Hànyů Fêng (Chinese Breeze) is a large and innovative Chinese graded reader series which offers nearly 60 titles of enjoyable stories at eight language levels. It is designed for college and secondary school Chinese language learners from beginning to advanced levels (including AP Chinese students), offering them a new opportunity to read for pleasure and simultaneously developing real fluency, building confidence, and increasing motivation for Chinese learning.
Hànyů Fêng has the following main features:
* Eight carefully graded levels increasing from 8,000 to 30,000 characters in length to suit the reading competence of first through fourth-year Chinese students:
Level 1: 300 base words
Level 2: 500 base words
Level 3: 750 base words
Level 4: 1,100 base words
Level 5: 1,500 base words
Level 6: 2,100 base words
Level 7: 3,000 base words
Level 8: 4,500 base words
To check if a reader is at one's reading level, a learner can first try to read the introduction of the story on the back cover. If the introduction is comprehensible, the learner will be able to understand the story. Otherwise the learner should start from a lower level reader.
To check whether a reader is too easy, the learner can skim the Vocabulary (new words) Index at the end of the text. If most of the words on the new word list are familiar the learner, then she/ he should try a higher level reader.
☆ Wide choice of topics, including detective, adventure, romance, fantasy, science fiction, society, biography, mythology, horror, etc. to meet the diverse interests of both adult and young adult learners.
☆ Careful selection of the most useful vocabulary for real life communication in modern standard Chinese. The base vocabulary used for writing each level was generated from sophisticated computational analyses of very large written and spoken Chinese corpora as well as a language databank of over 40 commonly used or representative Chinese textbooks in different countries.
☆ Controlled distribution of vocabulary and grammar as well as the deployment of story plots and cultural references for easy reading and efficient learning, and highly recycled base words in various contexts at each level maximize language development.
☆ Easy to understand, low new word density, and convenient new word glosses and indexes. In lower level readers, new word density is strictly limited to 1.5% to 2%. All new words are conveniently glossed with footnotes upon first appearance and also fully indexed throughout the texts as well as at the end of the text.
☆ Mostly original stories providing fresh and exciting material for Chinese learners (and native Chinese speakers).