Thank goodness for Google translate, I used it to quickly check up the 汉语拼音 Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, otherwise the entire process would be very slow. If I weren't already familiar with the story, proper nouns would be more of a problem because, unlike in English where proper nouns are capitalized, there is nothing in Chinese which indicates it is a name.
My three favorite phrases:
1. 不加 咀嚼 地 囫囵吞下
bùjiā jǔjiáo dì húlún tūn xià
without chewing swallowed whole
不加 without
咀嚼 chewing
囫囵 whole
吞下 swallow
2. 泄了气
xiè le qì
deflated
泄 leaking
气 air
3. 腻味
nìwèi
fed up with
腻 greasy
味 taste
So some basic things I have learned about Thai: 1) it is phonetic, 2) it reads from left to right, and, most surprisingly, 3) there are no punctuation marks!
Le Petit Prince http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300771h.html
