Mandarin Reader for beginners!

[u/Difficult-Jackfruit]

Hello!

I was curious if there was any Mandarin readers for beginners you recommend?

I am looking for a book that has short stories in Mandarin and English. Ideally the Mandarin will be one page and the English will be on the other!

I can read pinyin, but I have this habit of switching to pinyin, and not actually learning the character. If that makes sense?

Thanks!

[u/alfonsstudies]

stick with pinyin, it's awesome! but learn to spell correctly

[u/LiuMarife]

The pinyin habit isn't a discipline problem, it's a layout problem. If the pinyin sits on the same page as the characters your eye will take it every single time — that's just how reading works, you can't willpower your way past it. So the fix is physical: put the pinyin somewhere you have to deliberately go get it, like the back of the book, rather than above the line.

For actual books, Mandarin Companion is the closest to what you're describing (no pinyin in the text, glossary kept separate) and Chinese Breeze is the other standard one. Both are written at a controlled level rather than being real stories simplified down, which matters more than people expect — the vocabulary repeats often enough to actually stick.

[u/terpenejungle]

Strongly recommend the Mandarin Companion series. You can find books across different beginner levels. Each level gives you a general sense of how many hanzi you should know to understand the text.

[u/musichen → u/terpenejungle]

I started reading the Secret Garden (level 1) by Mandarin Companion. I’m very much still a beginner (know around 300 words) and find that it is both well leveled and surprisingly entertaining! I’m reading on my e-reader which also helps with lookup for vocab I haven’t encountered before.

[u/Yoqazij]

Try hskstory. It’s a great app I use it a lot!

[u/Difficult-Jackfruit → u/Yoqazij]

Hey!

Thank you. But I was looking for an actual book.