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Chinese Idiom Story: A Frog In the Well


A frog in the well (井底之蛙) (jing3 di3 zhi1 wa1) is a very famous Chinese idiom story.

It tells a story about a frog that lived in a well, he thought he knew everything, however, after a conversation with a turtle passing by the well,  he realized that he only knew well of a small world: the well where he was living.

This idiom 井底之蛙 is used to laugh at a person who knows little but feels he  knows almost everything or a person who has a narrow world view.

For example, if a friend tells you: There are  no internet  in China.

Then you can say something like this: You are a frog living in the well (你是一只井底之蛙)(ni3 shi4 yi4 zhi1 jing3 di3  zhi1 wa1). There is a huge Chinese Internet population in China.

To help children and beginners learn this story, I rewrote this story with simple plain Chinese words.

When you have your child watch this video, make sure to have him watch this video several times until he knows this story well by reading Chinese characters by himself.

At the beginning, have your child watch this video time and time, later, have your child read this story following the video.

After that, pause the video to have your child read Chinese characters by himself.

If your child doesn’t know how to read some characters, turn on the video to have him listen to the video, then pause again to test him.

In this way, your child will read a lot of characters quickly in a meaningful way.

Below is the video. If you like, you can get the story here to have your child read this story on his own.

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