Read Chinese (NFLC) - My Review

Brought to you by the National Foreign Language Center of the University of Maryland, a new 35 lesson packet designed to supplement Chinese reading classes has just been released for free online. Even if your not into learning hanzi characters, some of these lessons (not the "Playful Song" one) are good listening practice.Read Chinese (yuèdú zhōngwén 阅读中文) is available in simplified characters or traditional characters online. Or you can download the whole set to your computer in a nice 6 MB zip file.Pros

• complete hanzi transcript and audio file for each lesson
• English translation for each lesson
• no special plugins required (as far as I know)
• downloadable version in case you don't want to use them online
• occasional little cultural notes
• generally useful vocabulary

Cons

• no pinyin (but you can dump the whole hanzi transcript into an online dictionary to see the pinyin)
• Interface is a little counter intuitive. For example, you have to use the link called "Text Plus" at the bottom of the screen to find the audio and English)

If you'd like to check it out, I suggest starting with "A Self -Introductory Note"