Best reading resources for Chinese learners

 Learning Mandarin Chinese is not an easy task. Nowadays with all the modern technology used to learn languages, we often forget about a very useful resource: books! Whether it be real paper books or ebooks, reading is often overlooked by online activities such as watching Youtube videos or watching TV in your target language. 

After reaching an intermediate level in Chinese, here are the best reading resources I've used:

#1 - Chinese practical reader "Zhang Ming's Story" (张明的故事)

You may be familiar with YoyoChinese if you've starting learning Chinese. They've made a short series of Chinese comics targeted for HSK 3-4 learners. For each book there is a comic, a language breakdown of each page's lines, and a vocab index. I found them super helpful, I highly recommend!

Click here for Zhang Ming's Story part 1

Click here for Zhang Ming's Story part 2

#2 - Lingo Mastery: Intermediate Chinese short stories

This book contains quite a few short stories targeted for around HSK 4-5 learners. Each story is a few pages long, and shows the Chinese text and it's pinyin. At the end of a story there is a summary in Chinese and English, vocabulary, and compehension questions about the story. For me (an HSK ~4 learner), these stories had the perfect mix of words I knew, and new words. 

Click here for Intermediate Chinese short stories

#3 - Mandarin Companion Graded Readers

Started by two Chinese learners who met in China, Mandarin Companion has made many short books targeted for HSK 2-4 Chinese learners. The format of these books are quite similar to Intermediate Chinese short stories, and have pictures for extra visual comprehension. These books are available in simplified AND traditional characters! There are three levels: Breakthrough level, level 1 and level 2. I'd suggest reading the level 2 books before reading Intermediate Chinese short stories. 

Click here for a breakthrough level Mandarin Companion book

Click here for a level 1 Mandarin Companion book

Click here for a level 2 Mandarin Companion book

#4 - M Mandarin (app)

This app is great for learners who like comics, or associating dialogues with images. There is a variety of topics and levels (HSK 1-6), with story comics and vocabulary comics. All of the comics are very interactive. You can press the text to hear the audio, see the specific words and what HSK category they are in, and you can even send Miss Bean extra questions. You can also practice speaking with the dubbing step. There's even a community tab where you can ask questions, and answer those that other users post.

Click here to download M Mandarin

#5 - LingQ (app) 

I've used this app not only for my Chinese studies, but for several other languages as well! On this app you can find stories, dialogues, articles, songs, etc. The levels range from beginner to advanced (HSK 1-6), although I wouldn't recommend it absolute beginners. They all have a transcript with and without pinyin, and most also come with audio. You can press on words you don't know and add them to a list to review later. It's been very helpful for me, I definitely recommend!

Click here for the LingQ web page

Do you have more resources that aren't mentioned? Let us know! 加油！