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The last couple of months have been a crazed race to finish a 3-year long effort. I’ve had talented people copy-edit the book and I’ve combed the book over and over myself. The last step was to print a proof for myself so I could see the book in person, and just before Hurricane Dorian, it came to my doorstep today! Seeing it in person was surreal. The cover was so glossy, the inside pages so rich and colorful. I can’t wait for other people to enjoy it!

This means we are just a week or two from our official release! Stay tuned! I will have a give-away to kick off the book release.

This video was sent to me by a friend in Taiwan. I played it to my 2-year old and it was amazing how fast he caught on to the lyrics. Enjoy! And 新年快樂！

The end is in sight!

The book will have 16 chapters (12 regular chapters and 4 review chapters).

I’m currently working with an immensely talented person to provide sound recordings to accompany the chapters and help with pronunciations.

Here is a peek of one of the latest pages. I’m trying to simplify, simplify, simplify as I respond to the feedback from my two test guinea pig children. It hasn’t been easy, and sometimes my kids have flat out said, “I HATE CHINESE!” So I’ve tried my best to make things fun for them and not to overwhelming.

Hope this can be made into a book soon!

I’ve finished writing the chapters in my Chinese book, and I think I’m ready to show what the reimagined graphics and final pages will look like:

It’s a little different from the chapters I put out previous because I tried to simplify the material to make it more accessible. I also learned Adobe Illustrator, just so I can unify all the graphic styles and not run into any copyright issues by using someone else’s work.

Hopefully, I can finish all 12 chapters and 4 review chapters by the end of this year to make a 60 pg all-color Chinese book for children. What do you think? Would you use this?

Time is passing so quickly, and I can hardly keep up with Rosie’s Chinese learning abilities.

She’ll often ask me, “What is this is Chinese?”

Sometimes I’ll say, “I don’t know.”

“Oh, it’s this:______________” And then she’ll make up her own word for it, complete with tones.

So that’s my cue to hurry it up, lest she make up her own language out of impatience.

Good news! I’m about half way done. I’m planning on having the first book be 15 chapters with 5 mini-review chapters (so 20 chapters total). I shooting for end of year for this to be available for everyone.

It’s been quite an adventure, with some chapters proving to be so fun and easy to learn while others seem like pulling teeth. Rosie has been amazing in giving me subtle feedback – like in the “Colors and Clothing” chapter, she inspired me to add the vocabulary word, “pink,” because that was her favorite color, and how dare it wasn’t in the lesson.

But it’s coming along and evolving! Thanks to this little tester: