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Harry Potter in Chinese Textbooks?
Harry Potter in Chinese Textbooks?
Per the Beijing Daily, a series of books for 6 & 7th graders tested the use of Harry Potter. This was done at the Jingshan School in Beijing.
I do like the idea of making Learning Chinese more interesting, and Harry Potter is extremely popular. It will be interesting to see how the new book does. The translations of Harry Potter in Chinese are well done.
I am surprised, since the Chinese government is very rationalistic, and discourages the supernatural in media.
Labels: Chinese Harry Potter
Box Office China's Potential
Great article talking about why there have been so many horrible movies recently. The comments are worth a read.
Box Office Meltdown: Hollywood Races to Win Back Summer Crowds - Variety
Key Points:
- I did not realize the Hollywood studios only get 50% of what they usually get in the US. In the US they get 50% of the gross. Theaters in the US make their money from concessions.
- China's Box Office in 2017 should be larger than the US Box Office.
- Disney had 4 of the 5 highest grossing films for 2016.
- Disney has 31% domestic market share.
- Five films were responsible for 25% of domestic sales.
- Increasing ticket prices have disguised falling theater attendance.
Labels: china economy, movies
New Covers for Chinese Made Easy for Kids
New Covers for Chinese Made Easy for Kids
Quick Thoughts - I am not a Graphic Artist, but after spending a few days adding the new, 2nd edition of Chinese Made Easy for Kids, I have become very familiar with the covers after spending a bit of time with them, including watermarking. And design is an interest of mine.
- Pastels are in!
- Workbooks have Grey Covers? I guess...
- Textbooks and workbooks share the same graphics, just different colors.
- Cartoon images
- Traditional they just went with blue.
- In the previous edition, multiple cartoon characters were used. In the new edition they use one cartoon character per cover, which are actually from the previous edition. This focused my attention a lot more on the cartoon image, previously I did not notice them much.
- The previous edition used a colored side bar. My guess this was the style of the time. Now the cover is all white.
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Pink for Level 2 - Pink? I wonder how Male students are going to react? Or that being sexist? Will this impact sales? Or will it be a positive since most Chinese teachers are female?
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2nd Edition Workbook with Gray Cover. At least the Chinese Made Easy is in another color.
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| Pastels on the Covers. Textbook Level 1 Example. |
Labels: Chinese made easy for kids, graphic design, Learning Chinese Textbook
Chinese Made Easy for Kids Update
Chinese Made Easy for Kids Update
I just finished scanning and uploading images for the front, back, and table for Contents for Chinese Made Easy for Kids.
And did some serious updates to the text for the most popular book, for Level 1, Textbook, Simplified Chinese Made Easy for Kids.
For the other versions, I went through and changed CD to MP3, since the CD is no longer included.
I also updated the buying guide.
As well as noting on the first edition products, that a new edition is available and limited stock on the older edition.
Some schools still want the old edition, since they don't want to change out all their books. I totally understand. A new edition is a headache. Labels: Chinese made easy for kids
Chinese Made Easy for Kids 2nd Edition
Chinese Made Easy for Kids 2nd Edition
Summary:
Chinese Made Easy for Kids. The basic difference between the old and new editions for both Chinese Made Easy and Chinese Made Easy for Kids:
- $5 more
- New cover
- No CD
- Pages slightly reformatted.
Details:
Chinese Made Easy for Kids is one of our most popular series for Learning Chinese.
Area
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1st Edition
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2nd Edition
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Audio
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Textbook come with CD
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MP3 you need to go to publisher’s site
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Length
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120 Pages
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Same
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Publish
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2005
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2015
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Target Audience
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Primary school children learning Chinese as a foreign language
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Same
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Author
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Yamin Ma
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Same
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Teacher’s Edition
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No
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Yes
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Supplemental Material
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Flash Cards, Worksheets, and Posters
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Same, plus digital resources, Teacher’s Book, and Flash Cards (what is the difference between a word card and picture card?).
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Levels
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4
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Same
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Available as of 7/23/2016
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Textbooks, Workbooks, Worksheets, Posters, and Flash Cards for level 1 and 2.
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Textbooks, Worksheets, Workbooks, and MP3 of materials from CD.
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From the Front of the Chinese Made Easy for Kids, 2nd Edition Book
Introduction:
The second edition of Chinese Made Easy for Kids is written for primary school children who are learning Chinese/foreign language.
The primary goal of the series is to help beginners build a solid foundation of Chinese and cultivate interest in learning Chinese. The series is designed to emphasize the development of communication skills from an early age.
Chinese Made Easy For Kids is composed of 4 textbooks (Books 1-4), and each accompanied by a workbook. This series is supplemented by Worksheets, Readers, Teacher’s book, word cards, picture cards, posters, and digital resources.
