<h3>Hey. I'm Kendra.</h3>
<img src="http://devenv.chinesereadingpractice.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/kendra-avatar.jpg" alt="kendra-avatar" width="250" height="255" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-2498" style="padding-right: 40px;" /> I'm an American writer, designer and interface consultant living in Beijing. I first pitched camp in China around 2002, and I've been studying the language on and off ever since.

Chinese Reading Practice was born in 2011, when I was struggling to transition from memorizing characters to understanding actual Chinese texts. I looked and looked and looked for good Chinese reading material, but I didn't really even know where to start. Everything I found was either too advanced or too boring, and I ended up spending more time looking for material than actually doing any reading. Even worse, when I did find something that interested me, I'd get through a few paragraphs only to hit a phrase I couldn't decipher and, with no one to ask, would have to put the reading aside without finishing it. Major buzzkill. I started CRP to collect the texts I could complete, and has my studies have progressed and my user base has grown, I've continued doing translations to keep my own skills sharp. I publish one free post a week, and fiv

I am not a grammarian. I'm not a linguist. I've studied Mandarin for over 10 years and I still can't tell you what a "predicate" is. But I do love dissecting the beauty of the Chinese language, and I do love a good story. If that sounds good to you, do <a href="/subscribe/">subscribe</a>.

<h3>Who this site is for</h3>
This site won't teach you Chinese from scratch - there are <a href="http://www.chinesepod.com">plenty of sites</a> and programs that do that - so if you don't have at least a very basic grounding in Chinese, you're probably not ready for CRP quite yet. But if you're looking to make that transition from memorizing characters to understanding texts, welcome. We have mooncakes. 

<h3>This site is in Simplified Chinese Only</h3>
I've never studied traditional Chinese, nor do I have the time to include it. Some day, perhaps. But not this day.

<h3>Why isn't there audio?</h3>
The focus here is entirely on reading. Though you can click to listen to some of the core words in the text, there is no audio accompaniment at the moment.

<h3>About the Reading Levels</h3>
Princess. Beadstead. Eider-down. Mattress. These are advanced words in any language - words you don't use often in daily life. And yet they appear in Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tale "The Princess and the Pea", which was written for young children. 

My point? For any story, article or essay to really take shape, it usually must involve at least some intermediate grammar or intermediate vocabulary. This is why most truly beginner textbooks created for non-native speakers stick to dialog as opposed to narratives. In order to do any real reading, you've got to at least know the basics of sentence structure. So, reading levels on this site are a little relative, and even beginner stories may include some obscure words. However, if you think I've incorrectly categorized a text, please tell me in the comments, and if I agree, I'll move it to a different level. 

<h4>Super Easy</h4>
I will classify something as "super easy" if it meets at least a couple of the following criteria:
<ul>
	<li>It's extremely short</li>
	<li>There are no long sentences</li>
<li>It's a poem or dialogue</li>
	<li>It has minimal grammar</li>
</ul>

<h4>Beginner</h4> 
I will classify something as beginner if:
<ul>
	<li>The sentence structure is easy throughout</li>
	<li>It contains mostly simpler words that are in the dictionary</li>
	<li>There is no modern slang</li>
	<li>The subject matter is basic / or for children</li>
	<li>It's not too long</li>
	<li>It contains few or no idioms</li>
<li>It contains intermediate vocabulary but the story structure is very repetitive, so you can pick up the thread more easily as you go along.</li>
</ul>

<h4>Intermediate</h4>
I classify something as intermediate if:

<ul>
<li>It's a longer piece that you have to hold a narrative thread through.</li>
<li>The language is intermediate or upper-intermediate.</li>
<li>There are some light idioms.</li>
</ul>

<h4>Advanced</h4>
Most of what's out there online is advanced reading. I classify something as advanced if:

<ul>
<li>It contains many specialized or technical words (technology, health, beauty, geography, etc.)</li>
<li>It contains high-level structures, like newspaper-y or literary writing styles.</li>
<li>It contains any archaic words.</li>
<li>The sentence structure is very complicated.</li>
<li>It contains a lot of modern slang.</li>
</ul>
