Tales and Traditions, Volume 1

Readings in Chinese Literature Series

新编中文课外阅读丛书

ISBN: 9780887275340

Description |
About Series |
Table of Contents

Perfect for class instruction or pleasure reading outside of class, Tales and Traditions exposes students to a wealth of information essential for the development of cultural fluency in Chinese. This series of graded readings will be especially welcomed as the AP Chinese Language and Culture exam requires knowledge of China's literary, cultural, and historical traditions.

The selections in the Readings in Chinese Literature Series have been adapted to a level appropriate for language learners at four different levels, from beginning in Volume 1 through advanced in Volume 4. This first volume for beginning learners contains fables and literary quotations, sayings from classical philosophers, and myths and legends. Each story includes a short summary in English, a vocabulary list, and questions to facilitate discussion in both Chinese and English. Stories appear in both simplified and traditional characters on facing pages, and an appendix contains a simplified character text with pinyin for readers still learning Chinese pronunciation.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780887275340

ISBN-10: 0887275346

Publisher: Cheng & Tsui

Published: 2007

Trim Size: 6.25 x 9

Format: Paperback

Illustrations: B/W illustrations

Pages: 240pp

Just as children gain literacy in their native language by reading, learners of a foreign language must read large amounts of level-appropriate books and material to attain fluency in their target language. Tales and Traditions was specially created to help learners of Chinese achieve that goal, by collecting adaptations and selections from the most well-known works in the Chinese literary and folk canon in a series of convenient supplementary readers.

Perfect for class instruction or pleasure reading outside of class, Tales and Traditions exposes students to a wealth of information essential for the development of cultural fluency in Chinese. This series of graded readings will be especially welcomed as the Advanced Placement exam and other standardized tests of Chinese require knowledge of China’s literary, cultural, and historical traditions.

Each reading appears in simplified and traditional characters (on facing pages), followed by a vocabulary list and questions for discussion in both Chinese and English. English abstracts are provided in an appendix, to assist student comprehension. Volume 1 also contains an appendix of the texts in simplified characters with pinyin for readers still learning Chinese pronunciation.

About the Readings in Chinese Literature Series

Each of the four volumes of Tales and Traditions was written using language appropriate for learners at different levels of Chinese proficiency: from advanced-beginning in Volume 1 through advanced in Volume 4 (forthcoming). The first volume for beginning learners contains fables and literary quotations, sayings from classical philosophers, and myths and legends. Volume 2, for intermediate learners, contains love stories, fantasies, folk stories, and more fables and literary quotations. Volumes 3 and 4 will present more difficult stories for upper-intermediate and advanced level students. With this series students will be well on their way to becoming avid, lifelong readers in Chinese.

Preface	vi
Teaching Note	ix
Abbreviations of Parts of Speech	x
I. Fables and Literary Quotations	1
Pulling Seedlings Up to Help Them Grow	3
Sitting by a Stump to Wait for a Careless Hare	9
Drawing a Snake with Feet	15
Mistaking the Reflection of a Bow for a Snake	21
Six Blind Men and an Elephant	27
Self-Contradiction	33
A Frog in a Well	39
Three in the Morning and Four in the Evening	45
Carving a Mark on a Boat to Look for a Lost Sword	51
An Old Man on the Frontier Loses His Horse	57
II. Sayings of Important Historical Figures	63
One Out of Every Three Must Be My Mentor	65
Mencius' Mother Moved Three Times	71
Kong Rong Offers the Best Pears to His Brothers	77
Grinding Down an Iron Pestle to a Needle	83
Bringing a Birch and Begging for a Flogging	89
Cao Chong Weighs an Elephant	97
Breaking the Water Vat to Save a Life	105
III. Myths and Fantasies	111
Bird Jingwei Fills Up the Sea	113
Goddess Nuwa Mends the Sky	119
Pangu Creates the Universe	125
Da Yu Controls the Great Flood	131
Kua Fu Chases the Sun	137
The Magic Lotus Lamp	143

Appendix 1: Texts with Pinyin	151
Appendix 2: English Abstracts	205
Vocabulary Index	215

• An appendix of each essay in simplified characters with pinyin.
• Simplified and traditional characters on facing pages.
• Vocabulary lists.
• Questions for discussion and cultural coparison in both Chinese and English.
• English abstracts.