Why We Love the Le Le Chinese Reading Pen Books 樂樂文化

We’re grateful for the 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System, a picture book series that teaches children Mandarin Chinese with the help of a reading pen! For the past few years, I’ve been learning Chinese with my kids and looking for a talking pen that can read individual Chinese characters.

To help my kids learn Mandarin as a second language, the Le Le Chinese reading pen and books have been exactly what we’ve needed all along.

Available in both simplified and traditional Chinese, Le Le Chinese leveled reading books can be a huge help for non-fluent and fluent families alike. If you’re a language teacher for kids, these books would also be wonderful for a Chinese curriculum.

A couple of years ago, I purchased the traditional Chinese books for my daughter who had already learned 1000 Chinese characters (mostly in simplified Chinese).

樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen Books

A year after my original review, the publisher gifted us the simplified Chinese set that my son and I have been using for reading practice.

Since this series is a huge investment, I’ll give a detailed objective overview and how families can use the LeLe books and reading pen to learn Chinese. Please make sure to watch the videos at the end of the post!

This article was originally published in March 2019 and has been updated with new information.

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What is the 台灣樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System?

Chinese Reading Pen: 樂樂文化 聽讀套書 Le Le Chinese Books teaches 1000 Characters (Traditional & Simplified)

台灣樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System is a leveled reading system that teaches more than 1000 Chinese characters through 300 booklets. The books are written by author and Chinese teacher Ju Yao (also known as Cathy Lee). Ju Yao also co-authored the Greenfield 我自己会读 leveled readers that I reviewed here.

Le Le Chinese books are geared for:

  • Children 2 to 8 years (or older) in a home or school setting
  • Fluent and non-native Chinese-speaking families
  • Learning to speak and read common Chinese words.

Review of the 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System

The complete set includes 300 Chinese booklets plus a reading pen. The Chinese reading pen and accompanying flashcards can be purchased separately on the publisher’s website.

Also, each book level can be ordered separately.  For example, if your child already knows a few hundred Chinese characters, you can purchase the green (advanced) level set rather than all 3 sets.

I’ll first give a close-up look at the Le Le books and then dive into details about the Mandarin Chinese reading pen.

Overview of Le Le Chinese books and levels

300 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese booklets for reading practice organized in red, yellow, and green zipper bags

The Le Le Chinese Reading Pen books are organized into three color-coded levels of difficulty.

  • Red books are for beginner Chinese learners.
  • Yellow books are for intermediate readers.
  • Green books are advanced readers.

Each level comes with 100 booklets featuring pencil illustrations with short, relatable stories.

Chinese characters are in large black font, repeated within a story and throughout other stories.

Benefits of the Le Le Chinese books

I really appreciate that the booklets are thin, light, and portable.  Before the pandemic, I would keep several in my handbag and read with my kids while waiting at dance classes, restaurants, and doctor’s appointments. Even though the books are short, my kids appreciate the page numbers and knowing how far they are in a book.

I’m also thrilled that there is NO Pinyin or Zhuyin!  This means that you learn the characters directly without relying on or being distracted by additional text. 

Whenever Hanyu Pinyin is present, I struggle to notice Chinese characters. As such, I want my children to master Chinese characters before learning Hanyu Pinyin.

If needed, printable English translations are available on the publisher’s website.

children reading 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen Books

Downsides of the Le Le Chinese books

At the time of this review, the full set costs approximately $750 USD. Unfortunately, this is too exorbitant for many families.

Also, many parents have shared that they wished the books had more of a structured introduction to individual Chinese characters.

Topics covered in the 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System

Here’s a list of the wide range of everyday parenting topics covered in the series.

Chinese Reading Pen red level books 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese
  1. 日常活动 / 日常活動 (rìcháng huódòng / daily life)
  2. 动物 / 動物 (dòngwù / animals)
  3. 学校活动 /學校活動 (xuéxiào huódòng / school activities)
  4. 家 & 家人 (jiā & jiārén / house & family)
  5. 关键字 / 關鍵字 (guānjiàn zì / essential words)
  6. 身体 / 身體 (shēntǐ / body)
  7. 自然 (zìrán / nature)
  8. 食物 (shíwù / food)
  9. 天气 / 天氣 (tiānqì / weather)
  10. 数字 / 數字 (shu zì / math)
  11. 颜色 / 顏色 (yánsè / colors)
  12. 衣物 (yīwù / clothing)

Examples of the 樂樂 LeLe Chinese book levels

Here’s a peek inside a few of the LeLe Chinese red, yellow, and green books!

Red beginner level Chinese books

Here are some pictures, specifications, and examples of the LeLe Chinese red level books:

  • 100 booklets; 8 pages per book (only 7 pages have text)
  • 525 new characters
  • Each page has a large illustration with 1 line of text (a word or simple phrase) in large font
  • Reading pen can narrate individual words and full phrases/sentences. The reading pace is very slow.
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Red Book 62 teaches body parts and adjectives through step-by-step drawing instructions! 

Red Book 62 teaches body parts and adjectives through step-by-step drawing instructions!  This book can be paired with fun human body learning activities!

teach kids how to draw a face with Chinese instructions
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Red Book 88 teaches the days of the week in Chinese

Red Book 88 teaches the days of the week, which can be paired with my printable Chinese calendar activities.

Learning how to say the days of the week in Chinese

Yellow intermediate level Chinese books

Here are some pictures, specifications, and examples of the LeLe Chinese yellow level books:

  • 100 booklets; 8 pages per book (only 7 pages have text)
  • 340 new characters
  • Each page has a large illustration with 1-2 lines of text (phrases and short, simple sentences) in large font
  • Reading pen can narrate individual words and full phrases/sentences. The reading pace is very slow.
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Yellow Book 9 is about two boys who are bored of their computer and TV, so their dad tell them to wash his car. 

Yellow Book 9 is about two boys who are bored with their computer and TV, so their dad tells them to wash his car.  Older kids might be able to relate to this!

Picture book with Dad telling bored kids to wash car in Chinese
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Yellow Book 100 teaches vehicle names while comparing their speed. 

Yellow Book 100 teaches vehicle names while comparing their speed.  The books about vehicles could be paired with these educational transportation activities!

Chinese picture book about transportation

Green advanced level Chinese books

Here are some pictures, specifications, and examples of the LeLe Chinese green level books:

  • 100 booklets; 12 pages per book (only 11 pages have text)
  • 230 new characters
  • Illustrations and text are now on separate pages with 3-5 lines of text (a few sentences) in large font
  • Reading pen narrates keywords individually and also page by page. The reading pace is more natural.
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Green Book 7 is a lovely book about practice and perseverance despite physical limitations.

Book 7 is a lovely book about practice and perseverance despite physical limitations. The book reminded my kids of this video of Zheng Gui Gui, a pianist who was born with no fingers on her right hand and performed on China’s Got Talent.

Black Chinese characters on white background
樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Green Book 20 is about writing Chinese nursery rhymes and features the traditional Chinese song, 五指歌 (Wǔzhǐ gē / Five Finger Song).

Book 20 is about writing Chinese nursery rhymes and features the traditional Chinese song, 五指歌 (Wǔzhǐ gē / Five Finger Song).

五指歌 (Wǔzhǐ gē / Five Finger Song).

Overview of the Le Le Chinese Reading pen

close-up photo of 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen

Since I’m learning Chinese as a busy parent, in my opinion, the star of the Le Le system is the Chinese reading pen.

The Chinese reading pen (点读笔 / 點讀筆 / diǎn dú bǐ) comes with a charger and narrates each Chinese book with a Taiwanese Mandarin accent.

Be sure to watch my video at the end of the post for a demonstration of the Mandarin reading pen! Here are the pros and cons to consider.

Benefits of the LeLe Chinese reading pen

First and foremost, I appreciate how the pen makes Chinese reading and learning so much more efficient. For example, I often forget if 倒 should be dǎo or dào. With the Le Le pen, I can instantly hear pronunciations within seconds.  In contrast, when I check my Chinese dictionary app, I end up down a rabbit hole of checking my email and social media and get distracted from reading.

  • In the red and yellow books, every character is narrated very slowly.  The pen can also read full sentences.
  • In the green books, keywords and full pages are narrated at a more natural pace.  This encourages more fluent and independent reading.  In addition, the reading pen speed prepares children for listening to longer passages, such as Chinese audiobooks on Ximalaya.

Secondly, the point-and-read functionality makes the pen accessible for users of most ages and abilities. This means that toddlers can use the pen as well as older children or adults with physical disabilities. (While older kids can use the Youdao Reading Pen with the LeLe series, it may be too complicated for younger children or those with a movement disability. As explained in my review here, the Youdao Chinese Reading Pen requires coordination and careful scanning.)

Thirdly, the audio is very clear and crisp and much far better quality than our Ciaohu talking pen.

Lastly, the thoughtful design is appreciated.

  • The simple white color is a refreshing change from other children’s reading pens with gaudy cartoon mascots.
  • The ergonomic shape is comfortable and doesn’t roll around.
  • If you forget to turn it off, it saves electricity by shutting down automatically after 3 minutes of inactivity.
  • A headphone jack is included, but we’ve never needed to use it.
  • The volume is adjustable

Downsides of the LeLe Chinese reading pen

When we previously used other Mandarin reading pens, my daughter lost motivation to read the books independently. Therefore, I was wary of letting my daughter use the LeLe reading pen.

I made a rule that we would only use the pen if we were not sure of a word; we had to try reading first. I also told her that we shouldn’t waste the battery if we don’t need it and that the power might run out when we actually need the pen.

Interestingly, my daughter was too impatient with the slow pace of the reading pen for the red and yellow levels, so she only used it when necessary. We joked that the 点读笔 / 點讀筆 was a 慢读笔 / 慢讀筆 (màn dú bǐ / slow reading pen), and we pretended that when my daughter would touch the sound wave icon, she was a 快讀筆 (kuài dú bǐ / fast reading pen).

I’ve since heard from other parents who found the pen reading speed to be excruciatingly slow for the red and yellow levels. When you watch the videos below, see if you agree that the pace is intolerable.

If you’re fluent in Mandarin Chinese, have a limited budget, and have time to read to your children, consider getting the books without the pen.

