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Looking for Pinyin/Traditional Characters eBooks

#1

Hi all, I am hoping that someone here can point me in the right direction. I am looking for some reading material so that I can practice my pronunciation. What I would like to find is the following:

A Reading Material that has the following features:
Is an eBook or Kindle book
Uses Pinyin and Traditional characters in alternating rows
Is novel length or at least a collection of short stories

I do not care if it has English translation or not, really. It is not for vocab building so much as having a substantial reading source that will allow me to read out loud to my wife and have her correct my pronunciation. Also, having the Pinyin and traditional characters one above the other in alternating rows will allow for a little bit of character recognition training.

Please let me know if there is anything like this that you know of anywhere. Thanks!

#2

There’s this app that Gwilym put us on to a week or so ago, it’s called “duchinese” . It checks all the boxes your looking for and is currently free. I would start there, as it might be hard finding reading material with the pinyin on top and in traditional. There should be enough stories on there to keep you occupied for the time being, and they are constantly adding new material.

Edit: it doesn’t check all your boxes. It is not a kindle or a e book, but will achieve the same result more or less.

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#3

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#4

Hi ,

Ive recently started to read traditional chinese e books through kindle. The books can be found on amazon by searching “chinese readers” you will then be presented with various options. You can choose from level 1 (easy avg. 400 characters) and up .

The kindle app does not have a very good chinese dictionary, infact it sucks. However using the pleco app, I just copy the books text and it willl show up on the pleco’s clipboard. Then if you are unsure of a charcter you can simply press it and the defintion will come up. It is a wonderfull method and I have found it quite easy to the hang of and quickly recognize new characters without using the pinyin.

One problem and solution, depending on the authors choice, to my dislike but understanding, I discovered you can usually only copy one chapter or so and then you will get a message " copy limit exceeded" and it will not let you copy anymore. This is intended for unlawful reproduction of the books but for us chinese learners it is definitly not a help. You can not see what copy limit a book has set on it before purchasing it either.

My solution is to download the proper programs (on pc) to change the format of the kindle book and effectivly kill its copy limit by changing its format. Then you can reinstall on you kindle by emailing to your kindle address. I like the program calibre e-book management , give that program a google and you should be able to find a step by step guide as to how to use. After doing this the copy limit will never be an issue and you will actually own the the e-book. A bit of work though.

Amazon also sells the same books simplified , its easy to mix up. I did just that, so keep a watchful eye.

Cheers

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#5

I’ve never stumbled upon an exact match of what you are looking for.

This series has alternating pinyin and characters, but they are simplified: https://www.amazon.com/Graded-Chinese-Reader-500-Words/dp/7513803455/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1472741287&sr=8-1&keywords=graded+chinese+reader

This series has traditional, but no alternating pinyin: https://www.amazon.com/Great-Expectations-Mandarin-Companion-Traditional-ebook/dp/B01IBVFWN4/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1472741440&sr=8-4&keywords=graded+chinese+reader+traditional

Both are good reads, however.

#6

Thank you so much for the suggestions! Once I have consumed all of the material from the app that was mentioned above I’ll definitely check these out!

#7

This app seems like it would be really great but it is quite expensive. $12 per month for access to all the lessons. They have 4 or 5 free lessons which I will check out though. Thanks for the pointer!!

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