HANYU PINYIN CHEATSHEETS! 汉语拼音小抄!
Whether to include hanyu pinyin (the romanized spelling of Chinese words) throughout our Little Dim Sum Warriors bilingual books and Dim Sum Warriors app is something we struggle over constantly.
On the one hand, we know it’s very helpful, especially for readers who are just beginning to learn Chinese. On the other, it very quickly becomes a crutch that learners come to depend on!
We listened to a lot of language teachers and experts, who preferred we NOT include them by default in the books and app, in the hope that it would spark curiosity and lead kids on a path of inquiry. We get that; working for something definitely helps retention.
However, we also know that can be really tough for some kids, so we also heard the requests of parents, and decided to include these printable ha nyu pinyin cheatsheets for our stories. The last thing we want to do is for kids to be put off.
So call it a compromise—let the kids work a bit, but feel free to step in with these cheatsheets whenever you think it’s appropriate.
Here are cheatsheets for the first 3 books in the series (and in the App). We’ll be rolling them all out soon!