Customer service

Whenever I have had to ask questions, the response from the Le Le team has been fast, patient, and friendly. For example, I contacted the company about an illustration error that we discovered, and they replied promptly with gratitude.  They’ve also been patient with the questions I asked before ordering the books. After writing this review, they have already made improvements to their content based on feedback.

Videos of the 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System

As a heads up to these videos of the red, yellow, and green levels, I want to point out that most parents ask me about (1) the pen reading speed and (2) the Mandarin accent used in the reading pen.

Since Chinese is a diverse language, we personally want our children to be familiar with and open-minded about regional differences in pronunciation and word choice.

In the following video, you can hear the Taiwanese Mandarin pronunciation in the green book. For example, “and” is pronounced 和 hàn in Taiwanese Mandarin rather than in Beijing Mandarin. Also, “trash can” is pronounced 垃圾桶 lèsè tǒng rather than lā jī tǒng.

Other differences in the books include wording differences, such as:

  • Tomato – 番茄 (fānqié) versus 西红柿 (xīhóngshì)
  • Taxi – 计程车 (jì chéng chē) versus 出租车(chū zū chē)
  • Bicycle – 腳踏車 (jiǎotàchē) versus 自行車 (zìxíngchē)

Here’s another sample of the Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System comparing the red, yellow, and green levels.  You can hear the difference between the narration pace at each level.

This last video features my daughter reading 噴水的龍 (Book 46) from the green (advanced) series when she was 5 years old.

Who would benefit most from the Le Le Chinese books?

I strongly believe that the Le Le Chinese books would benefit most children learning Chinese, especially the following:

  • Parents with limited to no Chinese fluency who are committed to their child’s learning.
  • Adult learners who want to learn common parenting vocabulary.
  • Busy, native-speaking families.
  • Homes with limited space – the set would make a wonderful mini-starter library!

Tips for using the Le Le Chinese books with kids

The most common question I hear from parents is how to use these books to teach Chinese. Some parents feel confused when there isn’t a clear-cut curriculum, but the beauty of these books is that they can be tailored to various Chinese learning levels and needs. My own children used these books for different purposes.

For kids who are not yet reading

For younger toddlers, the Le Le Chinese books would be best for Chinese speaking practice. Explore illustrations with your child, and let them listen to you, the parent, or the teacher read the book out loud. If you are not fluent in Chinese, use the reading pen to help you read.

Also at this young age, reading books based on topic interest rather than numerical order would be a great idea. Let your child discover the joy of reading by picking out a book!

For kids who are ready to read

For beginner or budding readers, the best approach to these books depends on how many Chinese characters your child can read. It also depends on whether you want to be systematic about reading these books or use them as bonus reading practice.

If you want to use the series to learn Chinese characters, I would consider starting with a curriculum like Sagebooks to build a foundation of 500 Chinese characters or a Chinese reading game app.

Afterward or in conjunction with another curriculum, you can read the books in numerical order. For unfamiliar Chinese characters, write them on Post-It Notes or index cards and play Chinese reading games to help remember the words.

To keep track of books, arrange the books so that they all face the same direction. After you finish a book, turn it in the opposite direction as shown in the next image.

Organizing green level Le Le Chinese booklets - turning the books in opposite direction after reading
Organizing Le Le Chinese books – turning the books in opposite directions after reading

Several Chalk Academy readers have also shared with me that they used the Le Le Chinese as their sole curriculum. In these cases, they made their own flashcards or got LeLe Chinese flashcards with a spaced repetition Leitner Box system.

Chinese activities with 樂樂文化 Le Le books at any age

If your child is interested in a particular topic, you can pair the book with an activity to help them learn new Chinese words. For example, when we read the animal books, I paired them with our Animals of the World printables.

le le chinese reading pen hands-on activities
接龙游戏 / 接龍遊戲 Jie Long You Xi - Chinese Word Solitaire Game
接龙游戏 / 接龍遊戲 ((jiēlóng yóuxì / word game)

Some of the stories include built-in hands-on activities for kids! Examples include dog origami, penguin craft, drawing faces, and 接龙游戏 / 接龍遊戲 (jiēlóng yóuxì / word solitaire).

Other activities in Le Le books can be incorporated into regular everyday life, such as cutting a watermelon and learning the phrase “切一半 (qiè yībàn).”

Where to buy 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System

This program is available at Taiwan Le Le Culture Co. Ltd. Online store. You can buy the 3 sets separately or all together. The Mandarin reading pen is an optional add-on. Please refer to their website for current rates.

Use coupon code CHALKACADEMY for 5% off 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese products.

Did your family use the LeLe Chinese Reading System?

What did your family think of the LeLe Mandarin Chinese reading pen and books? Was it worth the splurge or did you end up using other resources to teach your kids Chinese? Please share your experience in the comments below.

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192 Comments

  1. Hi Betty,
    I am Chinese. My husband is American. We live in the U.S. and have two bilingual children.

    Have you heard of the Chinese leveled readers called 《一亩宝盒》?I read an article about it and it looks excellent with lots of fiction and non fiction leveled books in a good variety topics. I try to decide if should buy Le Le readers or 《一亩宝盒》. Does Le Le Readers have non-fiction books or if it’s just fiction books?

  2. Julie Liao says:

    Hi! Do you know if you can make the reading pen faster ? Esp for the yellow and red books. Thanks!!

  3. Hi Betty! Can I use Luka to read Le Le Chinese books? I’m thinking to get Le Le Chinese but without its reading pen as I see it from your review that Luka has better narration. Thank you!

    1. Hi! Sorry for the late reply. For anyone who’s wondering about this, no, Luka Reading Robot is not compatible with the LeLe books.

  4. Gracie Tsai says:

    (a) I grew up in Taiwan and we have always been told to speak Taiwanese/Chinese at home.
    (b) I would like to use Le Le Chinese with my 3 years old son.
    (c) I am trying to teach both traditional and simplified Chinese at home.

    1. As a Canadian born Chinese, in my household we mainly speak English as my husband’s Chinese, isn’t the strongest. However, I would love for my son to use the Le Le Chinese. I prefer traditional Chinese. Thank you!

  5. Lisa Skrenchuk says:

    For the Lele pen
    1) I’m a very typical ABC, however since my parents were fluent in English I didn’t retain much Chinese and mostly illiterate. I also have severe hearing loss and now have a CI.
    2) I’ve been teaching my daughter and myself, she’s is biracial and I want her to be proud of her culture and most importantly be comfortable with her heritage and if she ever visits Taiwan/China.
    3) We opted for simplified as it send to have the widest application in the future.
    Thank you for considering us!

  6. We are proficient to fluent in Chinese. My younger son loves the little books from Greenfield and would probably love these little books too. =) We are mainly doing traditional but also exposing to simplified.

  7. Amy Liang says:

    A) beginner, I learned some Cantonese growing up and some mandarin in college (b) my 3 year old girl, c) traditional since that’s what my parents and in-laws read

  8. We are just starting. We don’t really knowing anything besides counting to 5 in Chinese 😬

    I’m hoping to use the Le Le system with my 2.5 year old. My husband and I will for sure be learning alongside my toddler. Friends and family recommended simplified so we’ll be starting with that!

  9. Both my husband and I was born in Taiwan. We came to the states around 10 years old. We have two daughters, age 3 and 5.5. We are just beginning to teach them Chinese characters using flash cards. I see that they recognize/point to the words they learned while we read Chinese story books together. My goal is to build up their Chinese vocabulary, and eventually they become a reader in Chinese.

  10. Wendy Lin says:

    I was born and raised in the US but my parents have returned to their native Taiwan for the past 20 years now. I’d love to use this set with my 3 young kids so that we can visit Taiwan (someday post pandemic!) so they can better connect with my parents and their heritage (a) My fluency is mediocre, I can hold conversations and my reading level is about preschool. (b) my kids are 8, 6, and 1 so they are learning a little bit now but know this set will accelerate their learning. Especially since husband and I are both working from home with 3 kids, I have very little time to spend with them. I’ve been following LeLe for awhile and just have not been able to pull the trigger on the cost. (c) would love traditional since we hope to visit Taiwan.

  11. I do wish I can win this for my grandkids. Chinese resources are not easily accessible and the children are losing our culture and heritage. I would not instill strict memorization on their part but would love for then to find their interests. Lele seem to be very interesting and my grandchildren will love them. Thank you Betty

  12. Steph Lee says:

    My two kids are half-Chinese and growing up in the States, my own Chinese was limited. We speak English at home most of the time, except when the grandparents visit, which is not enough exposure. My 4 year old and I have been reading Chinese both Traditional and Simplified together and I would love to begin the journey with my 2-year old son with the traditional LeLe set. Happy Holidays!

  13. I know a little Mandarin and Chinese from learning during school, but would still consider myself a beginner. Le Le would be great for my toddler and I. We are learning Mandarin and simplified Chinese together.

  14. Chi Ju Wu says:

    We speak English/German at home, I would like to read LeLe with my sons (2 and 3 tears old). I learned traditional Chinese.

  15. Melody Chang says:

    Hi, I am a Chinese teacher in Tokyo and also a mom of a two-year-old boy who I mostly speak Chinese to and gets ready to learn how to speak. I teach traditional characters to my students and my child.
    There are some Taiwanese parents who asked me to recommend some books to teach their child Chinese and I always said Le le is what I am really interested and they(you) offer great learning resources on the website and Facebook pages.
    I really want to get the Le le series of books to teach my son and students whether I win the giveaway or not this time.

  16. Would love to win this LeLe books set! Have been considering it since last year but can’t afford it. I’m teaching my kids traditional characters with the Sagebooks for more than a year now, and still at a very slow pace. One of my kid said it’s too boring, and wanted more story-like sentences. I came to the States when I was 3 years old, so I grew up learning English, but my parents speak Cantonese at home. I also went to Chinese schools and took Chinese classes at a University, but my Chinese level is still low elementary. I’m also trying to provide more sentences to my kids who still needs translations to English sometimes. I think the Lele system set with the audio pen would really help us to improve our Chinese. thank you for offering this awesome giveaway!

