My First Book of Chinese Words: An ABC Rhyming Book

My First Book of Chinese Words introduces young children to basic words and concepts in the Chinese language through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery. It is a book that parents and young children will enjoy reading together. The Chinese words in the book are all common, everyday items, and the rhymes are informative and fun for children. The goal of My First Book of Chi My First Book of Chinese Words introduces young children to basic words and concepts in the Chinese language through colorful rhymes and beautiful imagery. The goal of My First Book of Chinese Words is to familiarize children with the basic sounds and written characters of Chinese, to introduce core concepts of Chinese culture and to illustrate the ways in which Chinese sounds differ from English ones.

Teachers and parents will welcome the cultural notes at the back of the book and appreciate how the book is organized using a familiar ABC structure. Each word is presented in Chinese characters both Simplified and Traditional as well as Romanized Pinyin for easy pronunciation. With the help of this book, we hope more children and adults will soon join the more than one billion people worldwide who speak Chinese! Hardcover , 32 pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book.

Feb 02, Melle rated it really liked it Shelves: A really lovely, gentle Mandarin Chinese vocabulary-learning book written in Roman alphabet style. Lovely illustrations, lots of cultural details, and a great way to introduce culture and language learning. This book consists of one rhyme for each letter in the alphabet, plus a few paragraph with cultural info now and then. The rest of the poems never touch on the Chinese word in the rhyme. My home is my nest, a place to return to— t This book consists of one rhyme for each letter in the alphabet, plus a few paragraph with cultural info now and then.

My home is my nest, a place to return to— that's where I rest. The rhyme has nothing to do with Chinese. This is an OK book as an addition to your kids if you are teaching them Chinese or they have bilingual parents, but don't expect this to be some help in them being able to remember Chinese words with rhymes. Oct 24, Vanessa rated it it was amazing Shelves: Learned a few words and pronunciation. Feb 20, Anna Youssef added it Shelves: I really like this book because I am minoring in Spanish, and so I only speak Spanish most of the time.

So, when I read any other book that is in a different language other than Spanish. It gives practical words that students know, and rhyming words that make reading it fun. It also has abc words, so students can learn the alphabet while learning a different language. Each word is written in Chinese characters simple and traditional and there is a simple rhyme in English to tell the meaning of the Chinese word.

Why I liked this book- I love studying foreign languages and I think picture books are a great way to begin to learn other languages. I even wrote a newspaper article about the benefits of bilingual picture books check it out HERE. I really like this particular Synopsis — In this ABC book, each letter of the alphabet has a Chinese word to go with it. I also think it was done very well.

Editorial Reviews

I like the illustrations even the end pages were pretty. I like that there is not only the rhyme on the pages, but the word is written in traditional and simple Chinese writing. There are also little notes on the pages explaining some of the meaning or cultural traditions shown in the illustrations of story.

There is a pronunciation guide at the beginning of the book that is very helpful. Feb 22, Stephanie Gamache rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: My first book of Chinese words: An ABC rhyming book. With the help of vivid imagery each one of the English letters is taught using a Chinese word. These images include the Chinese character for each word as well as an explanation of what the Chinese word means.

The illustrations are very beautiful and provide each letter with a simple but colorful picture to assist the reader in their understanding. It is this coexistence between the English and Chinese language that make this alphabet book so amazing and wonderful. While it is meant for young children, I believe adults could learn a lot from this book, making it the perfect choice for a growing family. Nov 08, Becky B rated it it was amazing Shelves: An introduction to the culture of China through 26 Chinese words, A to Z.

Each word appears in traditional and simplified Chinese characters, the Pinyin version, and is accompanied by a short rhyming description with the English equivalent included and in bold. This was excellently done. The rhyming is passable, the text is informative, the words chosen are both everyday items kids will know and cultural items that give a feel for China, and sometimes further information is included in a smaller An introduction to the culture of China through 26 Chinese words, A to Z. The rhyming is passable, the text is informative, the words chosen are both everyday items kids will know and cultural items that give a feel for China, and sometimes further information is included in a smaller textbox.

This book included a note that you can hear the words pronounced on a related website. The illustrations feel like something that would come out of China or Hong Kong, and overall this is a fantastic intro to Chinese culture for kids. May 06, Jennifer rated it really liked it Shelves: I received a copy of this book from a Goodreads giveaway.

