Simple online texts for learning to read characters

[cwmccabe]

I am looking for an ideal resource to help me practice reading simplified Chinese characters. What I would like is to find a website with as many different sentences, phrases, or short stories as possible within limited vocabulary constraints. For example, if I know all the words from New Practical Chinese Reader (NPCR) text #1, I'd like to see a bunch of different stories composed just from that set of words (or roughly that set). Or, if I know all the words from HSK vocab set A, I'd like to see stories composed from just that set of words.

I'm looking for this because (1) I can only flip through flashcards for so long before my eyes go crossed, and, (2) I can only read the dialogues and texts in NPCR so many times before I've unintentionally memorized the phrases and it's no longer useful to read them again.

Any suggestions?

[OneEye]

http://faculty.virginia.edu/cll/chinese_reading/Beginning/beginning.html

The site is in Traditional, but it's easy enough to convert to Simplified. The first reading uses 317 different characters and it goes up from there. There are also audio recordings for each selection.

[yonglin]

I'm extremely impressed with this website, which I just found the other day. It has readings for beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, with 300(!) different paragraphs for each. Seems like there are audio files for the beginner level. All in simplified.

The website itself is a bit ugly and unstable (crashed a few times for me). The content is good though.

Edit: It seems like 中文阅读天地 is a very popular name for Chinese reading pages produced by American Universities.

[cwmccabe]

OneEye and yonglin, thanks for the suggestions; both look great!

OneEye-- I found an even easier way to convert between traditional and simplified characters. If you're using Firefox, you can install an add-on called Gb2Big. Then all you need to do is a click a button when viewing a page with traditional characters, and the whole page will be switched to simplified.

[renzhe]

My favourite text sampler is http://www-personal.umich.edu/~dporter/sampler/sampler.html

Unfortunately, it is not very suitable for beginners. Even the easiest texts in there require intermediate language skills, or a lot of patience and a dictionary.

You can have a look whether it's suitable for you. Excellent selection of modern and classical literature.

Blocked in China, though.

[Brendan]

Thanks cwmccabe for the character conversion addon, but simple question, how does it work? what should i see after installing the addon? Where are the three buttons to click when viewing webpages? How do i get them into a toolbar?

Xiexie ....

[cwmccabe]

After you install the add-on (and restart Firefox), then you can right-click on the Firefox menu bar just above the place where you normally type in URLs. You should see a drop-down menu with "customize" as an option. When you click on "customize", you'll see a bunch of buttons that you can drag up into the menu bar. One is a little Chinese flag, and the other is a Hong Kong flag. Drag these up into the menu bar. That's it. Now, whenever you want to switch from traditional to simplified, just click on the Mainland flag. To go from simplified to traditional, click on the Hong Kong flag.

[Brendan]

Xiexie cwmccabe! Things are always easy when you know how, and the character conversion is working like a dream.

[afriday11]

does anyone know of any reading passeges for people more in the 200 character range. like earlier said, i would like to be able to practice my reading in more ways than rereading the npcr over and over and flashcarding myself to death. also, the first npcr has pinyin over the top making it hard to really practice reading.

from what it seems, there are more materials to read after one knows more than 300 characters, but it would be nice to have a little more practice for us beginners.

http://www.uiowa.edu/~chnsrdng/Chinese_reading/Beginning/beginning.html

this site is ok, but the passages are very short.

[adrianlondon]

If you're using Firefox, you can install an add-on called Gb2Big.

Thanks for that cwmccabe; very useful. Although I'm often able to guess by context what the trad character is when reading basic level text (that's my language level anyway) I then realise with a panic that I've forgotten what the simplified character looks like! So now I can switch back and forth and convince myself that I'm not forgetting anything.