I just started reading native books in Chinese. Since my background is in music I got a primer on music theory. It's aimed at the Chinese university/conservatory student.

My experience so far: slow going. Five minutes per page, dictionary out constantly, that sort of thing. The prose is not esoteric or dense--nothing like that. It's straight-foward Chinese. But compared to NPCR 5, which I just finished last week, it's an order of magnitude harder.

The upside... I can feel it stretching me. It's cementing vocab I only kinda knew before. And introducing crazy amounts of new vocabulary. Lots of 书面语 that most Chinese middle school students know. And then there's the music-specific stuff; words like sus-4 chord (挂四和弦), double-flat (重降), over-tone series (泛音列).... Let's just say: By the time I'm finished I should have a killer custom list ready :-)

Is anyone else here reading native-level books? What's your experience been?

I am, and as you describe, it's always slow going, but it's good to feel it strech your mind.

Also, sometimes I switch the level of books I am reading, and pick up an elementary/middle school book, usually a Chinese classic rehashed for young readers, it's entertaining without being too easy, I usually understand most of the words while learning some new at the same time. Though, when I read those kind of books, I try not to check everything in the dictionary, and try to enjoy the reading.

I was reading a literary piece a few weeks back with a lot of historical references which made it really challenging. Words or expressions not available in MDGB, and sometimes if I found them online, the definitions or explanations were all in Chinese...

I really await the day where I will be able to enjoy reading a native level book, and not study it!

@murrayjames awesome, I can't wait for the music theory vocab list... ;)

hey guys,

I've been reading 读者, a Chinese magazine with a lot of sentimental love stories, historical pieces, and random stories. The oberlin college library has a whole bunch of these that don't get read very much. It's nice to dip into these because you can pick out articles that are easy if you want, or go for something really difficult if you're looking for more of a challenge. My ability to skip over characters I don't know, guess at their meaning from context, and get the general meaning of things is gradually improving. I try not to look up everything I don't know because then it just becomes too slow going.
Can anyone recommend some Chinese novels?

Ben

I've been trying my hand at philosophy. This is hard going in some respects, but philosophers tend to rabbit on endlessly about the same thing, so in some ways it's not as tricky as reading novels.

I've been reading 活着 by 余华著. It's a great story I've been reading anytime I want to practice what I know and pick out some frequently used characters I don't to add to my queue. I don't look up every character as most of them have been pretty easy to guess.

I'll be reading Ecology, Statistics, and other science textbooks as of today, first day of my masters program. Anyone else an exchange student not studying straight Chinese?

btw I am reading 聊齋志異, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strange_Stories_from_a_Chinese_Studio
and recommend it because it is a set of short stories, without too many characters (people not chinese characters eh ^_^) involved in each, so it's easier to follow.

@thomas, is your Master taught in Chinese?

@ balsa Wow! You are reading 聊齋志異! It’s in classical Chinese! I regard it as much much more difficult than 红楼梦. You are marvelous. I’ve attempted some of the stories at http://novelscape.net/gd/p/pusongling/lzzy/index.html . I think I can follow the storyline, but missed most the details.

I've been trying to read 缘缘堂 by 丰子恺. More Skritter is required.

One thing that's fun to read, Tin Tin books in Chinese. Renowned for excellent translations. 丁丁 in Chinese, I get many funny looks on the train :)

Hey Lurks, where did you buy the 丁丁? I couldn't find any in 杭州.

Ben

I've seen some here in Shanghai, and will definitely pick one up next time!

Ah, from a foreign language book store. They cost me a fortune. The price on the back in Chinese is nothing in comparison

Also, "Renowned for excellent translations."

Really? Or is that sarcasm? It's can be hard to tell :p.

丁丁在刚果 (Tintin au Congo) can be found at http://www.docin.com/p-36767255.html .

