Abby’s Stories app works like a narrated “read to me” type picture book developed by a Chinese Canadian family who wanted to teach Chinese through immersive reading. You can read more about the app and their story on their website. The app is free to download and you get a free story when you download the app, “Abby and Cooper go on a lion hunt”. There are 8 stories in total. The stories are sold in packs of 2, priced at $1.49 each. Scroll down to the bottom of this post for the additional story titles.
Design:
Before the narrator reads, you first have to match the Chinese words to missing parts of the sentence on the page. Then, you will be read the sentences on the page. Readers can have the option of being read to in either Mandarin Chinese/Cantonese and English, or just Mandarin Chinese/Cantonese.
Protagonists are cute cuddly animal characters, comprising a cat named Abby 思思, her little brother Luca, and their doggy friend Cooper 乐乐.
Each story is 12 pages long and the illustrations are sweetly pastel coloured. It actually appealed more to my daughters and my son, maybe because of the colours? Abby the main character is a little girl, so that could also be part of the reason.
Chinese Language options:
Written Language options: Simplified Chinese, Traditional Chinese
Audio Language option: Chinese, Cantonese
App language options:
English
Pronunciation:
Both the Mandarin Chinese and Cantonese pronunciations were clear and accurate.