Reading levels in Chinese is hugely dependent on how well you know idioms. The harder the books, the more idioms there are. Why? Well, it’s using four characters to describe something or a situation or feeling that could take a whole paragraph to explain! This is why the Chinese language is so beautiful. Every feeling has some sort of four character idiom that could describe it. When reading literature, it makes the stories even more moving. Most idioms have a story behind them. It’s a whole study!
The hard part becomes trying to know them because there are thousands but there are a few hundred commonly used ones that are taught in lower elementary and also used in everyday language. It’s hard to learn! Without repetition, it’s hard to remember all of them. You may be able to make out what they mean through context when reading at times but to really internalize and use them, you would have to have seen them or repeat them enough to remember!
Here’s the video of the set of idioms cards I bought a couple months ago:
This set of playing cards comes in super handy especially for my little kids. We can learn meanings and find stuff they’ve read in books. Then they can get very familiar with ones they haven’t heard before by
READING THEM OVER AND OVER WHILE PLAYING A GAME!!!
Double win. I just made my kids think that they can play a game of idioms…
Theses cards come in 10 boxes with 54 cards each and with a PDF manual of all their meanings. 
Some samples of what idioms are inside are here:
They are connected by the first word of the card is the same as the last word of the previous card if you wanted to play the connecting game.
As you see on the picture on the left, the back sides of the cards have rock paper and scissors. I taught my kids how to play rock paper and scissors with these cards which I’ll post down below. It’s the first time they were playing these cards and they really liked it. As you also see on video, it helps jot their memory of other idioms that they know and also review things that they’ve heard. So far, we really like it!
Here’s the video of my girls playing it for the first time:
There are other designs on the cards like pattern, color, and on the right top corner there is like numbers you can add and subtract to play other games!!! Possibilities are endless!!! Here is what the seller gave me for just “some of the games” you can play:
The quality of the cards is superb. It’s waterproof! Tear proof! I just love it!!!!
I love the quality of the cards so so so so much. Basically they’ll remain new for many years to come. Other ways you can use it in a curriculum:
- Pull a few out and create sentences
- Pull a few out and write essays
- Pull a few out each day and learn them
- Combine and find pairs that have similar meanings
- Combine and find pairs that have opposite meanings.
- endless options really…
The seller of these cards is actually in our facebook group so to purchase, you can join us here at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/motherlynotes/
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