@pts for 聊齋志異 actually, it depends which version you are reading, I am reading a children version, so it's simplified but I think I still get the essence of the orginal version :)

I tried 红楼梦 too, for middle school level I think, but there's too many characters in it :\

@balsa my graduate program is in Chinese, yes. Things are going good so far, here comes the rapid learning part...

I love to have something interesting to learn from. I've been reading children's literature after I read all the Chinese Breezer books I could find at that time about a year ago. Since then I have found adult educational material much easier than simplified children's stories. Might just be the recent Skrittering...

So it seems my local bookstore at Xujiahui has every tintin book. Neat. Translation also seems a lot more modern than in pts's link (not to mention in colour). 20 kuai a book. Not bad at all!

As people in Taiwan are crazy about Manga, I often read these (Dragon Ball, Slam Dunk...etc) in their gigantic Manga bookstore.

哎呀20块钱，没门儿！我花了相当于250人民币买了每本。。。业主的外语书店就是一个窃贼啊！

Ouch :s. Was it recently? The ones I have are a new 2010 edition. Maybe there's just better availability now?

Hmm. Also to you Americans: how popular is Tintin over there? Wikipedia tells me not very...

That makes sense! I figured I just didn't know. But now that I think about it, all the people talking about Tintin were British or Australian. Now I'm realizing that I have never distinguished between Tintin and Tonto.

I first heard of Tintin when I was in my 20's, and it was in an article about the legacy of colonialism. I think I might have seen one or two comic books for sale.

The interesting thing about TinTin is that it was originally in French and often with many quite French specific French phrases, a few things had to go right for TinTin to become the success it became (everywhere but the US essentially) including the truly excellent translations where the translators worked with the author to re-render sections of it.

The relationship to Chinese is worth noting. Here's a paste from Wikipedia:

... The impetus came from The Reverend Gosset, chaplain to the Chinese students at Louvain University. Gosset introduced Hergé to Zhang Chongren, a Chinese student, who further encouraged him to avoid perpetuating the perceptions Europeans had of China at the time. Hergé and Zhang collaborated on the next serial, The Blue Lotus, which is cited by critics as Hergé's first masterpiece. Interestingly, The Blue Lotus includes a reference to the European stereotypes associated with China, in a context that causes them to appear ridiculous.

If you haven't seen one, I'd recommend it - even in English. The books are exquisitely drawn and coloured. The Chinese is mostly intermediate but with some interesting turns of phrase to explore which has proven most enjoyable.

It's astonishing how widely TinTin ended up distributed. I've spoken to people all across Europe who've read every one, people in Africa that used them as English lesson material and people in SE Asia who read them in their native language. Only relatively recently did I discover that they were quite popular in China.

As a french (yes I know, Tintin is belgium!) I'm also surprised on how widely TinTin ended up distributed, I thought that only french speaking people would be interested.

But sometime the chinese translation can be very weird (in the old edition), I have one example:

In one page you have Tintin eating a meal, he's licking its fingers saying "it's good", the licking finger sound is transcripted as "slip slip".

But "Slip" in french also means "Underpants", therefore in Chinese it became "這是很好的內褲" ("These are good underpants")

@Tortue 对！是非常好的！哈哈...

Reading a lot of material for my classes at Hopkins-Nanjing, both articles and books. I find myself spending roughly 6 hours a day trying to finish, review and create vocab lists for 40-50 pages of material a day. I can not wait for the Pleco iPhone OCR update; this will make not only reading but also the creation of targeted vocab lists so much easier.

@Ibid what kind of program are you in?

I'm doing a one year graduate certificate program at the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies (HNC) in Nanjing; potentially will be staying for another year to complete a Master's thesis and get an MA. It's a great program of about 180 students, half native Chinese half international. International students take classes in Chinese, Chinese students classes in English. You can concentrate in International Economics, International Politics, International Law, etc. It's going great so far, but again the most challenging part isn't just adjusting to the Chinese lectures but the vast amounts of reading.