The Secret Garden - Simplified Chinese edition by Frances Hodgson Burnett and Adapted by Renjun Yang. Level 1 in the Mandarin Companion Series.
Li Ye (Mary Lennox) grew up without the love and affection of her parents. After an epidemic leaves her an orphan, Li Ye is sent off to live with her reclusive uncle in his sprawling estate in Nanjing. She learns of a secret garden where no one has set foot in ten years. Li Ye finds the garden and slowly discovers the secrets of the manor. With the help of new friends, she brings the garden back to life and learns the healing power of friendship and love.
Mandarin Companion is a series of easy-to-read novels in Chinese that are fun to read 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 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 which helps learners to expand their vocabularies and language comprehension abilities. The more they read, the better they will become at reading and grasping the Chinese language.
Paperback, 108 pages.
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Adaptation Notes
This story is an adaptation of British author Frances Hodgson Burnett’s 1911 classic novel, The Secret Garden. This Mandarin Companion graded reader has been adapted into a fully localized Chinese version of the original story. The characters have been given authentic Chinese names as opposed to transliterations of English names, and the locations have been adapted to well-known places in China.
The following is a list of the characters from The Secret Garden in Chinese followed by their corresponding English names from the original novel. These aren’t translations; they’re new Chinese names used for the Chinese versions of the original characters. Think of them as all-new characters in a Chinese story.
- 李叶 (Lǐ Yè) – Mary Lennox
- 马阿姨 (Mǎ Āyí) – Mrs. Medlock
- 文先生 (Wén Xiānsheng) – Archibald Craven
- 文太太 (Wén Tàitai) – Mistress Craven
- 王乐心 (Wáng Lèxīn) – Martha Sowerby
- 林爷爷 (Lín Yéye) – Ben Weatherstaff
- 王乐天 (Wáng Lètiān) – Dickon Sowerby
- 文思远 (Wén Sīyuǎn) – Colin Craven