  17. Michelle Ruan says:

    We are Australia-Vietnamese located in Melbourne, Australia. My husband speaks English and I speak Vietnamese and English. English and Vietnamese are our family’s fluency. We are searching and have known a few Mandarin reading program via Betty’s blogs, they are good for our reference to select a good reading program that suits our family. Le Le Culture’s reading program is our top choice as we like to learn Mandarin via literature way more than learning each characters. It’s painful to learn only characters as both my children and I can’t remember well as a single characters. Le Le offers learning characters via funny short stories and we feel it’s the easiest way for us to memories characters through a sentence of each story. Moreover, Le Le’s audio pen is the powerful teaching aid that credits to non-Chinese speakers family like us. I think it would save my time to look up vocabularies on my phone and my children can learn independently instead of having my help. We are learning Simplified Chinese and would like to learn Traditional Chinese also.

  18. (a) Although I’m Chinese , I grew up speaking English to my family and friends except the occasional use of dialect with the elders. My husband is of mix heritage and does not speak Chinese. I manage to learn conversational Mandarin (simple ones ) through daily work and I’m still struggling with the four pronunciation.
    (b) I have two beautiful daughters and wish to expose them early to Chinese language. And this Lele reading system is something That will definitely help us since I can’t read or write. I’m hoping to learn together with my daughter through exercises , story books and flash cards.
    (c) For now will be concentrating on simplified Chinese. If given the opportunity next time , will learn the traditional one as well

  19. As a child, I grew up speaking Cantonese and going elementary grade Chinese school that were taught by Taiwanese teachers. Now that I am having my own family, we mostly speak English. I can speak some Chinese but still need some guidance in pronunciation. I’m also the only family member out of the three of us that can speak another language besides English.
    I would like to use the Le Le Pen with my son and along with my husband. He’s ethnically Chinese but was born in Burma. He’s interest in learning Chinese along with my son.
    Interested in simplified but still considering traditional Chinese. It’s a difficult decision!

  20. We can speak and read some words (can make due when travelling and menu). I’m hoping to use Le Le Chinese with my 2 kids. I will be doing traditional but hoping to learn both.

  21. We are living in Singapore where English is dominant language. Most of the people speak English. Because of the English-speaking environment, I hope to create Chinese speaking home environment for my two little ones. Hope they can speak more Mandarin. We are usinf simplified Chinese. Hope my kids have the chance to use Le Le Chinese. Thank you.

  22. Teri-Jean Cheun says:

    Hi, would love to enter the giveaway.

    I was born and raised in the US, but grew up speaking mandarin at home. As a result, I am a decent speaker, but I have very limited with limited reading/writing. My husband is Korean, so our common language at home is English. We speak to our 2 children (4 and 2) in English, but try to incorporate both Chinese and Korean. It’s difficult though since English is our common language. I am hoping to use Le Le Chinese for my kids, who love to read and I would love for them to learn Chinese more as well. Having one would help since I do not read/write Chinese. We are doing simplified Chinese.

  23. a) Our family speaks Cantonese
    b) I hope to use this Le Le Chinese with my son
    c) We are doing traditional Chinese

  24. Hello. Entering Giveaway

    (a) What is your family’s fluency?- Parents speak mandarin.
    (b) Who are you hoping to use Le Le Chinese with – Hoping to have my two kids learn Traditional Chinese with this. They used Leap Frog when learning to read English.
    c) Are you doing simplified or traditional Chinese?– Traditional

  25. Terence Yu says:

    I grew up not using Chinese at home. We have been using English with the kids as well and we hope we can slowly input some Chinese. Lele will be helpful to my eldest daughter who is a voracious reader. For now, we teach them both traditional and simplified Chinese. The simplified Chinese is a bit of a challenge as I learned traditional in school. Everyone in the family is motivated though and I hope this continues.

  26. Emily Tsui says:

    Hoping to enter the giveaway!

    (a) What is your family’s fluency?- 1 parent speaks Cantonese but also hoping to learn mandarin (can read traditional Chinese).
    (b) Who are you hoping to use Le Le Chinese with –I am hoping to use it with my three year old son to learn mandarin together (he’s going to go to a mandarin immersion pre school when covid is over)
    c) Are you doing simplified or traditional Chinese?– Traditional

    Thank you!!! Happy holidays!!!

  27. (a) What is your family’s fluency?- Only 1 parent speaks Mandarin at a conversational level with probably a Kindergarten reading level.
    (b) Who are you hoping to use Le Le Chinese with –I want to use it with my toddler and possibly share it with another friend/family member that has slightly older kids.
    c) Are you doing simplified or traditional Chinese?– Traditional

  28. Hi Betty and LeLe! My family’s fluency is probably considered beginner level. I’ve never really had any formal Chinese learning but I’ve always been interested in taking Chinese courses as an adult. My husband is Caucasian and supportive of having our 3 yr old learn Chinese but can’t really help on the teaching front. My own Chinese is lacking in proficiency but my daughter and I have been learning together. She’s been a strong motivator for me to take action and improve my Chinese. We hope to win the system so we can learn together as a family. Thank you!

    1. Oh and we are now concentrating on simplified Chinese as that seems to be most popular in finding resources etc. Plus what the schools here teach.

  29. My literacy is probably similar to a first grader, but I hope to use this with my daughter. We use Traditional Chinese.

    Thanks for sharing!

  30. Tina Manuele says:

    Thank you for hosting this giveaway! I grew up speaking Mandarin but haven’t really spoken that much since childhood. I would love to use the Lele Set with my 2 year old daughter. We use Traditional at my home.

  31. Mona Tangey says:

    Would love to win this Le Le Chinese reading system for me and my boys, my eldest started some lessons on Simplified Mandarin a few years back and to support him I’m self studying through YouTube and some mandarin books I bought and Watching lots of Chinese on tv. Hoping to get my youngest to start learning too, this would help heaps since we are non native speakers and I am already bilingual myself so I want the kids to be the same and Mandarin could be my third language if I can become fluent in it, too.

  32. Thank you for this opportunity! (a) What is your family’s fluency? Parents are both native speakers. (b) Who are you hoping to use Le Le Chinese with? our Kid and friends’ kids. (c) Are you doing simplified or traditional Chinese? Traditional.

  33. A) i am a native Chinese speaker and my son’s (2yo and 1yo) are just barely starting speaking Chinese bc we r an English speaking household (husband is korean)
    B) I will read with my son going through lele different levels. The systemic leveled reading system helps me to know where to start
    C) we use mainly traditional but also have simplified.

  34. I find it a struggle to teach my 4 year old mandarin (simplified) despite having learnt mandarin at school.

  35. Im trying to teach my toddler simplified mandarin and I’m not very fluent and my wife doesn’t speak at all. She’s learning together with our toddler.

  36. Hi from New York! I speak conversational Cantonese and Mandarin. I’m the only bilingual speaker in our home. I hope to pass on the Chinese language to my 3yo daughter. I’ve exposed her to both Simplified and Traditional – I try to focus more on content (and to be honest, I can’t 100% decipher between the two myself).

  37. I would love these sets so that I can learn together with my 3 year old son. I’m 10th generation chinese and speak minimal mandarin. It has been a struggle to learn, especially with minimal resources and support. We want to learn simplified chinese.

  38. Jeni Kwok says:

    Hi,
    I believe we would be considered non-native speakers. I would love for my son and future kids to learn Chinese and this would be a wonderful way as he loves to read. Fingers crossed for a simplified Chinese set!

  39. A) English and German
    B) For my children to communicate with grandparents and grandaunties/uncles!
    C) Simplified Chinese.

  40. We are intermediate Cantonese speakers, but my kids are beginners, as in they only know a few words. I hope to use the Le Le Chinese books with my older son (6yo) now and with my younger son in a few years. I’m doing traditional Chinese. Thank you for the giveaway opportunity!

  41. My kids 2 and 4 are fluent in Cantonese. I’m hoping to use the red set of Le Le with my 2 year old in the future, and thinking of getting the green set for my 4 year old who has finished Sagebooks and is halfway through Greenfield. We are learning traditional. Hoping Mandarin will rub off on them now or in the future with all the audio from books we have!

  42. I am the only one in the family that can speak Cantonese but I’m not very fluent. I want to teach traditional Chinese to my 5 and 3 year old daughters who are half Japanese.

  43. Hi Betty, thanks for always sharing all the good ideas and resources in teaching children Chinese. I believe this Le Le book set and reading pen will be a great tool in helping my 5.5 yrs old and 3.5 yrs old boys. They had tried the red and orange Greenfield book set And they loved it. And it is now a good time for them to move on to more difficult ones.

  44. Susannah Zhang says:

    a) My kid understands a lot, but has difficulty responding in Chinese, and cannot read at all. (b) I hope to use it to help my 4 yo learn how to read. 四五快读 hasn’t worked well for us due to my limited Chinese fluency. (c) I would like to focus on Simplified Chinese.

  45. Tei Nunez says:

    We are a non-Mandarin speaking family. My 5–year-old son attends a dual-language program learning traditional Chinese so I’m hoping this will help him (and maybe us too!).

  46. Have always appreciated your thorough reviews, Betty! My daughter is on the last book of Sage (finally after 3.5 years of slogging through!) so I would love to try out LeLe next. We are learning simplified at home. While I speak mandarin from being forced to growing up, I’m finding it super challenging to get them to speak. Through a combination of Lingobus, chinese class at school, daily reading, iPad games, watching Chinese dramas and trying to enforce some speaking it’s still feeling like an uphill battle most days honestly. It seems whats great about a set like LeLe is that I can assign my kids books to read so it’s regimented and we can build a daily habit. Thanks for the giveaway contest!

  47. Linh Tran says:

    My 5 year old kindergartner is starting to learn traditional Chinese at school and this would be an additional great reading resource for him since I do not speak or read Chinese. We are reading Sage books right now but I think the pinyin has been a distraction for him so the Le Le reading program may be better.

  48. Thanks for doing this and for the helpful resources! (a) I’m a heritage speaker (grew up in Chicago) so trying my best to teach my daughter Chinese. My husband is Korean-American so I teach Chinese and he teaches Korean; (b) I’d love to teach my daughter Charlotte (c) Simplified

  49. Anastacia says:

    I would love this set for reading to my 2 year old! I have low-intermediate Chinese, working on simplified, and this blog has been super inspiring! Having the pen would be great, so I’m not pulling out my phone to check characters all the time!

