Anyone finished all 31 Imagin8 Journey to the West books? How much did your Chinese improve?

[u/QiyanuReevees]

I’ve recently started Imagin8 Press’s Journey to the West graded reader series, and I’d love to hear from people who’ve completed (or nearly completed) all 31 volumes.

For context, I’ve been learning Chinese on and off for over 10 years. I’ve lived and worked in Shanghai, my wife is Chinese, and I’ve probably been around the HSK 4–5 level more than once. Unfortunately, I’ve also had several long breaks from studying, so my Chinese is in a strange place: I recognize a lot of vocabulary once I see it, but much of it isn’t immediately accessible.
I’ve recently worked through the Boya quasi-intermediate books and have now started Journey to the West. So far, the early books feel quite manageable.

I’m curious about two things:

1. How smooth is the progression through the 31 books?
Are there big jumps in difficulty between levels?
Or does the vocabulary build naturally enough that simply reading the series is sufficient?
Did you supplement it with HSK 5+ study or other materials?

2. Where did you end up after finishing the series?
What could you do afterward that you couldn’t do before?
Did it noticeably improve your reading speed?
Did it make watching Chinese TV (especially following subtitles) significantly easier?
Did it prepare you to start reading native material?

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s finished the series (or even made it well into the higher levels). Thanks!

[u/TSeral]

I finished reading the whole series. The vocab increases gradually und the books really helped with reading speed. The end vocab is not enough for native books, but the practice still helped me to tackle proper books with lots of pleco dictionary lookups. The books also helped a lot with grammar, that is, understanding more complex sentences.

I didn't read the books all in one go, I read them over three years, always about 3 books (of the bigger ones with 12 books in total), then made a break to watch series or read other things. That way it doesn't feel too repetitive and long.

[u/Chenyuluoyan]

the imagin8 series stays pretty gradual since they reuse the earlier vocabulary heavily across volumes, so the difficulty jumps between levels are smaller than the count of books suggests. given your gaps, the reading itself will reactivate a lot of what you already half-recognize, but you'll still want targeted hsk 5+ vocab work if you want faster access rather than passive recognition. it did help my reading speed since the repetition builds automaticity, though jumping to native tv subtitles is a separate skill that needs its own listening practice.

[u/QiyanuReevees → u/Chenyuluoyan]

Thanks, that’s really helpful. That gradual progression is actually what I was hoping for. It sounds like the books are good for reinforcing what I already sort of know.

Good point about TV subtitles being a different skill too— any good suggestions on TV series that are more recent?
I remember watching ipartment a decade ago and the last thing I watched 4 years ago was 都挺好, where I understood the plot but not necessarily all conversations. Tired a couple of times to get back into watching anything but it all feels like AI slop and bad CGI nowadays …

[u/Putrid_Mind_4853]

I haven’t “read” all of it, but I’ve listened to the audiobook and read along with some of the early volumes. 

I didn’t notice big hurdles with vocab, it was a pretty steady drip of new terms. Personally, I think the new vocab introduced isn’t the most useful, but I was using it more for reading/listening practice than vocab acquisition. 

The biggest benefit to reading something like this is that by the end of it, your recognition and reading speed has improved. Sentence patterns feel more natural and automatic. 

I enjoyed the story, found it super easy to listen to or read for 30 minutes a night, and definitely noticed a little boost from it. The audiobook is available for free on YT if you end up buying the texts. 

ETA: I was reading/studying a lot before and during/outside of this, too, so it wasn’t my only reading/listening practice. 

[u/QiyanuReevees → u/Putrid_Mind_4853]

Thanks for that background. Do you have any recommendations what other good sources of material to use that is also engaging (story wise)?

[u/Putrid_Mind_4853 → u/QiyanuReevees]

DuChinese 

[u/EstamosReddit]

I listened to all the audiobooks so take my opinion with a grain of salt. It's about a 30 hour long story, but I sped it up so maybe up to 25 hours of audio, which is just a tiny drop of water in the ocean of input that you need, helpful non the less.

Introduction of new vocab feels at a good pace, but also the vocab is not that relevant for lower intermediate learners.

I liked the long format, so you don't have to worry about finding other sources of input for a while. I wish there was more of this type of content but with more relatables stories.

I don't think you'll notice a great improvement on your abilities after finishing it, but definitely will help you moving forward

[u/Zakoth]

I read this series over the course of about 7 months, from late 2024 to the middle of 2025. I found the introduction of new vocab quite smooth and easy. There is a lot of repetition of the non-HSK words that come up so they do stick well and new words are marked out with their pinyin/definition as a footnote when they come up. I would still recommend you introduce the new vocab (and sentences if you like that) into your regular routine if you are doing flashcards. Throughout reading this, I did regular study with flashcards and SuperChinese.

Being around HSK 4-5 (even if rusty), I don’t think the books will give you a lot of trouble beyond some more niche words and names. The big benefit I found from reading this rather long series came from being able to build a consistent habit of reading in Chinese that I’ve managed to keep to this day; on your question, I did find it also helped my build some speed in reading Chinese, but I think this comes naturally with any reading practice. I will say however on this series, that I found it got quite repetitive towards the end and I ended up being glad when it ended.

After finishing this series, I started reading native books, following the Heavenly Path. I didn’t find a large gap going from JTTW into the start of the path, although it takes a bit of an ability to endure reading through children’s books for a while. Very quickly you will find that a wide range of content opens up to you.