Vicky's Reviews > In Search of Hua Ma: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Breakthrough Level, Simplified Chinese Edition

My 3rd graded reader 🎉 read aloud with tangents for clarification + discussion over a period of 9 sessions with my tutor, since late April. This was a really well-written original story with magic realism elements about a boy from Shānxī just trying to bring home a nice big flower for his mom's birthday, while using a core set of only 150 characters. I'm impressed.

- getting the hang of 的
- distinguishing 住 and 在
- learning 一边 x, 一边 y structure
- realizing the "comma" I glazed over is a unique punctuation mark used almost like the English misuse of the slash
- looking for negation clue (都没有) to suggest "not even [x]"
- expanding recognition of prep. words like 对, 给, 到，etc.
- lol @ 很老很老的老头 (tripped over this one)
- expanding recognition of 要 as imperative + something about to happen
- catching at least one new sandhi rule for 一边 and 一点 （1st to 4th tone)
- 笑 is more smiling, not really laughing