  50. My mother tongue is Cantonese, and I speak decent Colloquial Cantonese, but not as fluent with written. I also speak Mandarin with an accent. My child can speak and understand some Cantonese but is no way native. She is also learning Mandarin and I wish I can help her speak better. We are doing both Traditional and Simplified, with more emphasis on Traditional

  51. Hi Betty! Thank you for this giveaway! I’ve been eyeing LeLe Culture books for a long time. I would love to win this! My family is not fluent in Chinese. We only speak English and struggle to incorporate Chinese in our everyday conversations. My daughter would definitely benefit from the LeLe books. We would love it in Traditional Chinese.

  52. Elizabeth says:

    Two of my children, ages 6 and 8, are at the intermediate level. My 3 year old, is learning from them. My husband and I are non-Mandarin speakers and struggle to keep up with the Chinese reading!
    We are learning simplified Chinese.
    My husband and I hope to use this pen to start to learn what my children already know! My children hope to use it to keep way ahead of us!

  53. Hi, we speak Cantonese at home. Trying to let my kids learn mandarin simplified Chinese. It’s tough, but i think as long as we don’t give up and keep the consistency. It’s all worth it.

  54. Veronica mui says:

    I’m a non native speaker who began learning chinese four years ago to help my kids learn. Now I am low level conversational and my 3 kids are all well on their way to learning! My eldest is 10 and halfway through sagebooks. I am planning on using le le with all three of them once they finish the sagebooks set. I hope some day that they will be able to read children’s novels and of course I hope that they will be able to speak!

  55. Christy Brown says:

    Our family is not fluent at all I grew up in Cantonese and my 10.8 and 6 years old are learning Mandarin now these will help us so much. I have been eyeing their books for our lessons and theme. We are learning simplified.

  56. At home we mainly speak English, but I think I could say I’m more fluent in Tagalog although growing up studied Chinese but forgotten most of it. Would love to learn it again and teach my LO, I prefer traditional Chinese mainly I am more familiar to it than the simplified. Would definitely love to win this Le Le pen! It would be a great help for us, especially my hubby is also not fluent only English. Thank you so much for the opportunity! ❤️

  57. Hi Betty, thank you for opportunity to join this worldwide give away (Yay!). I’m a Taiwanese-born Kiwi and settled in New Zealand when I was 4 years old. My spoken mandarin is limited and can only recognise a small handful of basic Chinese characters. I have a 2.5 year old daughter and I’m determined to ensure that she can speak/write in Chinese so she’s able to communicate with her grandparents and connect with her Chinese culture. Unfortunately, I’m the only mandarin speaker in our family as my husband can only speak English. We hope to win the LeLe pen set as our first Chinese book series to start the journey. Thank you:)

  58. Stephenie says:

    a) I’m an American born Chinese who is relearning Mandarin with her 4-year old daughter. My husband is not Chinese and does not speak or know any Mandarin. My son is 2-years old and starting the process soon. Our family hopes that the kids will become more fluent in one of their heritage languages.
    (b) I hope to use Le Le Chinese with my 2-year old. My 4- year old is able to read higher level books and the green set. And I haven’t started the journey with my youngest yet.
    (c) We plan to learn both simplified and traditional Chinese, although we are starting out with traditional first.

    Thank you! We hope to win.

  59. I’ve been teaching my 6 year old simplified Chinese off and on for the 1.5 years at home, but my fluency is like a 3rd grader. I’m hoping this set will boost her confidence and encourage her to read on her own. I’m planning on keeping the set until my 5 month old is old enough to use it, maybe at 2.5 years old?

  60. Our family is not fluent in mandarin at all. Both sides grew up in a Cantonese family. Really hope we can be considered to win, as we will use this for my son (4 yrs old) and slowly integrate this for my daughter (2 yrs old). We will be learning simplified.

  61. Lena Chou says:

    Hi Betty,

    Would you recommend getting one pen for each kid? Or will it be unrealistic to have both kids use their pens in the same room at the same time because the pens can be a bit loud?

    Thanks,

    Lena

    1. The sound volume can be changed. My three kids routinely are each using a pen in the same room when they’re particularly, although they do prefer to have peace and quiet. But each of our pens is different ….. a Lele, a Penpal Whizz, and an eTutor, so they swap them around 🙂

    2. Hi Lena! Since my kids are years apart in age and reading level, we found 1 pen to be sufficient. But if both of your children are learning around the same time, 2 pens might be a good idea so they don’t have to wait for each other. The LeLe pens have adjustable volume.

  62. My son is 2 months from turning 2 and the feeling that my ability to continue teaching him Mandarin just on my own steam won’t be enough is starting to nag at me. I’ve been torn about getting something like a reading pen like this vs reading device like Luka. I’m wondering if you have tried the Habbi Habbi pen? Thanks as always for all of your content!

    1. Hi Amy! Thanks for your question and sorry for the late reply! For our family, Luka and LeLe have been the best audio resources because they focus on Mandarin Chinese. We have tried other reading pens systems but did not use them. Some of the reasons include English audio (my kids get plenty of English and really need only extra Chinese); cartoon graphics (we prefer the realistic drawings in LeLe and other picture books for richer visual input); black KaiTi font (easier to read and memorize Chinese characters). I hope that helps with your decision and would love to hear what you end up choosing for your son!

  63. Hi Betty! By any chance, are you considering selling your traditional Lele pen and books when your kids outgrow them? I would love to purchase at that time. Please keep me in mind if that time comes!

  64. Hello Betty,
    Thank you for making your site and sharing your experience.
    You do such a great job teaching your children to read chinese, to be confident..
    I believe that babies are naturally smart, and thanks to internet which allow to people to discover how much much smart, babies are.
    Baby can read as early as one year, 2 years old, learning with fun, no pressure.

    I am a grand mother of two grand sons, one of 18 months, and one of 12 months.
    I am chinese, I speak a chinese dialect Hakka, I do not read chinese.
    My daughter speaks french to her son of 18 months. Her first language is French.
    I did not keep talking to my daughter and 2 sons in hakka which I regret.

    My grand son of 18 monts, is surrounded with speaking French, hakka, cantonese, and a few tahitian language.
    We leave in Tahiti.
    My other grand son leaves in France, speaking only French.

    Since my grand son was 3 months, I have showed him, flash cards with chinese caracters.
    Most caracteres are name of animals.
    I have ordered some children books in chinese. On his other books in french, I stick chinese caracteres.
    Now, I would like to teach reading chinese to my grand son.
    The ideal would be to read chinese caracters in Hakka, my native language.
    But there are no books, teaching in Hakka, very seldom videos in hakka.

    Main chinese reading  programs are in Mandarin.
    I resolve now to teach in Mandarin, for lack of Hakka.
    It is better than staying on place with my restricted hakka caracters.

    I see in internet the program for teaching babies to read.
    It is using computer. But my daughter does not want her baby to play on screen, ipad, even for 10 mn per day.
    So I look for method with books.

    I would like to have your advice.
    You know Sagebooks and Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System.
    Which will you recommend for me and my grand son ?
    Or what are your recommandations ?
    I am thinking also to order chinese audio books.

    I hope to receive your reply soon
    Thanking you in advance

    Myrna

  65. After sage 500, I have been searching for a systematic way to boost vocabulary from 500-1000 for my daughter. I stopped by your blog and realized LeLe had a great set of books to gradually introduce new words and at the same time to practice new words over and over again. Thats a great way to retain and boost vocabulary. It will be a good collection for mandarin learning for my young kids.

  66. Want to teach my son Chinese in a fun way, and i want to use this to show him the chinese words as we read books.

  67. Our kid struggles so much with language. Le le sounds perfect to help her with her Mandarin.

  68. Ong Lee Fung says:

    I live in a multi-language country. We speak mix language & dialect (Malay, Chinese, English, Indonesian, Hokkien, cantonese) everyday. And my kids do have a lot opportunities to learn diff languages and my 3yo girl able to understand 5 language now and still in learning stage. My family mostly speak in Indonesian and Hokkien so my girl is not so good in Chinese and I wish to win Lele Reading set so my girl can have more time and more opportunity to approach to Chinese language and learn proper Chinese pronouns not only in listening but also in reading. Besides, I believe many fun way of learning with Lele Reading set can Increase my girl desire in learning Chinese. I do wish to win Lele Reading Chinese set so my kids can have happy learning Chinese experience in their childhood and the easy and fun learning way makes them remember Chinese more efficiently and can last longer. Wish me lucks.

  69. Dear Betty –
    I’m so happy that I found your homepage with all this great content! So far, we are a bilingual household (English and German). But working in Life Sciences and getting engaged with many collaboration partners from China, we feel that our children (3 years and 4 months) should have the opportunity to learn Chinese, too. My husband and I are absolute beginners regarding Mandarin. We used to have a native babysitter, but she just left for an Erasmus semester and despite living in a big city in Germany, finding natives to teach Chinese is harder than we thought. Our son already knows some Mandarin after roughly 10 months of teaching, but I am afraid that he will loose all of it again if he is not being approached in Chinese anymore. My husband and I work full-time and although we try hard learning Chinese ourselves the LeLe reading pen books would help a great deal and speed things up certainly. We keep our fingers crossed to win this extraordinary gift!
    Happy Holidays!

  70. Ong Lee Fung says:

    I wish to win the beginning set of Lele Chinese book. I’m homeschooling my girl and I will teach her whatever knowledge I know and whatever she wants to learn: With Lele Reading set I can have a good start of introducing my girl in learning Chinese journey so she can continue learn mandarin with full of passion. Besides, one more reason I wish I can wish Lele because it’s from Taiwan and actually Taiwan’s story books have proper sentences and very well phrasing. And my girl can start learning Chinese with beautiful sentences. Wish me lucks <3

  71. Hello, my wife and I teach Chinese students English only and decided we wanted our kids to learn Chinese, our daughter took to it like a duck to water and it’s beautiful seeing the joy and happiness she gets from being able to use another language for communication, jokes, and learning. These books would make a great impact on her learning and the fun and joy she gets from the language.

  72. Natalie Chan says:

    Thanks for your detailed review and organising this give away Betty!

    I decided that I’d like my daughter to learn Chinese when I realised that our connectedness to our Chinese roots (even with everyday things like making 煎堆) had become more and more diluted with each passing generation since immigrating to Australia.

    Since my Chinese is not fluent, I hope Le Le Chinese can help bridge the gap in helping me teach my daughter to read traditional Chinese and speak Mandarin (along side Cantonese).

