I posted this question before, but I think I was unclear with my purpose. My goal isn’t reading the text, it’s giving me a unique path for my casual self-study. The answer I’m looking for is as simple as recommending Chinese books that a 2nd-4th year learner could read, which are also enjoyable by native speakers (Not interested in children’s books — well I am, but not with this question, unless they are Harry Potter/His Dark Materials tier.) It’s also not important that they are “modern” unless the difference in language usage between then and now is significant.
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Where I’m actually at: Nowhere near that. About 100 characters, some 2-dozen noun-phrases/sentence structures.
But I’m having a heck of a great time carving my own path into the language, as I’m just doing it as a hobby, not part of university or with any specific goal in mind. So while I understand that I should be looking at children’s books and educational materials (and I am), that is not what I’m asking for here.
What I want: A book/books that will be basically unintelligible to me right now when I get it in the in the mail. And its English translation, that I can also look at to compare, and give me some guidance on what to next learn. I want a book/books that would be pleasant for a native speaker, but also approachable for someone in their 2nd-4th year learning (Mandarin) Chinese.
As I continue my studies over the months and years, I will find it easier to read this book. And that will be very fun for me, as well as a historical marker of how I’ve advanced.
What I don’t want: Children’s books, or educational materials (well, actually I do want this, but separately, it’s not the goal of my post here. Suggestions are welcome, but it’s not what I’m explicitly asking for here.)
It isn’t particularly important that the author line up with other authors I like, but here are some authors I’ve liked who have a “simple, humorous” style that would be great for what I’m after: Richard Brautigan, Italo Calvino, Philip K Dick, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Ray Bradbury
Thanks and since this is an odd request, I’m happy to clarify if you have any questions!
Relax, I totally understand what your trying to do(as I had the same need learning English), but unfortunately, not a lot of book could fi into your requirement: as a native I have to say that most novels in China are not easy for beginners––even for younger natives to read. I love reading, but the some of the very firt novels I read are English novels that are translated into Chinese. Another reason is that English edition is lesser than you think.
But, if you are still interested, I would like to recommend Wang Zengqi（汪曾祺）to you: simple, humorous, everybody like him. Lao She is great, his works are great for reading aloud. Li Juan (李娟) is also great, simple, beautiful, peaceful, her idilic style is really beautiful. Although I’m not sure if their works have been translated into English…maybe just find the Chinese version of your favorite writers? That should be easier to find.
As many others have said, this probably isn’t the best approach. However, you know yourself best, so maybe this will work for you.
As for novel recommendations, you can check 撒野 by 巫哲. There is an official English translation coming out soon. There’s a fan translation that’s on-going [https://www.novelupdates.com/series/saye/](https://www.novelupdates.com/series/saye/) but I’m not sure if they’ll drop it since the official English translation has been announced. Many people highly recommend this novel for learning modern day to day language. It was first published as a webnovel in 2016, and set in 2016, so it’s super up to date!
There is a big fan translation community for Chinese webnovels, you’ll find loads via NovelUpdates.
Here are some other recommendations of original Chinese novels: [https://heavenlypath.notion.site/Webnovels-and-Books-29ee006777bd4d9fbbd0ea5eb29ec514](https://heavenlypath.notion.site/Webnovels-and-Books-29ee006777bd4d9fbbd0ea5eb29ec514) If you really need the English translation, you should be able to find a fan translation of most of these novels, just check NovelUpdates. Some of those have official English releases (or are coming soon this year) such as 魔道祖师，天官赐福，夺梦
I totally understand you.
I knew maybe 20 characters and started reading the Mandarin Companion books. It’s more of text work than reading, but you can get a better feeling for the sentence structure etc.
Soon I want to start to read the first webnovel of 盗墓笔记 (The Graverobber Chronicles). Maybe not the best written work, but there is a englisch translation and a lot of chinese tv dramas & films. For this novel I know about 60% of the words.
At the end of the year I plan to start reading 《三体》, at the moment I know about half the words.
It will be difficult, I don’t think I will read the whole books now, but every chapter will give me more insight and more knowledge about how and which word are used.
And no, it’s not my only source of learning, that is my extra work to boost my knowledge (and not getting bored).
2nd-4th year learner, depending on how much time they invested, won’t even be able to read most fiction for pre-teens.
Still, there is such a thing as [bilingual books](https://www.purpleculture.net/advanced_search_result/?main_page=advanced_search_result&search_in_description=1&keyword=bilingual&inc_subcat=0&sort=20a&fltCategory%5B%5D=15&fltPublisher%5B%5D=&fltPrice%5B%5D=&fltLanguageLevel%5B%5D=) which might catch your fancy.
What are your thoughts on short stories? [This collection](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/57693414-the-way-spring-arrives-and-other-stories) was published in English earlier this month and you should be able to find the Chinese version of each pretty easily with just one Google/whatever search engine you use search.
I’ll ignore the “appropriate for a learner” part and just give you some more contemporary recommendations: 三重门 by 韩寒, a drama about writers and literary circles; 中国，少了一味药 by 慕容雪村, about pyramid schemes; 地铁 by 韩松, about a post-apocalyptic Beijing subway; 吃瓜时代的儿女们 by 刘震云, a satire about passivity in the face of absurdity.
I would recommend high school setting novels, while it is still native content there are not too many genre-specific terms like in sci-fi or ancient setting wuxia and xianxia novels. I see that 撒野 by 巫哲 was mentioned already, very good novel to start a journey! The author has other books that are relatively easy to read if you finish it and would crave more, as I did.
This reminds me of the problem of sending a spacecraft to another star system. There’s two options:
1. Quickly build a spacecraft, and launch it as soon as possible.
2. Spend time developing technology, and send a faster spacecraft later on.
The second spacecraft will overtake the first spacecraft mid-flight.
If you choose an absurdly high-level novel to read, even if you enjoy it, you’re going to be spending 95%+ of your time making dictionary lookups. You’re not reading a novel: you’re reading a dictionary with extra steps.
If you don’t want to read children’s materials or graded readers (e.g. [Mandarin Companion](https://mandarincompanion.com/)), then (like the spacecraft) it’s best to expand your vocabulary first: you will overtake your less-efficient self mid-flight.
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活着 is perfect for this. It’s a relatively accessible book that also happens to be very good and it has an English translation.
But 2nd-4th year chinese learner varies a lot. How many hours? The average person who has studied for 4 years will not be able to read this book. And it’s one of the easiest that is still for adults.
I recommend using something like dushu (android app), chinese text analyzer, or lingq to read it. It will make looking up words you don’t know 100x faster. You hit the word to get the definition, rather than looking it up in a radical dictionary, which will probably take you 5 minutes if you are new to chinese for each character. In fact I think not using an electronic version is the biggest mistake you could make. You need to use an electronic version to look up words faster. I’m not exaggerating when I say it’s 100x faster. It’s 5 minutes vs less than a second.. for every single word.
I also recommend not using the English translation. You shouldn’t need it. But your call.
I also think this method is not that great but it’s your decision.
Edit: lol I typo’d 或者 instead of 活着 woops
The common real first book recommended to beginners is 活着. It’s available in many many languages too.
Is this sub allergic to modern authors? I cannot get a single recommendation.
Ordered some Lao She from recommendation outside of this sub.
I don’t understand how my simple request is so misunderstood.