader, Expanded Edition, Simplified Characters (Far Eastern Publications Series)

by Claudia Ross, Jocelyn Ross

The Lady in the Painting is the only full-length story written in Chinese for low-intermediate level learners of Chinese as a foreign language. The story is told with vocabulary and structures familiar to students who have completed a basic course in Chinese. Using an inventory of only about 300 Chinese characters, it serves as an excellent transition between the short reading passages that students encounter in a basic level Chinese course and the longer and more demanding passages in subsequent levels. The original edition of the story has been widely used for decades as a supplementary reader in Chinese language classes in the United States. This expanded version—which includes an interactive CD-ROM—makes the story more accessible to learners in a number of ways.

Genres: China, Language

156 pages, Paperback

First published August 28, 2007

Reviews

[Cadmium · Rating 4 out of 5]

People seem to hate on this book, but there aren't a lot of resources that target this specific purpose and it does the job well. It's a fun read that can be completed with limited vocabulary and enjoyed.

After the first couple of chapters I realized even if I didn't know every word, I knew enough to get the meaning just fine. Once that happened I was able to enjoy the book a lot more because I was treating it more like a book than a textbook. I was just reading it and when there was some character I didn't understand, I would look it up out of curiosity more than for reading comprehension. If you really need this to be a textbook, you might have different experiences, but for entry-level reading practice, I think it's great.