This series has been written to provide a foundation for the subsequent use of Chinese Made Easy (books 1-7), that is written for secondary and university students.
Design of the Series
- The content of this series
- The textbook aims to develop communication skills through audio exercises, conversations, questions, and answers, speaking vocabulary and sentences, the games in the Textbook are designed to create a fun learning environment. The accompanying rhymes mainly consist of the new vocabulary in each lesson to aid language acquisition.
- In order to build a solid foundation for character writing, tracing and copying characters exercises are included in the Workbook. Exercises such as reading phrases, sentences, and short paragraphs aim to develop children’s reading comprehension skills.
- In order to supplement the the exercises in the Workbook, more exercises in the Worksheets are provided. These exercises can be arranged to make unit tests when needed.
- Answers to the exercises in the Textbook, Workbook, and Worksheets along with suggestions for teaching and learning are provided in the Teacher’s book.
The characteristics of this series
- Since the 1st edition of Chinese Made Easy for Kids was published in 2005, the 2nd edition has evolved to take into account social development needs, learning needs and advances in foreign language methodology.
- New vocabulary and expressions included.
Yamin Ma 2014
But, You Can Still Get for a Limited Time the Old Edition...
- I still have some of the old edition.
- My supplier
increased the price by $2 for a list price of $21.95 for the textbook,
but for what I have in stock I am keeping at $19.95.
- If I don't
have stock, the price will be $21.95 and I will need to get from one of
my suppliers. The delay in shipment if I don't have stock will be 2-5
days.
Labels: Chinese made easy for kids, Learning Chinese Textbook
$2,000 Rowland Heights Missing Dog Reward
$2,000 Rowland Heights Missing Dog Reward
I just saw a poster for a 4 lb missing Poodle for $2,000.
My guess another Coyote Victim. May be a dog napping.
Posters with numbers blacked out coming soon. Labels: dogs, rowland heights
Chinese Buyers - Cheaper Houses
Chinese Home Buyer Update
F oreign buyers flood US real estate, but buy cheaper homes - CNBC
Median price per the article was $522,084 with a dollar volume of $27.3 Billion Dollars in the 12 months between April 2015 to March 2016. My guess is some areas just became too pricey, but the impact of devaluation.
Around Rowland Heights I am not seeing the huge amount of houses selling I was, the market seems to have died down a bit. Labels: Chinese Housing, housing, rowland heights
'Ghostbusters' Denied Release in China
No Ghostbusters in China?
Question is why?
The articles guess is because China's ideology is very science focused, a hold over of the Communist Party's Marxist Ideology. The studio did try, even removing the term ghost from the title. Pirates of the Caribbean; Dead Man's Chest in 2006 was also not approved. Or could it be because it's seen as a poor performer?
' Ghostbusters' Denied Release in China - Hollywood Reporter Labels: business chinese, ghostbusters, movies
Coyotes of Rowland Heights
Coyotes of Rowland Heights
On my way to work, I took these pictures. In the past week, I have had 4 Coyote encounters. 3 of them within a block of my house, and 1 of them next to an elementary school. Only one of the Coyote encounters was at night. The most recent one was of two coyotes. See pictures below.
I also saw 4 missing dog flyers. They varied from a Poodle, to a chocolate lab, to a Golden Retriever. I"ll post them after I remove the phone numbers.
Last year a lady with her husband first put up flyers, and then went door to door asking about her small dog. I felt very sad for her.
I called Animal Control, and per the lady who answered the phone they don't do trapping anymore. I then called my supervisors office, who got a call back for me that was a lot more helpful. It seems there is one trapper for all of LA County, and they only trap coyotes that are high priority. He was very nice and sent me some brochures on what can be done.He mentioned they even have Coyotes in Compton. My guess, if their are attacks on people, things will change quickly. This time of year Coyotes give birth, so they have extra mouths to feed. Plus the drought. And cities offer food and water (pools).
The undertone I got from speaking with the person, is they are very afraid a coyote caught in their trap will get on the nightly news as be used a cause celebre by animal rights.
When I googled Rowland Heights Coyotes, I read there was an attack last year in Hacienda Heights. And that Coyotes can jump over 8 ft fences. The Coyote attack killed a dog, injured another while the owner, a Mother and her daughter were in their back year. They set up a go fund me page for the $2,000 of vet bills. Vets, like Doctors, are not cheap.
A facebook page I found from Fullerton, called Coyote Watch and their blog.
Our cat, that adopted us about 2 years ago, was last seen a week ago. My guess is a Coyote got her. The advice I got was don't let our dog or cat out at night. She was a mix of outdoor /indoor cat, so we let her out whenever she wanted to go. We were very lucky to have her as part of our family.
Labels: coyote, dogs, pets, rowland heights
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