The Little Prince (ESL/EFL Version)

By Qiliang Feng

This is Book 7, Collection III, of the Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) readers. It is suitable for learners with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words.
Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a reading project for ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words). In two years, for about fifteen minutes each day, an ESL/EFL learner can read one million words, and reach the upper-intermediate level, gaining a vocabulary of about 3,500 words and a large number of expressions.

[Text Information]
Readability | 82.58
Total word count | 16260
Words beyond 1500 | 1013
Unknown word percentage (%) | 6.23
Unknown headword occurrence | 2.98
Unknown words that occur 5 times or more | 40
Unknown words that occur 2 times or more | 151

[Synopsis]
The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. His plane is badly damaged and he has very little food or water. At this time, the little prince comes to him. He is a very serious little boy who asks the narrator to draw him a sheep. The narrator agrees, and the two become friends. The pilot learns that the little prince comes from a small planet.
The little prince passes by neighboring asteroids and meets various people, a king, a vain man, a drunkard, a businessman, a lamplighter, a geographer and so on.
After staying on the earth for a year, the little prince decides to return to his planet, so he asks the poisonous snake for help....
This book is rewritten from “Little Prince” by the French author Antoine de Saint Exupéry (1900-1944). It is the third most-translated book in the world and one of the best-selling books ever published.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Qiliang Feng
• Release date: Dec 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311157126

Qiliang Feng

Qiliang Feng has been a teacher of English in senior high schools since 1983. He is a keen supporter of reading in TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) and is expert at rewriting graded/simplified ESL(English as a Second Language) and EFL (English as a Foreign Language) readers. He has published several series of English reading course books and is promoting a reading project called Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP), in which ESL/EFL learners at the elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words) are expected to read one million words within two or three years, and reach the upper-intermediate level easily.

Book preview

I have had the pleasure of working with Mr Qiliang Feng for a number of years. I am impressed with his dedication to Chinese students and the work he is doing to help Chinese people become readers of English. Reading in a foreign language is not easy - and many people are put off by trying to read William Shakespeare or Charles Dickens - which are pretty difficult for native speakers of English. It is far better to start off at a much lower level where you know at least 95% of the words. (Some graded readers have a vocabulary of just 50 words so there is something for everyone).

Mr Feng has provided a wide variety of readers of different levels so there should be something for you, whatever your level and whatever your interest, whether you like crime stories, science fiction, comedies or good old-fashioned love stories, there are graded readers for you.

This reminds me of a student I once had from Poland. Her English was very poor but she liked reading romantic fiction in Polish so I gave her two very simple graded readers to read in English. A week later she came back. More books please!

I gave her ten more books and a week later, ten more books, slightly harder than the week before. After eight weeks she was reading romantic fiction again - but this time in English! After eight weeks she had moved on from graded readers (after about 80 books) to ‘normal’ books for native speakers.

Not surprisingly, her English reading skills improved a lot in that time. Interestingly, so did her speaking, listening and writing skills as well. Yes, reading is that powerful.

As the American Professor Stephen Krashen said, Comprehensible Input is the key. You should read books that you understand, rather than reaching for a dictionary to check the meaning of a word every 10 seconds. You shouldn’t feel embarrassed about reading simple books. These are the building blocks of your English reading skills and with sound foundations, who knows how high you can go - the sky’s the limit!

One important skill is to read books that have a small number of new words. Krashen called this I+1. This exposure to a small number of new words among many words that you do know will help your Second Language Acquisition in a very effective way. Let’s look at a few examples:

Last week I noticed that my windows were so xhzmalshkd that I decided to clean them immediately.

What could xhzmalshkd mean? Well, as you cleaned them immediately they were probably dirty, but as you chose to clean them immediately the implication is that xhzmalshkd means very dirty.

The robbers ran so cxmzklwqdly that the police couldn’t catch them.

What could cxmzklwqdly mean? Well, the word ends with -ly so it is probably an adverb describing how the robbers ran. Could be slowly, could be quickly but we also read that the police couldn’t catch them so we can understand that the word cxmzklwqdly probably means very quickly.

Instead of reaching for your dictionary each time, play the game of trying to work out what the unknown word might mean. If there are too many unknown words, then the book you are reading is too difficult for you so simply pick another, easier book.

Mr Feng wants you to read 1 million words. I hope that you come to see reading as a pleasure and a joy that will open your eyes to many other worlds - as well as taking your English ever closer to perfect fluency.

Happy Reading!

Jeremy Taylor

Writer, Teacher and Teacher Trainer.

Jeremy Taylor is a British author and has written over 50 books. In addition to writing he likes photography, cooking, hiking, cycling and languages. If you want to know more about him you can visit his website: http://www.jeremytaylor.eu

About This Book

This book is Volume III-5 of the series of readers of Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP). It is suitable for readers with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words.

Million-Word Reading Project (MWRP) is a project in which ESL/EFL learners at elementary level (with a basic vocabulary of 1,500 words) are expected to read one million words within two or three years, and reach upper-intermediate level (with a vocabulary of about 3,500 words). This project contains about 40 simplified readers, enough for an ESL/EFL learner to read for two years, and this list is growing.

Text Information

Readability || 86.5

Total word count || 16615

Words beyond 1500 || 1045

Headwords beyond 1500 || 344

Unknown word percentage (%) || 6.29

Unknown headword percentage (%) || 2.07

Unknown headword occurrence || 3.04

Unknown words that occur 5 times or more || 41

Unknown words that occur 2 times or more || 152

Notes:

1. About readability: This is Flesch Reading Ease Readability calculated with MS WORD. The higher the score, the easier the text is to read.

Score || Level

0-29 || Very difficult

30-49 || Difficult

50-59 || Fairly difficult

60-69 || Standard

70-79 || Fairly easy

80-89 || Easy

90-100 || Very easy

2. The basic 1500 wordlist does not include compound words made up of the basic words (like: schoolboy <=school +boy) or words derived from the basic words (like: honestly <= honest+ly).

3. Proper names (names of persons or places) or words derived from proper names and interjections are not counted.

4. Words beyond 1500 (unknown words) include all those beyond the basic 1500 wordlist that occur and reoccur. For instance, words that occur three times are counted as three.

5. In Unknown headwords, reoccurred words or their derived forms are counted as one.

Synopsis

The narrator, an airplane pilot, crashes in the Sahara desert. His plane is badly damages and he has very little food or water. At this time, the little prince comes to him. He is a very serious little boy who asks the narrator to draw him a sheep. The narrator agrees, and the two