  73. Laura Huang says:

    Thank you for the opportunity to win a set of these books! I decided I wanted my child to learn Chinese solely to be able to communicate with his grandparents, who don’t speak English. It is a bit of a challenge because we only see his grandparents a few times a year so he doesn’t use the language often. I really have to remember to speak Chinese exclusively to him.Thank you for all of your fantastic teaching ideas!

  74. I desperately need something more systematic to teach my son Chinese and this series of books seems perfect! I totally need it in our lives! Hope to win!

  75. Jayne Yang says:

    I’ve always wondered if I made the right decision to home educate my kids. The school I’ve been eyeing before (my alma mater), is strict in entrance and only allows students to enter from Kindergarten. That means, either I let my kids go there now, or I’ll have to stick to this decision to teach my kids. With that, Chinese have been my major concern. I’ve been looking for leveled reading books for my children. I wish I’d thought of starting Chinese with them early. Hopefully with Le Le Reading Pen we can start our Chinese language journey!

  76. Terence Yu says:

    I’ve always regretted not taking Chinese seriously in school. I’m an achiever and excelled in most subjects in school, that is, except Chinese. We live in a community where businessmen are mostly Chinese. I couldn’t even communicate with them. I won’t make the same mistakes with my kids. With LeLe reading pen, it will help me tremendously with my pronunciation as well as theirs. I hope the next generation would love their language more than I did when I was young.

  77. Such a wonderful post to introduce Le Le Chinese Reading Pen. As a busy parent, this reading pen is really convenient for the child for self learning. We can revise with the kids after work and during weekend. Meanwhile, we can learn with our kids together. Le Le reading books teach us a lot of different Chinese words and I trust that this will be a valuable asset on my kids’ Chinese Language learning journey.

  78. Thanks for the detailed review Betty! I am an Australian Born Chinese fluent in English and know a little Mandarin from going to Saturday Chinese school. I want my little one to learn Chinese so I pass on some of my Chinese culture to him. I hope Le Le’s reading pen books will help us to read and speak Chinese.

  79. I would love my children to be fluent in Chinese. We have registered our kids in Chinese school and feel the need for more resources at home to enhance their learning. I hope this will help them learn Chinese independently.

  80. Jennifer Poon says:

    Thanks so much for sharing this detailed review. We are not native Mandarin speakers (both Canadian born Korean and Chinese/Cantonese parents here) but we are trying to teach mandarin with traditional characters (eldest attends Saturday school but it’s not enough). So we would love all the help we can get as us parents cannot really support much with verbal/audio so this pen would really help us with reading and pronunciation. I was eyeing this pen or something similar so I am grateful for your review. Will also look into your audio books suggestions as well. Thank you!

  81. Christina says:

    Thank you for the giveaway! I want my children to be connected with their Chinese heritage and language! This system seems like a great way for them to learn in an exciting way.

  82. I speak Cantonese. This reading set will really help my sons and I learn to read in Mandarin. My older son goes to 1 Chinese class a week. I feel it’s not sufficient for him to pick up the language. This will be a game changer for us.

  83. My son is bilingual and loves the ciaohu reading pen. I’m excited to find other similar systems that piques his interests. We use the ciaohu reading pen a lot on long road trips in the car where I can’t be by his side to help him read the books. It really keeps him occupied and learning!!

  84. Sonia Deng says:

    I’m entering for the give away:) we are a trilingual family: chinese, Russian, English, with a 4th language French being taught at my daughters pre school. I’ve decided to teach my daughter how to read Chinese after discovering your blog! So far I’ve been amazed at how fast a 3.5 year old can learn, thank you so much for all the informations you have provided!

  85. Eva Cheung says:

    Thank you for such an amazing giveaway. I would love to have this set to guide my sons’ chinese learning journey. As a second generation Chinese American, I know the difficulties of learning Chinese when living in an English mainstream community. Thankfully, I am still able to speak Mandarin fluently, and would love to pass on this gift to my children. And I think learning Chinese should be fun! Which this set is; both fun & amazingly well designed. Thank you again 😊

  86. Ong Tien Ling says:

    Thank you very much for sharing Lele reading programme. As a Chinese , i think this is mandatory for my 3 years old boy to learn our mother language, I believe with this interesting sound pen, we would be able to learn through play.

  87. Wow, thank you for organizing this giveaway! As a native speaker who is illiterate, this would be an amazing addition to our quest to teach my daughter Chinese (with correct pronunciation and not ABC-speaker language with heavy English influences). I can recognize some characters and understand verbal Chinese, but struggle with being able to read/write. I would love to have this for myself and my kids!

  88. Mary phung says:

    What a great review of the Lele pen and chinese books! Ive been wanting to find resources to aid in teaching my 14month old daughter another language! Its so hard when ive grown up learning english and can only speak a few words od Cantonese. This pen would be amazing to help both my daughter and i in learn Mandarin.

    1. Grace Poh says:

      Thanks Betty! Thanks for all the sharings, reviews, guidelines and motivations on how raise bilingual children. Such a blessing to found your blog❤️❤️❤️

  89. We are non-heritage. As a teen and young adult, I always wanted to be bilingual, and especially wanted to give my future children the chance to be bilingual. A childhood friend invited me to visit China with her and her family during summer break when I was in collage. I just really fell in love with the language during that trip. Later, I did a year of study abroad in Beijing. After graduating from college, I went back to live in Beijing for two more years. I loved the Chinese language for my own sake, but it’s also true that one big motivator for me in working hard to learn the language was to be able to teach my future children. Now, ten years later, I have a two year old who has really surprised me by loving the language as much as I do, and is constantly asking me what different words are in Chinese. But he always asks really hard words like okapi or archaeopteryx, words I barely know in English! As much as he loves vocab, I struggle to remember to speak Chinese sentences with him. This book set looks amazing for us, though, both for right now (sentence structure and vocab practice) and for future reading skills too. It does feel like reading books together is so huge for learning! Books really help me keep my phrasing accurate too, since I’ve forgotten a lot in the ten years since I spoke Chinese daily. I’ve really appreciated your site and all the great advice you provide!

  90. Bobbielyn Schwabe says:

    I am ¼ Chinese but I can only speak a few words and simple sentences. My daughter is only 14 months old and I feel that this is the best time for her to learn the language. I want my daughter to be able to speak it and learn about her Chinese heritage and culture better than I did. I am lucky to have a husband that can speak Mandarin fluently which helps a lot.

    I feel that the Le Le reading pen and books would be a valuable asset in supporting my daughter’s education in the Chinese language and culture. I can read many Chinese characters so this would help me with reading Chinese literature with her and it would help her become more independent and confident as she grows and continues to learn.

  91. Joshua Schwabe says:

    My daughter is part Chinese and I feel that is so important for her to be immersed in the language and culture. I am Caucasian but have been blessed to have learned to speak Mandarin fluently. I am endeavouring to speak to her in only Mandarin, and read her books in Chinese. I want to give her the best opportunity to learn her heritage.

    I feel that the Le Le reading pen and books would be so helpful in teaching my girl how to read in Chinese. It would assist me in reading (as my reading characters isn’t perfect) to her and give her more confidence and independence in her learning the language with these awesome resources!

  92. This is a set of beautiful books!

  93. Kathryn Ng says:

    Thank you so much for this thorough review! It is so important for kids to be fluent in more than 1 language. My Chinese is not that strong, and I hope LeLe reading programme will allow us to develop a structured approach to reading Chinese books, plus the method of using the pen will definitely garner some interest in my 6yo boy! Thanks!

  94. Lydia Carlson says:

    I would love to have my daughter review characters with these books and then share with our school. Thanks for the give away!

  95. Angela Poon-Higasi says:

    I’ll leave a comment here, as well! I’ve been following your page for a while. Good on you for achieving what you’ve done with your kids! It’s very inspiring. I wish my kids could learn to love reading Chinese books as much as they love reading English books… Fingers crossed and hope we win this reading set! 🤞🏻

  96. I am planning to homeschool Chinese! The more books we have the better. I think lele would be great for my next set after Sagebooks!

  97. I decided to teach my three children chinese because they are half chinese and I want them to grow up with a good understanding of their background. My 9 and 7 year old have begun learning to read chinese this year and this would be SO helpful to me because I am not chinese myself – it’s hard to keep up with children! They learn so fast.

  98. I am a Cantonese speaker, but would like my children to have exposure to Mandarin. Since I can’t help them as much in this area, a product like this would be very helpful. I want them to associate fun with learning Chinese. This would fit the bill!

  99. Thu-Hong Do says:

    I’m Vietnamese and after my mom and I escaped Vietnam as boat people, we lived in the Hong Kong refugee camp for a year. That’s where I learned Cantonese but didnt keep up after I came to the US, but never lost my love for tge chinese language. Later in college, I switched to learning Mandarin.

    When my first son was 10mo, I decided to teach him Mandarin so he can also know Chinese and I’ll have a big motivation to improve my Chinese. I have been learning/teaching my 4yo son the Sagebooks traditional script since he was 3yo and would love the opportunity to learn the simplied version with him through the LeLe books and pen to prepare him for Friday night Mandarin school (they teach both simplied & traditional) next Sept. Thank you for the in-depth review and opportunity. 😊

  100. We are a cantonese speaking family but my son will be going into a mandarin daycare. It’s important to us to pass down our culture, which includes Language. Hoping these books will help him read speak some mandarin because his parents definitely won’t be able to!

  101. Conni Tsang says:

    My husband is fluent and we both want our family to be bilingual. I am learning alongside of our kids and this would be an amazing asset to advancing both the kids and myself.

  102. I really want this reading pen to teach my kids Chinese as I took classes when I younger but was never serious or retained and wished I did. This will be a great learning opportunity for me and my kids, something my kids and I can do together.

  103. Remo Wasmer says:

    I hope my children will learn more chinese with the books and pen as I struggle with chinese myself. Thanks for the great giveaway!

  104. I sincerely hope that my children will gain more confidence in speaking and understanding chinese with the books and the pen.

