麦斯的圣诞节 Max’s Christmas

Watch Max’s Christmas written by Rosemary Wells in Mandarin.  Max has plans to stay up late to see Santa Claus, but his big sister, Ruby, wont let him. “Why?” asks Max. To which Ruby replies everyone’s most despised answer: “BECAUSE!” So Max takes matters into his own hands and sneaks into the living room to wait for Santa on his own. Will Santa still show up? What will he say if he sees Max up waiting for him?  For more books on video in Mandarin click here.

好饿的毛毛虫

I just made a dual language animated video of Eric Carle’s classic story, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, in English and Mandarin.  I love this book as a teacher, because of all the simple learning concepts within.  As a Chinese teacher, I use this to teach days of the week, colors, and food, etc.  The simple repetitive text is easy to understand, and my older students actually enjoy listening to their childhood story in Chinese.  To get the dual language PDF of the book click here.  To read along with the story in annotated Chinese click here.

I have been compiling youtube videos to popular, award-winning, classic children’s picture books in Mandarin Chinese.  My thinking is that I want to supplement textbooks with more fun stories on basic levels.  What better way than stories that American students are already familiar with.  Check out the videos here, and start watching.  These videos are great for anyone learning Mandarin.

 Halloween is almost here!  Learn to sing a very simple Chinese song for Halloween.  This is just a made up song to the tune of Frère Jacques.  I like to change the verses to review more Chinese vocabulary.  For example, you can sing about Mrs. Pumpkin or Baby Pumpkin and use different body vocabulary to make it fun (i.e. 小耳朵 “small ears” or 大肚子 “big tummy”）.  Halloween is 万圣节 wàn shèng jié or 鬼节 guǐ jié.  Visit here to download the lyrics page in the video and check out videos for my other songs.

南瓜先生 

I made another quick and easy one minute Chinese grammar video on the sentence structure for 姓 xìng, which is both a transitive verb and noun.  姓 literally means to be surnamed.  It is made of the radicals: 女 (woman) + 生 (born/birth) so you can remember it as the woman who gave birth to us also gave us the name.  I go over how to use 姓 as a verb in the video, and use it as a review for students.  You can access more of my videos and interactive flashcards here.