From the Bottom to the Top

This book is in the Chinese Reading for Practical Purposes: Step by Step series. It is at Reading Level-2. It can be used by learners at HSK Level 3 ~ 5. People who have learned 1,000 Chinese characters or have studied Chinese for more than half a year can also read this book after class or study by themselves.

There are 20 articles altogether, all of which are idioms selected from Chinese ancient fables or fairy tales. The time limit and number of words for each story are given before reading it. In addition to the annotations in pinyin, English, Korean and Japanese for the new words, the corresponding pinyin is also provided for each story. Three columns are designed after the story. In the first part, “Have you understood it”?, four questions are raised to check how well the learners read; in the second part, “Can you use it?”, two sample sentences on how to use this idiom are given, the purpose of which is to help learners master the usage of the idiom. The third part, “Synonym idioms”, helps students to learn by associating this word with other words. All the new words are annotated in Korean and Japanese and are indexed in the last part of the book for learners.