  105. I love all that you’ve done, thank you Betty! I’m so inspired to continue my quest to teach Mandarin (not native for me and really hard) so I’d like all the resources I can get to support this journey for my boys. From what I’ve heard from friends who have it, Le Le has given their child some independence since they can choose from a large number of books on any given day. This goes in line with my “follow the child” philosophy. 🙂

  106. Growing up in a bilingual household I never appreciated how lucky I was to be able to speak not only 2 different languages but also dialects until now. Unfortunately, the reading and writing was always a struggle so I really hope to use these tools to not only help my daughter but my husband (ABC and can only understand a little bit of Chinese) and I too. It would be a fun interactive way for the entire household to learn together! I’ve been following your journey and have always wanted a set of Le Le books but couldn’t afford it so thanks for giving us a chance to obtain a set!

  107. Rani Renee says:

    I really want this set and have been eyeing ever since your initial review. It’s just been a little out of budget lately so would love to win it. There are so many things to get for kids and some things take the back burner sometimes. But one thing I envy about you is in all your photos your room always looks meticulous and tidy. How do you keep it so organized with 2 kids? Ours looks like a tornado went through it all the time. Happy holiday to you and the family!

  108. Christine says:

    In reply to the giveaway question, I grew up bilingual Chinese and English (English was the minority language), and always knew I wanted my child to grow up bilingual as well! Just turns out we’re on the other side of the world (Chinese as the minority language), lol.
    I’ve been interested in the Le Le books since you shared this post. My son has loved the Greenfield books, and the repetition in stories, I think, are helpful in character acquisition. I have long wished that the Greenfield series was three times as large as it is, so imagine my excitement at finding out about the Le Le books! The price point, however, is daunting. If we ever acquire the series, we’ll probably work through them book by book after we finish Sage and Greenfield. It’d be good to have accessible reading material for the budding reader. 🙂

  109. I decided to have my kids learn chinese at around 6months so started speaking to them only in mandarin. It was unnatural at first but now I’m glad I did that. My oldest is speaking 90-95% in chinese still. I want to use lele to start our character- learning journey!

  110. Tara Baird says:

    I have twins in a mandarin immersion kindergarten! I chose to enroll them because of the positive benefits of learning a second language at a young age. (I also would’ve been grateful if my parents encouraged learning a second language) These books look amazing and would help reinforce and learn new characters! This would be helpful to use during school and while they are on breaks to keep practicing. Thank you!

  111. Lanae Cobabe says:

    Last year our district added a Mandarin immersion program and we just kind of went for it putting our daughters in. We just thought it would be a great opportunity for are children and something we just couldn’t pass up. So we switched schools and they started. However it is very difficult for us being as neither one of us have any knowledge in Chinese language. So this pen would help us with helping them have more exposure and reading learning characters we have to look up every single character, word, everything individually just to help them.

  112. The reading pen along with the books would make it so much easier for my child to read independnetly

  113. I’ve always wanted to teach my daughter Mandarin. I speak Chiu Chow but my grasp of it is not strong. Mandarin is more useful and I would love for my daughter to become fluent or at least be able to converse in Chinese. I want her to be able to feel pride in being Chinese and to know and speak it confidently. When I learned about Betty, I became even more inspired. She made me feel like I can learn to teach my daughter Chinese. She has been so helpful and encouraging. Thank you, Betty! This LeLe set would be so helpful. Thank you for the chance to win. ☺️

  114. I really want a system with different themes and topics but at a reading level that can boost their reading confidence and I think this set of books and the pen will be perfect. We are starting to learn Mandarin and it’ll be great to listen to the pronunciation and learn together with my daughters. We try to speak and read at home as much as possible but it’s hard when they find reading English easier. This set will be a great motivation to keep learning!

  115. Kesara Borirak says:

    Omigosh, I would love this for my 5 yr old daughter! Tagging Emil Chao ( I hope that’s how this works 🙂 )!

  116. Thank you for sharing your story! I decided to teach my kids chinese because they are ready to learn something new and rather than enroll them in another activity I thought we can spend more time together and learn something new. I was inspired by your blog and want to make this a fun learning experience. Lele sounds like it can help my very independent children think learning Chinese is fun.

  117. Stephanie Taperek says:

    This was our number 1 choice for our daughter for a system for learning to read in Chinese, but the price tag is a bit out of our budget. We love the idea of a pen, considering we do not have anyone who speaks or reads in Chinese in our home.

  118. Tiffany I Lin says:

    BLACKCHALK code is no longer valid, but it’s still BlackFriday in the US. Anyway to get them to extend it? Thanks.

    1. Hi Tiffany! Thanks for letting me know! I asked LeLe Chinese, and they said they will extend the code until Sunday December 1, 2019 23:59pm Taiwan Time. Hope that helps!

  119. I’m not Chinese and would like my kids to learn Chinese fluently. Should i order the traditional or simplified version? Thank you

    1. Hi Peter! Thanks for your question! It’s hard to recommend one without considering more information. I think the answer depends on which written language would be most accessible to you:
      1. Do you have friends in China/Singapore/Malaysia (those areas mainly use simplified Chinese) or Taiwan/HK (these areas mainly use traditional Chinese)
      2. Do your local Chinese teachers/schools use simplified or traditional chinese?
      3. Is budget a factor? Generally simplified Chinese books are less expensive than traditional Chinese. In the case of the Le Le Chinese reading pen books, both versions cost the same. This article gives a more in depth comparison between simplified versus traditional Chinese characters.

  120. How much is the Lele pen set? Is it 20thousand US dollars or it the price reflecting Taiwanese currency? Thanks

  121. Annie Sun Fanslow says:

    I have difficulty to teach my 4/ half year old girl to read Chinese book and cards. Help please

  122. Great review! We ordered the complete LeLe Chinese booklet series and pen on the strength of this review, and it seems like a great concept. However, parents should check what they receive very carefully as LeLeChinese.com seems to have a problem fulfilling orders correctly. Despite the fact that my order and order confirmation clearly specifies “Simplified Chinese”, and that I ordered 3 pens, LeLe Chinese sent me the entire series with Traditional Chinese characters, and they only sent one pen. (Simplified Chinese is used in Mainland China and other places, while the more elaborate Traditional Characters are used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and a few other places – – you need the right character set for your class). This error is unfortunate given that they shipped this heavy package all the way from Taiwan. I am trying to get the attention of someone in LeLeChinese.com’s customer service department. I feel bad for parents who may not realize that LeLeChinese.com is sending them something different than what they ordered. I recommend other parents have a native speaker check the characters in the book to make sure you’ve received the character set you require (Traditional or Simplified) , while.the item is still returnable and/or you can ask your credit card to do a chargeback.

    1. Hi Ken, I am considering the LeLeChinese bundle, and would like to know how LeLeChinese resolved this mix up for you? Also, how was their customer service?
      Thanks,
      Clara

      1. Hi, LeLe resolved the mix-up completely to my satisfaction, quickly sending out another bundle. The service was friendly and fast. LeLe’s books are really great: my son and I are mastering many characters. It really teaches you to recognize and read Hanzi through careful repetition. I would buy again. Indeed, I brought the books and pen to show our Mandarin Immersion teacher in California’s Newport-Mesa school district, and she seemed very excited by the direct and intuitive teaching method.

        To the site owner: you’re welcome to take my original comment down and/or revise it to reflect the outcome. My advice to carefully check Simplified vs. Traditional versions is good advice, especially since many people ordering this for their kids might not know the difference. But I didn’t mean and don’t wish to cause harm to LeLe’s reputation or business.

        1. Hi Ken! Thanks for sharing your honest experience and feedback! I’ve heard that this mix up is thankfully unusual at LeLe, and I’m so happy that they resolved it promptly! Also glad to hear that the books have been so helpful for your family! With the exception of spam or duplicate comments, I don’t alter or remove replies to keep an open dialogue. – Betty

          To Clara: Both of my children have benefited greatly from the LeLe series, and my younger child continues to read them regularly with me. The customer service has remained outstanding in my experience. They have been very patient with answering product questions and requests from me! Thank you for taking the time to read my review!

          1. Thanks Ken and Betty!

  123. What inspires and motivates me to ensure that my child learn the Chinese Language well would be the fact that the younger generations ate actually unable to use the language, which will turn out to be a regret in their lives. I definitely would not want my kids to have such a regret, being Chunese yet unable to use the language. If there is a fun way to teach them from young and ensure that they fall in love with the language then why not? 😍

  124. Stephanie Chou says:

    Hi! Thank you so much for sharing this awesome Chinese tool. I am an American married to a Taiwanese man & we have 2 children (3&4.5). My husband tries to speak as much mandarin as he can while he’s home but he is a physician & works long hours. I have been learning along with my children & it’s been really fun! I have been using apps to learn to read traditional characters but this pen/book set seems perfect for my children & I to learn more characters! I’d really love the opportunity to win! Thank you for taking the time to post such great info on your Mandarin learning journey. I have been following you on Facebook & Instagram for a while & all of your content is not only helpful but beautiful! 🌈 Keep up the great work & know that you are inspiring so many others on their Mandarin learning journeys 😊

  125. What inspires me to teach our family Chinese is the possibility for more opportunities to communicate and many fields.

  126. Kristy Hurwitz says:

    I speak to my children in Cantonese since birth and they haven’t been able to speak Cantonese as much since my husband does not speak any. Currently we are using the Sage books to teach them Chinese (Cantonese) , it is motivating to read your post and learn so many wonderful resources in teaching Chinese to young children. I love using hands on approach when teaching my kids, they can understand the meanings of characters and be more motivated to learn. My struggle now is teaching them the Cantonese in spoken format and written format

  127. I would like to participate in the giveaway. I’ve been solo teaching my child Chinese at a very slow pace since 1 year ago. Due to my non-fluent Mandarin and limited words, it’s been difficult. I’ve been borrowing library books with audio CD’s or reading a few Chinese books with pin yin. But I’m on a tight budget and having the LeLe books with the c-pen will help a lot! Since I’m learning Chinese myself too! It’s hard to find something that would keep my child interested if it’s just reading from a book. She prefers audio that she can hear fluently, and that’s where the c-pen will come in handy.
    Followed, shared, and liked on FB and on IG.
    Thanks.

  128. Hi there! What a great giveaway! I would love to teach my children Chinese, but we haven’t gotten very far in our Chinese learning journey yet. This audio pen looks really great! A challenge I have is that my Chinese language skills aren’t that great. However, I can definitely teach them more than they know now. Thanks for the in-depth review!

