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Good TV for Mandarin learners | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Music, Movies, TV & Radio |  | |
| Levi Pentaglot Senior Member United States Joined 5570 days ago 2268 posts - 3328 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Esperanto, German, Spanish Studies: Russian, Dutch, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese, Italian | Message 1 of 4 20 August 2012 at 2:49am | IP Logged |
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So I've been exploring 优酷 (Yōukù, China's version of YouTube) and I've gotten hooked on this show called 中国好声音 (Zhōngguó hǎo shēngyīn, China's version of the show "The Voice"). There are several things I like about this show.
First of all, I just enjoy the singing. My Mandarin is only at an intermediate level and I still have a lot of difficulty understanding, so it's nice to have something like music which is entertaining even if you can't understand it. Secondly, there are subtitles in simplified characters for everything. This helps TREMENDOUSLY. Not only does reading along help you understand what they're saying as they say it, if there's something you don't understand that you want to figure out, all you have to do is pause the program and look up the characters/words you don't know (nciku is great for that since you can look up characters by writing them). Thirdly, a lot of the language in the program is quite basic. The format of the show has person after person introducing themselves, telling us their names and how old they are and where they live and what they do for a living. It's high frequency language that is much more useful and more easily comprehensible than, say, the language in a news broadcast. A few words which appear frequently in the show that will be good to know: 歌手 gēshǒu - singer 舞台 wǔtái - stage 嗓 sǎng - voice （团）队 (tuán)duì - team 导师 dǎoshī - mentor, teacher 准备好了 zhǔnbèi hǎole - be ready 机会 jīhuì - opportunity 加油 jiāyóu - literally 'add oil', an expression used to cheer somebody on 转身 zhuǎnshēn - turn around ('turn body') 选择 xuǎnzé - choose, choice 梦想 mèngxiǎng - dream (a wish, not a sleep dream) Do you guys have any other suggestions of good TV shows for Mandarin learners, particularly for those of us at the beginning/intermediate level who have difficulty understanding things and want exposure to high frequency, useful language? Edited by Levi on 20 August 2012 at 3:24am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4703 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 2 of 4 20 August 2012 at 6:08pm | IP Logged |
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Hey thanks for this. I will use this to help with my studies as well.
I use Chinese with Mike but I am a beginner and don't know any other good programs and you might be too advanced for that. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| etranger Pentaglot Newbie Australia Joined 4483 days ago 5 posts - 12 votes Speaks: English*, Mandarin, French, Italian, Spanish Studies: German, Danish, Irish | Message 3 of 4 22 August 2012 at 9:21am | IP Logged |
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Another side to 'Youku' that is brilliant is that there are heaps of movies uploaded to it in all sorts of languages, which is a great way of getting free language practice and entertaining oneself at the same time. I live in China so I can access this content on 'youku' and also on 'tudou', '52.com' etc. They might be blocked overseas I'm not sure.. But you could give it a go!
To find a film, go to www.baidu.com (the Chinese version of Google) and search under 视频 (video). You can search by the actual title of the film, but if you can find the film's Chinese name (You can use 'Baidu' to search the name of the film and you will usually see a Chinese translation among the search results, assuming you can read simplified Chinese characters,; If not you can 'wikipedia' the film and check the Chinese wiki for the name). I'd be interested to know if one can do this in the U.S, U.K, Australia, Europe etc., or if it's been blocked to protect copyright. Edited by etranger on 22 August 2012 at 9:23am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| JayR9 Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4703 days ago 155 posts - 162 votes Speaks: English* | Message 4 of 4 22 August 2012 at 12:38pm | IP Logged |
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I can't read characters yet but I have tried all them sites you mentioned and they load up fine. I only let them load up as didn't want to click around as I don't know what I'm doing.
Is there anywhere that I can watch western movies In mandarin? It would be good to watch something I know In Mandarin so I can relate to It. I use a site called "viki" and watch Chinese dramas and that with English subs. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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