Just Released: 31st and Final Book in Epic "Journey to the West" Series of Easy-to-Read Chinese Novels
After five years of intensive work, the writing team of Jeff Pepper and Dr. Xiao Hui Wang have finally published their entire 31-volume series of graded readers based on the classic Chinese novel, "Journey to the West." This is the largest and most ambitious project ever undertaken to create a series of graded readers for people learning the Chinese language.
Verona, PA, October 13, 2022 --(PR.com)-- After five years of intensive work, the writing team of Jeff Pepper and Dr. Xiao Hui Wang have finally published their entire 31-volume series of graded readers based on the classic Chinese novel, "Journey to the West."
The final book in the series aptly titled, "The Last Trial," was released this month by Imagin8 Press, the publishing house founded by Mr. Pepper.
The books are written for English-speaking people who are learning to read the Chinese language. Interest in learning Chinese is growing rapidly around the world with an estimated 200 million non-Chinese people learning the language as of 2020. But high quality reading materials are in short supply.
“This is the largest and most ambitious project ever undertaken to create a series of graded readers for people learning the Chinese language,” says Pepper. “There are already lots of graded readers on the market, but they tend to be short and standalone, and they use juvenile themes appropriate to young children. We wrote this series to be read and enjoyed by everyone from middle schoolers to adults.”
"This truly is a monumental achievement!” says Daniel Nalesnik, CEO of the popular language learning site HackChinese.com. “Virtually all Chinese language learners who achieve a high degree of competence use graded readers. The "Journey to the West" adaptation by Imagin8 Press simply makes that process enjoyable, that’s why we recommend it to all of our students.”
The books, which are available in both paperback and eBook formats, start off easy and become more challenging as the series progresses. The first book in the series, "Rise of the Monkey King," is 123 pages long and uses a vocabulary of just 512 Chinese words, but the final book is more than twice that long. In total, the series introduces over 2,200 vocabulary words.
"Journey to the West" was written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en. It is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. Its place in Chinese literature is roughly comparable to Homer’s epic poem "The Odyssey," in European culture.
The storyline is loosely based on an actual journey by a Buddhist monk who traveled from the city of Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned 17 years later with priceless knowledge and texts of Buddhism.
In the novel, the pious but helpless monk Tangseng acquires three powerful but deeply flawed disciples to assist him in his journey from eastern China to India.
First is the monkey king Sun Wukong (his name means “ape awakened to the void”), who the monk frees from a 500-year imprisonment under a mountain where the monkey was trapped in punishment for creating havoc in heaven. Second is Zhu Bajie (“pig of the eight prohibitions”), a gluttonous pig-man who is constantly fighting, and often succumbing to, his desires for food, sex and comfort. And third is Sha Wujing (“sand seeking purity”), a reformed man-eating river demon.
All three have been converted to Buddhism by the monk, but they often slip back into their bad habits and cause Tangseng a great deal of trouble. Fortunately they all have great magical powers which come in handy for battling demons and monsters, and saving Tangseng from all sorts of trouble.
The original novel is very long and quite complex. It contains 100 chapters and is over half a million Chinese characters long. The novel uses a very large vocabulary of 4,500 different words, over 90% of which are not included in the HSK Levels 1-6 taught in schools, making it nearly impossible for most non-native Chinese speakers to read.
The series by Pepper and Wang tells the same story unchanged from the original. But it uses just half as many different words and introduces them gradually over the course of the series, defining each word where it first appears. The books are written in Simplified Chinese and each page of Chinese is matched with a facing page written in pinyin which is a phonetic method of writing Chinese. Each book also includes an English translation and glossary.
Free audio versions of each book can be accessed free of charge on the company’s YouTube channel and can be downloaded from the Imagin8 Press website.
A list of all 31 books in the series, along with short descriptions and links to the Amazon product pages and free YouTube audiobooks, can also be found on the Imagin8 Press website.
The books are available in paperback and eBook format on Amazon.com, and from many other online booksellers including Barnes and Noble, Walmart, IngramSpark and Apple Books.
For larger orders, the books may be purchased directly from Imagin8 Press at a discount.
For more information or to obtain review copies, contact Jeff Pepper, jeff@imagin8press.com, phone 412-979-9141. Jeff is available for interviews.
Bio:
Jeff Pepper (author) is President and CEO of Imagin8 Press, and has written dozens of books about Chinese language and culture. Over his thirty-five year career he has founded and led several successful computer software firms, including one that became a publicly traded company. He’s authored two software related books and was awarded three U.S. patents.