  129. Sandy pierce says:

    I’ve been teaching my little one Chinese myself since she was born. I am the only person in my family who live in the United States and it’s important that my little one learns the language and the culture. We make a point to go back home once a year. I also started tutoring Mandarin targeting children around her age so she can have friends who encourage her to speak more Mandarin. I have planned to have her attend immersion programs three days a week when she is ready for preschool. In the meantime, I am taking every opportunity to speak Chinese to her and to create fun lessons to challenge her learnings . It’s not easy as a full time working mom but it’s the best for her to be able to communicate and know her other cultures! I’d love to have the opportunity to win this set of reading pen to use with my daughter and the little kids that I tutor!

  130. I would like to participate the giveaway.
    I’m a native Chinese speaker so I would love my daughter to know Chinese. Not just speaking but also be able to read and write because that’s part of her background and knowing the language will help her to know the culture better. My challenge is that I am the only one that talk to her in Chinese, my husband only speaks English and my family is not here. So something like the Le Le Chinese Reading Pen System would be a huge help because it’s a great tool for my daughter to learn Chinese at home, even when I’m not with her. The books look interesting with the pictures and the reading pen makes it fun to learn and I want my daughter to have fun learning Chinese!

  131. Sara Borirak says:

    I’m not a native speaker (I’m Thai) and my husband is second generation Chinese so is not fluent. My daughter is 4 and has a Chinese tutor once a week. Her vocabulary is getting better and I think it would help if she could understand Chinese cartoons but she is not quite there yet. My challenge is getting her to that stage. I’ve heard reading Chinese books could really get her to that next level, so am hoping we get a chance to try these books!

  132. I hated learning Chinese when i was young and as a result was never very proficient in it. I never thought of teaching my son until a few months ago when i started reading about how you taught your daughter, and was inspired. I realised i could still teach him even if i am not really a native speaker despite that many language experts say to speak to your child in your native language. I learnt a different way of doing things, and how i try to teach my son thru stories and conversation. It is not easy as he is almost school age but after a few months he is more receptive to Chinese. I’m also putting in effort to improve my Chinese at the same time. Thanksfor showing me that i don’t have to be a native speaker, as well as that learning Chinese can be fun!

  133. It looks fantastic. Very didactic and colorful.
    I would like to participate.
    MY kids enjoy reading chinese books
    Thanks for sharing

  134. I’m an American born Chinese whose listening and speaking are pretty good for someone born in the U.S. but not nearly good enough to teach anyone and my reading abilitity is super basic. I want my son to be able to speak and read Chinese better than I can!

  135. Great review! Always been interested in this set after seeing so many others like it. My main challenge in speaking Chinese at home is that my own vocab and language skills are topping out now that my child is almost 4. He asks a lot of questions and I feel like I can’t answer him adequately enough with my Chinese so I give very vague answers and I feel like I’m cheating him of a world of new vocabulary. Could really use better resources to grow my own vocab or have him learn on his own with a pen!

  136. Rani Renee yau says:

    Hi Betty, I have been following your blog for a while and am just amazed at how much you’ve achieved with your kids. I have tried a lot of the advice you have given over the years and I feel it is very challenging to get my kids to stay focused and motivated in learning the Chinese language. As a working mother and a non native Chinese speaker, i struggle with finding time to teach a language I’m not necessarily proficient in. I had just read your review about the Lele reading pen few days ago and was strongly considering purchasing it since you had made such glowing recommendations about it. But today I saw that you have a giveaway and thought it wouldn’t hurt to try this route first. I hope that my kids can be better at Chinese than me. And I’m learning the language too at the same time so I hope to find something that will help me teach them and teach me. Thanks again for your inspiring words in your blog.

  137. Susan Wong says:

    I strongly believe in learning another language, especially when the language ties back to your heritage. It always brings me smiles when I see my daughter trying to communicate to her grandparents who knows very little English.
    I plan to send my kids to Chinese school when she is a little older but sadly the schools in my area are mandarin speaking only and I only know a little bit of Cantonese. The plan is for me to learn mandarin with my kids. I’m extremely fascinated with this Chinese reading pen. Just wondering, I noticed the company has traditional and simplified Chinese available for the books. which version did you get and why? I’m not sure which one is easier to teach kids. I know very minimal in characters so would like some suggestions. Thank you!

  138. Thank you for this detailed review. I have a love for language learning. At a young age, i was exposed to 3 languages. Mandarin was not one of them. I have gained so much insight into the cuktures of the different languages I know and want to share this with my kids. Your story inapires me to continue on.
    My biggest challenge is that I am not a native speaker of Mandarin. I have to look everything up before I can share/teach the kids. With a system like the lele system, I believe we can build vocabulary given that the words are related to a story. With a touch of the pen, we could learn the word before us.

  139. One of my biggest motivations for having my kids know Chinese is something my grandfather said to me when I was young – I look Chinese, so there’s an expectation that I can speak and understand it. It may not be the correct assumption, but it’s always going to be there.
    We’ve tried sending my eldest to chinese school once a week, but the homework is just not fun for either of us, and I think it’s just leading to frustration and a dislike for Chinese. When I make games or activities to help her learn instead, there’s much more enjoyment and retention, so I think that’s the way I’ll go moving forward. I found your site, and it’s been so helpful, so thanks!!!

  140. I want to teach my child Chinese so he can connect with his heritage and our family who lives overseas. The main challenge I am facing is how to get him interested in the language since he only has exposure to it at home, but not when he goes to school or at the playground. I am hoping that interesting visuals and the audio pen would help draw or increase his interest.

  141. I am a Chinese immersion elementary school teacher in Seattle, WA. I wish I can be one of the winners and have the opportunity to know more about Le Le Chinese. Thank you!

  142. Our parents migrated to the Philippines and our generation is losing the Chinese language, culture and tradition. I hope to keep it alive with our children. Although I went to a strict Chinese school, lack of conversational Chinese had been our greatest challenge. I have been homeschooling my 2 little ones and use hands on materials to make our lessons more interactive. It’s very difficult to find materials though! Betty has been great help, and Montessori Chinese at that!

  143. Trying to teach my kid Chinese so that sge can know her roots and another language. It is hard as my Chinese is not very good, bu if she can read just a bit then hopefully she will learn on her own in the future.

  144. I’m motivated to teach my children Chinese so they too can be close to their grandparents who only speak Cantonese. I already feel a bit of a challenge as my older child (who is 3 yo) starts daycare and want to speak English. I have to force myself to talk to/respond to him in Chinese (English is definitely my stronger language). I try to make it fun with Chinese songs I find on spotify and translating books into chinese. Thank you also for all the resource and inspiration your site provides =)

  145. Mandarin has always been a tough language. My husband is korean and doesnt speak mandarin. So i am the only one to help my kids in picking up mandarin. Good reading books would be great to help me teach them to better understand and like mandarin. Its such a great and fun language if its engaged in a proper and less stressful way. Love your ways and ideas of coaching your kids mandarin! So many fantastic ideas!!

  146. betty, thank you for this giveaway! you are such an inspiration to us ABC moms who want to teach our kids Chinese but feel daunted due to our own limited Chinese proficiency. Thank you for your blog and IG.

  147. My 5yo daughter is using Sagebooks. It works for her and we just started level 5. Soon we’ll need supplement materials to get more word recognitions. However, my almost 4yo daughter is reluctant to learn from Sagebooks. She also have concentration issues and can not sit thru even 5 mins learning period. I have done my research and believe that lele books might be good for both of them. In the past they weren’t too crazy about reading pens so I was hesitate to get lele. Maybe I should get the books first and see how it goes…..Thanks for your extensive review and giveaway opportunity!

  148. Chien-ju Lin says:

    Great article and very helpful comparison. When I raise my first child, she did well in speaking and basic reading. As a native speaker, I would think it would be sufficient for me to teach her. (I also took some online course about teaching Chinese as the second language) However, I was struggled to find the leveled reader that will be similar to huge English resource. We have used “step by step Chinese reader” by Cheng & Tsui. They are also great but I wished I know about le-le product back then, Even though I did not have the whole book set on my hand. A friend of mine kindly showed me a few books and reading pen. With the second child to teach, I started to struggle to divide up my time. This sounds like the perfect solution to independent reading.

  149. Po Tim King says:

    I’m raising and homeschooling four kids mostly in the U.S. in their life, I know right away I need to teach them Chinese. Mostly for able to communicate with my parents in HK, but also to know who they are as a person, and where their families come from. I also love teaching, and teaching language is fun and challenging.
    My biggest struggle is to be flexible and to meet each of my kids’ needs. I always wish I am an octopus, so I can help each of my kids at the same time.
    Betty, thanks for holding the giveaway. Super awesome!

  150. I am motivated to keep the heart language of the family alive. The hardest part is that even though Chinese is my heart language, I cannot speak it. I love hearing it. So far I have Sagebooks to help as I try to stay away from the screen. However due to my personal language imitations, I may have to start using the screen for help.

  151. Dawin Strelow says:

    Your blog inspires me so much to teach my kids Chinese. I too am not super strong in Chinese so I’m hesitant on teaching it and using it. You give me so much hope that it’s possible! My daughter spoke mostly Chinese when learning to speak and then moved to all English. She just started to be interested in Chinese when the last year she would get frustrated that she couldn’t understand me. We only have a few books in Chinese that are vocabulary books. Your activities are so in line with things I did teaching kindergarten and I’m also a fan of Montessori. My daughter has a similar pen for English books and would love this pen! My husband has wanted to learn too. My 4 year old is similar to your daughter in that she reads and writes and is advanced in skills but in English. I need to start incorporating the Chinese the same way I do with her English skills- like your other post – all through daily activities and through play! Finding the time to create the activities is the challenge. I love all your ideas and your blog. Thank you so much for your hard work!!

  152. Jasmine Yue says:

    Thanks for sharing this LeLe pen article! I’m always looking out for new things for my boys to learn. I think you share many similar challenges with teaching your kids Chinese in a non-Chinese speaking country (we are based in the UK): not being fluent in our mother tongue in the outset and how to enrich and keep the kids interested/immersed in Chinese at home/for life. Hence there is a lot of really good resources here I can use every day.

    Certainly, FB and instagram pages of parents like yourselves really help inspire and encourage me to push harder with my efforts with my kids. Certainly having time to support these activities is a major limiting factor, so having resources such as interactive reading pens can really help speed the reading sessions along (I too use a lot of translation tools to help us get the right tone/meaning when reading). It helps engage my kids too so yes to such interactive technologies! Next best thing to a Chinese Alexa equivalent to supporting the learning process I think! Would certainly love to win this giveaway! Fingers-crossed! Thanks again!

