The Epic Adventures of Princess Moonface

By Confused Laowai | Date: September 21st, 2011 | Category: General

One my lab buddies linked me this Kickstarter Project yesterday: The Epic Adventures of Project Moonface

I’m a big fan of Kickstarter and have already pledged to other projects before (not related to Chinese), but this it the first time that I see something exciting like this within Chinese learning. The basic gist of this project is to create a fascinating story centered around Princess Moonface (Mei) that is coupled with different multimedia aids and websites and content. They aim the content for Tweens to Young Adults.

They are using quite a variance of talent to get this project going, but they need more capital to complete it. This is where Kickstarter comes in.

I’m going to pledge, because I like to support projects like this. They are 9 days away from hitting their target. I’m not sure if the product will be useful or even exciting as they claim. I’m also skeptical of their synchronous translation method. I’ve never been a fan of this kind of writing (mixing pinyin & English with characters and even Chinese-Ordered English) and being an academic, I’d like to read the research around this method. Can they back this up?

Also, I hope they make doubly sure that everything is correct. That’s probably why they need the funds, because I already spotted an error – the pinyin for 什么 is wrong:

All in all, it looks like good initiative and more people should do this, that’s why I’m supporting it. Why not visit their site for more info? If you are interested and like to see the final product, go ahead and pledge!

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  • Jasmine Flores

    Actually the pinyin is fine, even though we pronounce it ‘shemme.’ In reality that’s just a colloquialism for ‘shen-mo’ and so either way you get it right. *shrugs* Hope they make it! I’d love to try it out with my students in the future. 
    -Chinese Teacher in NYC, USA. 

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    Wow, I did not know that! Thanks for the info.

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    Ah yes! That’s correct, but it seems they are using 繁体字? I spotted a few
    traditional versions of other characters as well? Like 感覺. I’m not too
    familiar with 繁体字 to know if this is just inconsistency on their part or
    not.

  • http://niel.delarouviere.com NielDLR

    Hi Wendy,
    thanks for clearing that up! Looking forward to seeing the final product. I really hope that enough people donate to the Kickstarter campaign. I’m keen to read about Princess Moonface.