Dr. Xiao Hui Wang (translator) has an M.S. in Information Science, an M.D. in Medicine, a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Neuroscience, and 25 years experience in academic and clinical research. She has taught Chinese for over 10 years and has extensive experience in translating Chinese to English and English to Chinese.
The final book in the series aptly titled, "The Last Trial," was released this month by Imagin8 Press, the publishing house founded by Mr. Pepper.
The books are written for English-speaking people who are learning to read the Chinese language. Interest in learning Chinese is growing rapidly around the world with an estimated 200 million non-Chinese people learning the language as of 2020. But high quality reading materials are in short supply.
“This is the largest and most ambitious project ever undertaken to create a series of graded readers for people learning the Chinese language,” says Pepper. “There are already lots of graded readers on the market, but they tend to be short and standalone, and they use juvenile themes appropriate to young children. We wrote this series to be read and enjoyed by everyone from middle schoolers to adults.”
"This truly is a monumental achievement!” says Daniel Nalesnik, CEO of the popular language learning site HackChinese.com. “Virtually all Chinese language learners who achieve a high degree of competence use graded readers. The "Journey to the West" adaptation by Imagin8 Press simply makes that process enjoyable, that’s why we recommend it to all of our students.”
The books, which are available in both paperback and eBook formats, start off easy and become more challenging as the series progresses. The first book in the series, "Rise of the Monkey King," is 123 pages long and uses a vocabulary of just 512 Chinese words, but the final book is more than twice that long. In total, the series introduces over 2,200 vocabulary words.
"Journey to the West" was written in the 16th century by Wu Cheng’en. It is probably the most famous and best-loved novel in China and is considered one of the four great classical novels of Chinese literature. Its place in Chinese literature is roughly comparable to Homer’s epic poem "The Odyssey," in European culture.
The storyline is loosely based on an actual journey by a Buddhist monk who traveled from the city of Chang’an (today’s Xi’an) westward to India in 629 A.D. and returned 17 years later with priceless knowledge and texts of Buddhism.
In the novel, the pious but helpless monk Tangseng acquires three powerful but deeply flawed disciples to assist him in his journey from eastern China to India.
First is the monkey king Sun Wukong (his name means “ape awakened to the void”), who the monk frees from a 500-year imprisonment under a mountain where the monkey was trapped in punishment for creating havoc in heaven. Second is Zhu Bajie (“pig of the eight prohibitions”), a gluttonous pig-man who is constantly fighting, and often succumbing to, his desires for food, sex and comfort. And third is Sha Wujing (“sand seeking purity”), a reformed man-eating river demon.
All three have been converted to Buddhism by the monk, but they often slip back into their bad habits and cause Tangseng a great deal of trouble. Fortunately they all have great magical powers which come in handy for battling demons and monsters, and saving Tangseng from all sorts of trouble.
The original novel is very long and quite complex. It contains 100 chapters and is over half a million Chinese characters long. The novel uses a very large vocabulary of 4,500 different words, over 90% of which are not included in the HSK Levels 1-6 taught in schools, making it nearly impossible for most non-native Chinese speakers to read.
The series by Pepper and Wang tells the same story unchanged from the original. But it uses just half as many different words and introduces them gradually over the course of the series, defining each word where it first appears. The books are written in Simplified Chinese and each page of Chinese is matched with a facing page written in pinyin which is a phonetic method of writing Chinese. Each book also includes an English translation and glossary.
Free audio versions of each book can be accessed free of charge on the company’s YouTube channel and can be downloaded from the Imagin8 Press website.
A list of all 31 books in the series, along with short descriptions and links to the Amazon product pages and free YouTube audiobooks, can also be found on the Imagin8 Press website.
The books are available in paperback and eBook format on Amazon.com, and from many other online booksellers including Barnes and Noble, Walmart, IngramSpark and Apple Books.
For larger orders, the books may be purchased directly from Imagin8 Press at a discount.
For more information or to obtain review copies, contact Jeff Pepper, jeff@imagin8press.com, phone 412-979-9141. Jeff is available for interviews.
Bio:
Jeff Pepper (author) is President and CEO of Imagin8 Press, and has written dozens of books about Chinese language and culture. Over his thirty-five year career he has founded and led several successful computer software firms, including one that became a publicly traded company. He’s authored two software related books and was awarded three U.S. patents.
Dr. Xiao Hui Wang (translator) has an M.S. in Information Science, an M.D. in Medicine, a Ph.D. in Neurobiology and Neuroscience, and 25 years experience in academic and clinical research. She has taught Chinese for over 10 years and has extensive experience in translating Chinese to English and English to Chinese.
Contact
Imagin8 Press
Jeff Pepper
412-979-9141
www.imagin8press.com
Jeff Pepper
412-979-9141
www.imagin8press.com
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