This is a cute book. First Words in Chinese: Chinese books for children: Editorial Reviews From Booklist Starting with A, for ai, a word that means love in Chinese, this picture book uses the English alphabet as a framework to learn Chinese words. Each entry includes the word in Pinyin as well as the traditional and simplified Chinese characters, accompanied by a rhyme that incorporates the term. Some topics, such as the moon, dogs, and grandmothers, are universal; others introduce cultural aspects of Chinese life, such as chopsticks, rice, and dragons.

Colorful illustrations complement the text and clarify a few of the terms. This first book is a good supplement to primary multicultural units, but it does require preliminary practice unless read aloud by someone fluent in Chinese. There are both simplified and traditional versions of Chinese used, which is good, and colorful pictures on each page showing the words to be learned.

There are short rhyming poems on each page and the words are spelled out in pinyin so you know how to say the words. There are also small hints on how to pronounce the words. I liked that this book has lots of colorful hand-drawn pictures.

Each word is presented in Chinese characters and in Romanized form, with easy cultural and language notes accompanying the story of a Chinese family who helps youngsters learn. An accompanying website page helps kids actually listen to the Chinese words in the book. See all Editorial Reviews. Product details File Size: February 12, Sold by: Is this feature helpful? Thank you for your feedback. Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. Read reviews that mention chinese words traditional and simplified language and culture letter of the alphabet chinese word like a better book chinese language english words with their chinese book of chinese mandarin illustrations included learn pinyin rhymes rhyming text cultural hear introduction.

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Showing of 28 reviews. Top Reviews Most recent Top Reviews. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. I am the daughter of two Taiwanese immigrants and I grew up speaking Mandarin at home. English, however, is my first language and I feel much more comfortable with it, especially when it comes to reading.

I appreciate this book because it allows me to read to my daughter in English while introducing basic Chinese words and aspects of our cultural heritage. There are so few books out there like this. The Chinese words included are mostly useful, everyday words, and I especially like that the book uses both pingyin and characters, in both simplified and traditional form I grew up reading and writing traditional.

The illustrations are gorgeous. The depictions of family and people are loving, normalized, and respectful. I don't feel there's a reliance on stereotypes - it's not all qipaos and emperor hats. Best of all, this book is written by someone with a Chinese name, who I assume actually knows something about Chinese culture.

I really don't understand the plethora of books out there written about a culture that the authors have no first-hand experience with, that boil it down to nonsensical gibberish and identical-looking people with no individuality I'm look at you, "Tiki Tiki Tembo" and "The Five Chinese Brothers". These things matter, and this book knows it.

Like I said, English is my first language. I find the poetic meter to be distractingly bad in many parts of the book, causing my husband and I to have to read and reread several phrases to try to get them to flow nicely. It could use some help from Dr. Additionally, some of the Chinese words aren't quite how I would teach them to anyone who actually wants to speak the language.

For example, "er" for "ear. Little things like that. They're nitpick-y and certainly don't ruin the book. Finally, another reviewer said that this seems like a better book for someone who already speaks Chinese and wants to learn English, given how English-heavy the text is. While I don't know if I'd go so far as to say that, I do find it interesting that this is an ABC book, so Chinese words are being introduced by the English syllables they match with. There are sounds in Chinese that don't exist in the English alphabet.

For example, the English "u" is not the equivalent of the sound in "yusan," as introduced in the book. It seems to me that if we really want to teach Chinese, we should lead with zhuyin, the Chinese phonetic alphabet, instead. I thought this was an adorable book. I am a native Mandarin speaker, but my son was born in the US.

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I did not teach him Mandarin early enough, as he is now 3, and I wanted to gently steer him to some Mandarin options. This works - it has very few Mandarin words - basically, 26, one for each letter of the alphabet. The text combines Chinese and English - so A is for "Ai", the Chinese word for "love", with the character written in both traditional and simplified form.

Each character is introduced with a rhyming descriptive paragraph in English.

There are some pronunciation guides and more explanatory notes in the back. Some of the characters were a stretch or didn't quite fit the letter, but overall it is a clever, warm, and gentle introduction to the language. It won't teach you how to converse in Chinese, for example, but it's purpose isn't that. Wonderful concept that I have never seen before! I essentially agree with other comments in that the "stories" and the phonetic use of Pinyin associated with the Roman alphabet are whimsically cute.

The book was a gift so I had to add a note where I transliterated the included traditional script for a Cantonese-English speaking toddler. The illustrations fascinated the toddler. I just wish the author had included all iterations at the end of the book for more children of Chinese ancestry, i. One person found this helpful.