The Country of the Blind: Mandarin Companion Graded Readers: Level 1, Simplified Chinese Edition

By: H.G. Wells

Narrated by: Zhang Xiuye

Length: 1 hr and 16 mins

Publisher's Summary

“In the country of the blind, the one-eyed man is king” repeats in Chen Fangyuan’s mind after he finds himself trapped in a valley holding a community of people for whom a disease eliminated their vision many generations before and no longer have a concept of sight. Chen Fangyuan quickly finds that these people have developed their other senses to compensate for their lack of sight. His insistence that he can see causes the entire community to believe he is crazy. With no way out, Chen Fangyuan begins to accept his fate until one day the village doctors believe they now understand what is the cause of his insanity…those useless round objects in his eye sockets.

Mandarin Companion is a series of easy-to-digest novels in Chinese that are fun to listen to and proven to accelerate language learning. Every book in the Mandarin Companion series is carefully written to use characters, words, and grammar that a learner is likely to know.

Level 1 is written using approximately 300 unique Chinese characters and intended for Chinese learners at an upper-elementary level. Most learners will be able to approach this book after one to two years of formal study, depending on the learner and program. This series is designed to combine simplicity of characters with an easy-to-understand storyline that helps beginners grow their vocabulary and language comprehension abilities.

Please note: This audiobook is in Mandarin Chinese.

©2013 Mind Spark Press (P)2018 Mind Spark Press

The narration is just too slow

The reading of this graded reader is too slow to really boost comprehension. While the audio quality is very high and the pronunciation is clear, I have to run the audio at 1.6X to even approach a normal speech speed - and at that pace, you notice that the rhythm is a bit unnatural. For some beginners, this could be a benefit. As for me, since I try to use audiobooks for listening comprehension knowing that I can reference the text if I have trouble, this version is too awkward to provide significant listening benefits.

I wish it were recorded at natural speed so that the combination of simple vocabulary AND normal intonation could help my listening skills.