Beijing with You: A Mandarin Chinese Graded Reader for New HSK 1 (Simplified)

Pros:- Fun story- Mostly easy words and simple grammar- Decent glossary following each chapter- Key words show up several times in the narrative, making it easier to master them.- Professional-quality audio- English translation at the back of the book (out of the way, but available if needed)Cons:- Story text does not include pinyin. For beginning readers, it's helpful to have the text printed twice, once with pinyin and once without it.- A very few number of places where the text and the audio don't matchConclusion:- One of the best beginner-level Chinese books availableNote regarding the Kindle version:- The Windows Kindle app only offers a small number of fonts, and the Chinese looks awful in all of them. However, you can read this book directly in your web browser at read.amazon.com, and it looks much better there.

This book combines language learning with storytelling and helpful tools. At first, I wasn’t sure it would work well. It felt more like a story than a textbook, which made me a little skeptical but curious. I picked it up during a free promotion—and I’m glad I did.The story was engaging and easy to follow, even as a beginner. Each chapter ends with a list of key vocabulary, which made review simple and useful. There’s also an English version that helped me understand the context better. What really surprised me was the audio narration. It brought the story to life and helped me practice listening and pronunciation. Hearing native pronunciation while reading along really boosted my confidence.Overall, this book offers a fun alternative to dry textbook grammar instructions. It’s engaging, practical, and great for beginners looking to explore Mandarin in an enjoyable way. Highly recommended!

I’m so pleased with the writing quality of this book, I have read two of Mandolearn’s books, and they were both great. This one was funny and easy read. It’s easy to get into the story line. Perfect for beginners.

The book has been great, as a beginner is nice to have all of the footnotes to help with understanding the story. The FREE audio book to go with it is extremely helpful too. Having a story to learn from makes it a lot more engaging

Loved this graded reader.I read the book and followed along with the audio. It’s read really slowly which could be a con for some people, but it was perfect for me. It also really helps that there's footnotes/key word lists. The English section was very useful for me as I was able to go back and forth to get a better understanding. The story was a rom-com with a lot of unexpected twists. I hope they have more books coming soon because I loved this one.

Who knew speaking Mandarin could be so easy! Just keep in mind that the book assumes you know about 300 Chinese characters. I found the book very easy to follow and loved the intro story on why the author wrote it!

this was a really fun way to practice reading in chinese without feeling like i was doing homework. the story itself is light and charming, with a sweet slow-burn vibe and a few funny moments. i liked that the vocab was just right for my level—challenging but not overwhelming. the only thing is, a couple of the misunderstandings in the story felt a bit predictable. still, it kept me smiling and definitely made learning more enjoyable.

The story was fun and sweet and it made learning Chinese way easy more interesting. It felt good to read something in Chinese and actually understand it.