Online material with 400 word vocab?

[Quakebum]

Can anyone suggest a comic or book that I can view online for someone that knows about 400 words?

I checked out Doraemon, but it seems like it's still too hard for me.

Basically, I think I'd be good with text that is written for 1st graders, maybe 2nd graders.

I've spent the last hour or so going through the forum and bookmarking good reading material on my delicious account, if anyone is interested: http://www.delicious.com/pood/chinese

[Quakebum]

Ah ha:http://www.shuku.net:8082/dblx/html/0/14-2-0.html

I think this might suit me well.

[feihong]

Was Yotsuba too hard as well? Or was the problem that it was in traditional?

[jbradfor]

I'm sorry for being a downer on this, but I think you're going to have trouble finding any "real" (i.e. not pedagogical) native material at that level. I estimate that I know about 3000 words, but I encountered many words I didn't know even in Yotsuba. With the pictures obviously you can infer a lot of the meaning, but in terms of reading and understanding I think it will be a stretch.

[gato]

With 400 words (as opposed to characters), you probably need to look at kindergarten level materials.

Here is the mainland China Ministry of Education standards for elementary students for your reference:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/21172-does-it-take-longer-for-chinese-children-to-attain-reading-comprehension/page__view__findpost__p__171668

- by the 2rd grade, should be able recognize 1800 characters and write 1200

- by the 4th grade, should be able recognize 2500 characters and write 2000

- by the 6th grade, should be able recognize 3000 characters and write 2500

[Quakebum]

Sorry, I meant, 400 characters not words. I went to first grade when I was a kid in China and I still speak it everyday at home.

[Gibbs]

try the 汉语风 series of books. The ones with the red covers are for learners with a 300word vocabulary. I have read most of them and the stories are not too bad plus, they include a vocab list in the back. They are not made for Chinese children but for English speakers learning Chinese. I know you can buy them from Amazon.com if you are in the U.S. If you are in China you can use taobao.com Try this link: http://s.taobao.com/search?q=%BA%BA%D3%EF%B7%E7&keyword=&commend=all&ssid=s5-e&search_type=item&atype=&tracelog=&sourceId=tb.index

[Quakebum]

Cool I'll check it out.

Hey Gibbs, noticed you're in Qingdao, that's my hometown!

[jbradfor]

汉语风 isn't bad, but they are not online. [unless someone scanned them in....]

If I may ask, what is your interest in reading comics at this point? For fun, or to improve your reading skills? If the latter, then I would recommend 6-12 months using an SRS-based flashcard program. You are in a somewhat different position than many of us in that you know a lot of words orally, but can not recognize them when written. 30 minutes a day for 6 month and I think you'll easily be able to read most comics.

[Quakebum]

For both fun and improving my reading comprehension

I've just started to use Anki, but I figured it's best to also put all the words in context as well by reading. I also watch chinese tv.

My oral skills really isn't' that good, I have enough vocab to be able to converse with my parents to talk about simple things, but not have any serious conversations.

[HedgePig]

Someone elsewhere on this forum recently pointed out http://chinesereadingpractice.com/ While there isn't a huge amount of material on this site yet, it's rapidly becoming one of my favourites. It has articles at the beginner, intermediate and advanced levels, along with a full English translation (which is what I appreciate the most) and a short vocab list. Even the beginner stuff probably requires a bit more than 400 characters but it's worth looking at.