Just got an exciting email from my son learning Mandarin the MTC. He’s part of the first batch of missionaries to have the Church’s new 3-column Book of Mormon with Chinese characters, pinyin (a phonetic representation of Mandarin characters), and English. This is a tremendous boon for missionaries and others comfortable with one of the two languages wishing to understand the other. It will also allow Chinese learners to read the Chinese out loud. Very nice tool!
A New 3-Column Chinese Book of Mormon
That is so exciting! My cousin served in Taiwan and got back almost two years ago. He spent a lot of time in the mission office designing and helping create this new 3-column Chinese Book of Mormon! That is so cool that they have finished it! I am sure he already knows, but I will tell him and I am sure he will be excited to hear.
Jeff, I live in Japan and wish we had something similar here. It is a great study tool in Japanese even though you need both books. The Japanese version has the kana for every Kanji used so it makes it much easier to understand. Not too many books here provide the kana with the exception of manga and kids books.
Jeff, is it Simplified Script (for Mainlanders) or Traditional Script (for Taiwan and Hong Kong) ?
I assume from Wookface’s comment that if it was developed in Taiwan, that it is Traditional Script, but I want to make sure.
Here’s another article about it:
http://newsnet.byu.edu/story.cfm/65741
Apparently it’s traditional Chinese.
I understand that most proselyting material in Asia is created in Traditional Script Chinese since the church proselytes in Taiwan and Hong Kong where Traditional Script is used.
However, here in the states, the vast majority, by far, of Chinese are from mainland China, where they use Simplified Script.
I wish more was done with Simplified Script so as to be able to offer material to Chinese in the US.
LDScatalog.com has the new Simplified Script B.o.M listed, but when I ordered it, they sent me the older one. They are presumably trying to clear out the old inventory.
I learned Mandarin in the MTC and got back about 2 years ago. We had something like this with a few selected passages of the Book of Mormon in the three-column form and it was helpful. We called it the 快樂書—the happy book.
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Actually, I served my mission in Kaohsiung, Taiwan about 2 years ago, and we had the same sort of Book of Mormon then. Probably the only difference was that at that time it wasn’t officially authorized by the church–local leaders just looked the other way.
I’m an old-timer, and served in the Kaohsiung mission six to eight years ago. Towards the end of the mission, we had developed something very similar to this.
So there you go, Jonathan.
It’s nice to have an official Church version of the thing, though.
http://www.ldscatalog.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10151&storeId=10151&productId=13413
here is a link to the product you are discussing (the 3 column traditional book of mormon that came out in 2008)
I just got my mission call to Taiwan and was googling how to get a copy of that book of mormon before I left. I just want to say that I really appreciate you having a positive LDS blog. I get so exhausted and frustrated when I want to find good uplifting LDS things online but only find anti garbage. Thank you!
Hey. I'm actually learning mandarin right now and I'm also a saint here in the philippines. do you know where I could get a copy of that?