  153. This is an awesome giveaway!!! We are trying to teach our children to be trilingual so they can communicate with our relatives in Taiwan and Korea. It definitely is hard work, especially the reading part!!!

  154. Thanks for sharing! I’d love to have a copy of one of these books to try them out with my kids!
    What motivates me to teach my kids chinese is so that the kids can communicate with my dad, who primarily speaks Chinese. Also, other relatives overseas who mainly speak Chinese. What inspires me- many parents like Betty and especially non-native speakers of Chinese who use fun and interesting ways to teach their kids Chinese.
    Some of the challenges of teaching my kids Chinese is that since I haven’t used Chinese with them from the beginning and my husband doesn’t speak this Chinese dialect. I often forget or find it easily to just use English because the kids would definitely understand. Some tools I think would help me achieve this goal is keep visiting websites or blogs that shows ways to teach children Chinese and trying out the techniques. Also, having lots of Chinese books and flash cards to teach my kids help too. I need to find ones that are of interest to them.

  155. Thanks for the great review and giveaway! We live in Switzerland now and I’m not a native Chinese speaker since we grew up speaking English. I hope to expose my son to enough Chinese so that he is at least able to have some connection to his ethnic Chinese heritage. I think classic books that I love (think hungry caterpillar) that have been translated into English are great, as are songs with lyrics that are easy to follow. My greatest challenge would be to read and speak to my son past a certain level as my vocabulary is small.

  156. We would love to win one of these pens to try out.

    My partner and I are non-native speakers who learnt Mandarin whilst living in Taiwan. We’re currently working our way through Sagebooks ourselves, so as to brush up on vocab when reading picture books with our two young children. I agree that the Pinyin in Sagebooks is way too distracting for non-native speakers (at least, for those who read already, less so for young kids). The Le Le series would allow us to read and quickly check characters as required, but we would be forced to focus on the characters themselves. It would also allow our kids to hear a genuine Taiwanese accent, rather than our own less-than-perfect pronunciation.

    We’re motivated to keep up our language skills, and introduce our children to the language, as we would love to live in Taiwan again in the future (and, even if we don’t, we love to travel and value the opportunity to share other cultures with our children). Our main challenge is our own limited language skills, and finding the time to practice with two young children (and to keep up with our 2-year old’s demands for stories, he doesn’t care what language they’re in). I’m inspired by blogs such as this one (and the Montessori-inspired Mandarin Facebook Group), and research that emphasises the benefits to exposure to the sounds of different languages in the early years, even if children don’t become fluent at this early stage.

  157. This would be amazing! My children are learning Chinese and I struggle to assist bc I’m not a speaker; I am trying to learn with them. I feel like I could also potentially use this system with my classroom as well.

  158. Apologies, forgot to address the second part of the question. We do not have a big budget so I plan to use apps like Pleco and our local library. A reading pen would be a fantastic resource. If we progress well and interest continues, I will consider a tutor down the track.

  159. Hi, I’m Chinese Australian and would like my children to learn Chinese so they retain their culture. My daughter is fascinated by languages so that is a big motivation for me. I can’t really read or write Chinese so it’s a challenge for us to learn together.

  160. Stephenie Lee says:

    Being an ABC and talking to various people or clients in NY and NJ area made me realize how fortunate I was in being able to communicate with many who cannot speak English. It motivated me to continue learning Chinese and improving my skills while teaching it to my two children. There are many challenges, for instance, both kids are mixed and their father does not speak Chinese, thus English is the dominant language at home and with his family. Joining the Facebook groups with supportive similar minded parents, reading and speaking as much Chinese as possible at home, meeting other same age native speaking kids, and using the wonderful resources from you and your site is definitely helping me reach my goals of teaching my little ones Chinese. Thank you!

  161. Josephine says:

    Would love to win the giveaway for my three kids. They were born in USA so I would like them to know more about their mama root. But I find it is very difficult to teach them Chinese as they are native English speakers. They love reading so much and I think reading these Chinese learning book set will be a good start for them.

  162. I’m inspired to teach my daughter Chinese so that she has ties and can have a deeper understanding for her heritage.

  163. What motivates me to teach my chinese to my 3yo and 1yo kids was actually my own struggle with the language when I was young. I had zero knowledge of the language till 9 years old, and I was badly teased by my classmates since Singapore is a bilingual country. I don’t need my kids to excel in studies, I just don’t want them to see Chinese as a foreign language and struggle in primary school. We have Sagebooks in local bookstores and some Chinese assesment bks which are too wordy or pictures too distracting. My biggest struggle is I am still not good in the language myself as I have missed picking up the language in the golden years (1-6years). I am super blessed that my son loves Chinese and blessed to have friends taking interest in teaching Chinese at home, and tgt we form a support group together for SG parents recently.

  164. Hi Betty,
    Thank you for organizing the giveaway.

    What inspires me to teach chinese is that the language is widely used and China is becoming a strong country now. The ability to speach the language will be an advantage.

    The challange will be to conquer my own laziness to teach, because I am not fluent in reading chinese character. This Le Le pen will come in handy as it will help in finding out the words that I am not familiar with.

    I am impressed by how your daughter read 100 in 4 hours in the first day. WOW!

    The resources that I have now is Odonata series and some other books in mandarin.

    Once again thank you Betty for the review and for the giveaway. Hoping to win this awesome set.

    Warmest Regards,
    Helen

  165. Eileen Keribar says:

    What a fantastic giveaway! I’ve been researching these since you mentioned it on my post on Facebook – and even tried to find one in Hong Kong to no avail – but this one looks like the system for us. I am working my way through drops but I like this so much as a screenfree-tech tool to bolster actual book reading that I can do together with my daughter. She is a huge bookworm and this seems like such an effective hands-on way to work through character recognition with a teacher in your hands! Your rules and guidelines sound perfect on how to use it!

  166. I’ve always wished my chinese was better. Now with a little one I really hope they would be able to speak and read chinese better than me. Living in Australia, there is limited resources and exposure for my little one tp learn chinese unfortunately

  167. Hello! I got really excited when I first saw this tool in your IG. I feel passionate about studying languages as the way to broaden your mind and to acquire universal culture. My son is 2 yo, and I’m eager to share my personal attitude towards languages with him. Now we study through cartoons and songs, and Lele pen would be helpful in the nearest future. Here in Russia I’ve never seen a thing like this, thank you for organising the giveaway!))

  168. I was really bad at mandarin when I learned it at school. My parents did not speak it and I spent hours upon hours studying to just “pass” my tests and exams (in fact, I often failed.) In college, I started going to Karaoke to sing with my friends. It was then I began liking mandarin. As a foreign student in the US, I felt like I could connect to other international students and saw their native language brought a flavor and identity that was unique. Fast forward to me being a parent. I felt like I wanted to pass on something I didn’t have so I decided that I’ll speak exclusively mandarin to my children. It’s been almost 3 years for my oldest and I’m constantly still learning.

    Because I don’t have a good foundation, I now depend on my internet and friends community to keep up with my mandarin. We are not at learning how to read yet but I definitely would love tips and resources!! 🙂

  169. We are living in the UK and I wanted to teach my miss3 to learn chinese(mandarin) as much as I could. It is not easy, to spark the learning motivation within herself and in the same time make sure that’s a fun learning experience:) I’m glad that I speak and read chinese fluently and that’s motivate myself the most to pass on the ‘gift’ to my little one.

  170. Lucia Tong says:

    I’m so excited to check this resource out. I am Chinese and try to speak exclusively to my 4 yo in Chinese. He’s pretty good at speaking back and realised now is the perfect time to start introducing characters to him. My main challenge is that my own writing and reading is limited. So I’m really keen to try this pen to improve both of our reading. Thank you 🙂

  171. Hi! The Welcome Letter has been resent to you! Please let me know if I can help with anything else!

    1. HI !
      I am a Chinese techer in Sweden. Every year when I go back to Taiwan , I try to buy books for my student.
      They are very beginning niva. I would like use book for them learn chinese interested.

  172. Hi. You wrote: “For my son, I am not sure that I can use this as stand alone Chinese reading series. I think this series is perfect for reading practice and exposure to a wide variety of relatable topics. However, I plan on teaching my son characters through a combination of hands-on activities and Sagebooks, in addition to 樂樂文化 Le Le Chinese leveled readers. When he is older, I plan to help build his reading stamina and prepare him for chapter books through the 四五快读 series. Of course, time will tell if we follow this order, and I will update you all on what we end up doing in the future!”

    Would you skip the Greenfield books altogether? I’m just starting out for my daughter. I personally like the Greenfield illustrations so much more than the Sagebooks. But then again, it’s not about me. 🙂

    1. Hi Tiffany! Thank you for your question and astutely noting that I left out Greenfield. Sorry about the confusion – we love the Greenfield illustrations, too! Our Sagebooks, Greenfield, and 四五快读 resources are in simplified Chinese, and I plan to use all of them with my son. Our Le Le series is traditional Chinese, and we will continue to use that for general reading practice and enjoyment. If you’re family is learning one script, I’m not sure that both Greenfield and Le Le are necessary. If you’d like to see a comparison of all leveled readers, please have a look at this post! Hope that helps! 🙂

      1. Hi Betty: Thank you for taking the time to answer my question and for writing the latest post comparing all the leveled readers. I didn’t see Sagebooks treasure boxes included in your comparison. I’m guessing that’s due to the fact that the Greenfield and Le Le serve a similar purpose. I can read and write in traditional Chinese; therefore, would likely stick with that so perhaps getting the Le Le books along with Sagebooks 500 would suffice? Thanks again! -Best, Tiffany

        1. Hi Tiffany! My pleasure! Sagebooks treasure boxes were not available in simplified Chinese 2 years ago when we were using the series. This article by Guavarama is pretty compelling about getting both Treasure boxes and other readers. In our case, we had only Greenfield readers and they were perfect for reading practice after Sagebooks, although I did DIY a lot of reading practice for my daughter during Sagebooks. Now, Le Le would provide the most reading practice with their 300 booklets!

    2. Yiu Man Li says:

      My little boy and students in Sweden will definitely benefit from this great collection.

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