I'm really glad to see such an encouraging and useful comment on HN.
I'm right in the middle of the John DeFrancis series (just started Intermediate Chinese Reader volume 2). These books seem to be almost forgotten and I haven't found any modern equivalent, so I was starting to feel slightly lonely in my quest for Chinese reading fluency :) I started them after trying
* regular flashcards: not very effective for me, as all the accumulated knowledge would disappear very quickly after I stopped practicing
* "modern" graded readers: they're nice, but far less structured than the DeFrancis' series, and they often stop at a beginner/intermediate level.
What's truly unique about the DeFrancis' series compared to other graded readers is that the texts are adapted to the vocabulary lists, rather than the other way around. Therefore characters and compounds can be introduced logically, in a coherent manner: for example each new character comes with a cluster of words that use this character, making the whole much easier to remember. The downside is that the texts often feel contrived and boring, but if you're serious about learning to read it feels much more effective and gratifying on the long term. The approach used by most other readers is to start from a simple and enjoyable story, and then adding a glossary containing the more advanced words in the story. But although the story itself is more natural and enjoyable for the reader, the vocabulary itself is much harder to remember.
It would be awesome if someone was willing to put in all the hard work it took to craft the DeFrancis' series, and write something similar with a more modern and less academia-focused content.
I'm right in the middle of the John DeFrancis series (just started Intermediate Chinese Reader volume 2). These books seem to be almost forgotten and I haven't found any modern equivalent, so I was starting to feel slightly lonely in my quest for Chinese reading fluency :) I started them after trying
* regular flashcards: not very effective for me, as all the accumulated knowledge would disappear very quickly after I stopped practicing
* "modern" graded readers: they're nice, but far less structured than the DeFrancis' series, and they often stop at a beginner/intermediate level.
What's truly unique about the DeFrancis' series compared to other graded readers is that the texts are adapted to the vocabulary lists, rather than the other way around. Therefore characters and compounds can be introduced logically, in a coherent manner: for example each new character comes with a cluster of words that use this character, making the whole much easier to remember. The downside is that the texts often feel contrived and boring, but if you're serious about learning to read it feels much more effective and gratifying on the long term. The approach used by most other readers is to start from a simple and enjoyable story, and then adding a glossary containing the more advanced words in the story. But although the story itself is more natural and enjoyable for the reader, the vocabulary itself is much harder to remember.
It would be awesome if someone was willing to put in all the hard work it took to craft the DeFrancis' series, and write something similar with a more modern and less academia-focused content.