My Multilingual Storybook
My Multilingual Storybook
Learn to read Japanese, English, and Chinese
My Multilingual Storybook is a multilingual story game with content in English, Japanese, Traditional Chinese and Simplified Chinese. It contains audio from native speakers for English Japanese and Chinese with content made according to learning principles.
How it works:
The audio is synced with the text so as to create an association, the visual elements such as colored and stylized text also make it easier to identify the meaning of text. There is also a lot of repetition of language which is ideal for language learners and quizzes to check for comprehension and understanding of the words. All Japanese and Chinese characters have phonetic characters beside them to aid learners in pronouncing them and at any point in time you can switch languages to hear and read the text in a language you are more familiar with.
Why I made it:
I made it to help teach my daughter to read and, as a teacher with a background in psychology, I have always felt that there was a very limited selection of parallel text books for beginners, especially for for Japanese and English and Chinese and English. I also felt that they would be more accessible, fun and effective in the format of a game. This is exactly the type of game that I would want my daughter or students playing to help them develop their reading skills for a new language.
At any point in the story you can switch languages, just like a parallel text game. You can read and listen to the same section of the text in English, Japanese and Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Keywords are also highlighted with special text effects that make them easy to understand in any language.
Furigana for Japanese
Here is an example of the text in Japanese, you can see the kanji is accompanied by furigana, so readers can learn the hiragana. This is ideal for beginner readers and children looking to learn to read Japanese. The text is also synced with the narration so readers can hear a native speaker read the text as it appears.
Pinyin and Zhuyin Fuhao for Chinese
Similarly for Chinese, there are supporting characters. For simplified Chinese there is pinyin and for Traditional Chinese there is Zhuyin Fuhao (bopomofo) by the text. This is perfect for beginner readers.
