Just Friends?: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers Breakthrough Level, Simplified Chinese Edition

I have (all?) five "breakthrough" level graded readers from Mandarin Companion. They are wonderful resources for learning Chinese, as they force you to read along with the characters (without pinyin) and add new words that you should be able to handle (which include the pinyin in footnotes, and are often compounded from other characters you may already know). They also point out (not explicitly, but it should be clear if you're reading them aloud to yourself) similar characters / words that use different tones.I've found myself able to read these after getting to an "HSK 1" level on a few different smartphone apps, but I do often reference another resources like Pleco or Google Translate to doublecheck that I have some characters and tones correct. The stories themselves are also enjoyable, even for an adult. They usually mix in some level or comedy or mystery. But obviously, when limited to ~150 words, there is only so much you can do.Anyway, I put this at 5 stars, but I should point out that the publishing is a little inconsistent. I would expect all five books to be of the EXACT same dimensions, yet they are not, they're all off from each other by a mm or so. I also have one that appears to be cut improperly on the top, still showing the dashed lines where the cut was supposed to occur below. So the publishing / binding and QA process at Mind Spark Press could probably be improved. The pages themselves are printed well, including the underlining (light grey for proper nouns, light blue for new words) used throughout the book to help the reader.I love these books and plan to buy more, but I might try the Kindle edition out for my next purchases since they are cheaper and there won't be any publishing consistency issues.

Per poter leggere questo libro bisogna sapere almeno sulle 150 parole.La storia in sé non è niente di particolare ma considerato il numero di parole contenute (che sono veramente poche e ripetute) è davvero adatto a tutti coloro che iniziano i primi passi con il cinese.Il pinyin non è presente (così non distrae) e le parole più difficili (o quelle non inerenti al HSK1) sono annotate.Il tipo di font utilizzato è molto facile da leggere, rispetto ad altri libri che ho provato.Non vedo l'ora di leggere gli altri libri della stessa collana, perché so che non mi deluderanno.

Great books