Mother and Son (Chinese Breeze Graded Reader Series, Level 2: 500-Word Level) (Mandarin Chinese Edition)

I sure wish I had known about the Chinese Breeze series a long time ago! I work full time and take weekly private lessons with a university professor and have advanced to third year college level. The first two years' curriculum were challenging but I could keep up. The third year curriculum is so difficult that I am forgetting so many things while slowly grinding through the new material with many more than 100 new words per lesson. It has been discouraging. Last week my teacher decided to supplement with this level 2 book, having me read cold. I did okay. So I bought all of the level 1, 2 and 3 books there are. Level 1 is appropriate for someone well into 2nd year college Chinese. It is not for beginners! I was happy to be able to read one of them without looking up very many words, and I could comprehend at the same time I was reading. This book from level 2 was manageable but I had to look up more words, and like the level 1 book, they were mostly words I had forgotten. Now I am tackling a level 3 book. It is challenging but appropriate for third year college Chinese, with more new words, but no new grammar. I plan to read all of the books to refresh and reinforce what I have already learned and gain the satisfaction of reading and understanding the lower level material without struggling over every other word. I highly recommended this series of books for reinforcing learning and filling in the gaps. I can't comment on the CDs as I haven't listened to them yet, but the speed can't possibly be faster than what accompanies my third year college text. In summary, I highly recommend this series, just not for beginners, and the content is perhaps not for high school students.

It's a nice story and a good vocabulary for a graded reader. Highly recommended reading to improve fluency. The whole series is very good. My only complain is about font sizing for kindle. Characters are too small for me and delta between last size and one before is too big. Mandarin Companion series of readers have somewhat better sizing.

Chinese Breeze is a fun and engaging series of intermediate level Chinese reading books for language students. The grammar and vocabulary is simple enough that intermediate readers can smoothly follow and enjoy the stories. The stories themselves are diverse -- with modern romance and intrigue, to historical tales, to touching family stories. I think this a good series, and great for students to practice reading skills in abundance. I would recommend the entire Chinese Breeze series to any student of Chinese.

While the subject matter is a bit hard and the formatting for kindle could be improved this book is very good for improving reading skills and the repetition really helps with recognition.

Raised alone by his mother, this young man did not appreciate how good he had it or how much his mother loved him. Find out what happens when he runs away from home.

Excellent

these books are fantastic

As a high school Chinese teacher, I have used the "Chinese Breeze" series in class, and this review is intended for all the Level 1 (red) and Level 2 (green) books in the series, which in fact are the only ones I have seen. This series is a much needed addition to the range of materials for teaching beginning Chinese. The stories are engaging, capable of maintaining student interest at a high level, full of current vocabulary which is constantly reinforced, and offers the teacher a wide variety of content. Words likely not to be known by beginning students are glossed throughout the text. The series is very effective in providing the type of reading experience so necessary to cementing character recognition and vocabulary usage in the student's mind, and I highly recommend them.There is one caveat, however, and it is a significant one. These first two levels are billed as "beginner" material in the reading series, and so they are. But the word "beginner" is a highly relative one and should not be understood as "easy" except, again, in a relative way. These readers cannot be tackled at very early stages of Chinese study (e.g., after only one semester of college Chinese, or a year of high school Chinese). They require a vocabulary level above the true beginner and a basic mastery of Chinese syntax not normally acquired until later on. At the secondary level, these books make a great addition to 3rd- and 4th-year study, but are too difficult for 1st- and 2nd-year students. The use of the particle "de" in creating dependent clauses must already be understood, as should be the more common uses of "le", the continuing action particle "zhe", directional complements and, to a lesser extent, resultative verbs. Even the "ba" construction is introduced in the Level 1 texts, and is much more frequent in Level 2. In short, while these texts hugely reinforce the above grammatical points, they do in fact presume at least a certain student familiarity with them. Trying to teach these concepts for the first time as they occur in the text can be frustrating and significantly slow down the time it takes to actually read the book, thus impacting student enjoyment and sense of accomplishment. The vocabulary, too, while basic, often includes words not likely to be familiary to the "beginning" student, so that vocabulary lists need to be prepared by the teacher and taught, at least passively, before tackling the text for best results. In a word, the instructor should understand the term "beginner" in the sense of the first steps taken in reading real Chinese stories beyond the level of simple dialogues and narratives found in introductory texts. What the "Chinese Breeze" series does, it does admirably, but it is only basic relative to real and authentic Chinese for those who have already achieved significant mastery of the language. For the true beginner--and this means 1st- and 2nd-year students--the material is beyond their scope of mastery.Still, for what it does, it is a wonderful series that I highly recommend.

As a review of the Chinese Breeze series in general, I find all the books excellent. They're easy to read for a relative beginner like me, all the true nouns are underlined which makes life 10 times easier. Additionally any words that you might not know are also underlined with definition in smallprint at the bottom of the page, hence making learning even easier. I've found that new vocabulary definitely goes in much easier when it is read in context in a book, so these are a great way to boost vocab as well. I currently find the 300 word level a bit easy and the 500 word level I occasionally need to look up words.This particular title is a bit more racy and a bit sadder than the 300 words level books I've read before. Equally well written to other books in the series and reads very easily with a good audio CD.

I read the last 15 of 53 pages in half an hour. The rest took me a couple weeks - really didn't grab me.Basically, a kid goes off and lives his own life for two years - though it's hard work! His mother barely leaves the house, and generally has a bad time. Neither of these arcs had many interesting elements compared to other graded readers I've read.Having background music (something new and interesting, and lyric-less) on really helped me keep my focus at the end - could be a helpful technique to use in general!I feel like the short story graded reader books is at a similar level to this, and due to having many stories is much more likely to take your interest.

The importance of family members in China. Very useful to be able to read a story without having to constantly refer to a dictionary.