Chinese language podcasts

[imron]

There are a number of people that do, but also quite a few who gave up on it after they made the majority of their content paid-only. There have been various threads discussing alternatives to ChinesePod, as well as ordinary podcasts produced by native Chinese. Threads tagged with podcast give a good overview and provide plenty of good places to start looking for Chinese-language podcasts.

@Long Pan, the 老外看点 programs should start when you click on the link for each episode (see listing here). If they do not start automatically (they don't seem to do so for me under Firefox, but do under Safari and Opera) you'll need to view the page source code and search for "wma" this will provide you with a link to the actual file (it will be something like mms://...blahblah....wma). Then you can just paste that url into your browser to listen/download the file.

[Meng Lelan]

Does anyone else here also use Chinese POD?

http://chinesepod.com

They have a large selection from Beginner to Advanced.

That's what I used to use for my students until they starting charging money for everything.

They had video story of the week too that was really good, a staff member would tell a story in their words, but they stopped that feature while I was subscribing so out of rage I canceled.

[Long Pan]

@Long Pan, the 老外看点 programs should start when you click on the link for each episode (see listing here). If they do not start automatically (they don't seem to do so for me under Firefox, but do under Safari and Opera) you'll need to view the page source code and search for "wma" this will provide you with a link to the actual file (it will be something like mms://...blahblah....wma). Then you can just paste that url into your browser to listen/download the file.

Indeed; but no way to download it. For example here is a mms

mms://media.cri.cn/chi/talkshow/lw090915001.wma

I can listen to it in streaming, but Flashget will not dowload it

[Long Pan]

@Long Pan, the 老外看点 programs should start when you click on the link for each episode (see listing here). If they do not start automatically (they don't seem to do so for me under Firefox, but do under Safari and Opera) you'll need to view the page source code and search for "wma" this will provide you with a link to the actual file (it will be something like mms://...blahblah....wma). Then you can just paste that url into your browser to listen/download the file.

Indeed Imron; but no way to download it. For example here is a mms

mms://media.cri.cn/chi/talkshow/lw090915001.wma

I can listen to it in streaming, but Flashget will not dowload it

[querido]

google mplayer download mms

mplayer mms://media.cri.cn/chi/talkshow/lw090915001.wma -dumpstream -dumpfile talkshow.wma

After issuing that command, it puts out what looks like some error messages, and then begins saving the stream (with no progress indicator). I have 4.4Mb so far, so it looks like its working. I'm guessing it will take as long to save as it would to watch it.

Edit: Finished at 8.7Mb, 25 minutes long.

Edited September 17, 2009 at 12:39 PM by querido
edited to correct a mistake

[gerri]

vlc (Video Lan) should probably be able to download mms, too (just a thought, haven't tried, admittedly)

[imron]

@Long Pan, I'm not sure what OS you are using, however for me (using Mac OS X), when I put that link in my browser, it fires up quicktime to play it. Once the stream has finished playing, I can then go File->Save to save it.

[citambulos]

Anybody mind uploading the files here on Chinese forums?

[imron]

Copyright issues aside, it strikes me as both a bit of a waste of bandwidth and storage considering they're publicly available on the official website, and downloading them to your computer is a trivial task.

[calibre2001]

I've been looking for podcasts made by ordinary chinese speakers along the lines of Princess Remy but can't find anything else like it. Most chinese podcasts I've come across are either news based or education i.e teach chinese. Please share with us if you know of any.

[wushijiao]

I've been looking for podcasts made by ordinary chinese speakers along the lines of Princess Remy but can't find anything else like it. Most chinese podcasts I've come across are either news based or education i.e teach chinese. Please share with us if you know of any.

I would love to see something like NPR's "Talk of the Nation" or "Fresh Air" in Chinese (talk about books, life, movies, TV, music, trends, culture, and sometimes current affairs).

I hate to sound jaded, but I find it amazing that China is spending billions on "getting its message out to the world that misunderstands it" and yet they can't even put some of the things they probably already have into podcast form! They're forcing me to listen to RFA!

[Meng Lelan]

I would love to see something like NPR's "Talk of the Nation" or "Fresh Air" in Chinese (talk about books, life, movies, TV, music, trends, culture, and sometimes current affairs).

omg, I thought I was the only one thinking like that. NPR is great. A Chinese speaking NPR would be fun.

[wushijiao]

I thought I was the only one thinking like that. NPR is great.

I thought I was the only one as well!

I've thought of starting my own Chinese language podcast about things that I'm interested in...but I don't have the talent to make it as interesting as (a Chinese) NPR!

[Meng Lelan]

I still remembering fighting with my three older brothers over the car radio, I had to have NPR and they all had to have rock and roll, blah. So glad to know wushijiao is more like me.

I wish they would throw out the English speaking NPR announcers and subsitute in the guy for Slow Chinese, I believe that would be Xinyu.

But I don't think that's going to happen.

So I listen to SlowChinese, for now. Hence my vote for favorite Chinese language podcast.

Edited September 17, 2009 at 04:32 PM by Meng Lelan

[PhilipLean]

On this station - I hear a lot of discussions, but I can't follow them, are they useful ? - Beijing Capital Life Radio - 603 AM Beijing (Chinese) - I mean are they good discussions ?

[PhilipLean]

Turning streaming audio into MP3 - turning online radio into podcasts

There are many different software programs that will do it, but I find Replay Media Catcher the simplest and most reliable to use.

[gougou]

Is there a way to get the Deutsche Welle podcasts without a proxy? I was thinking about listening to those again and would like to download them with my phone directly (on which I don't think I could use a VPN or anything).

[gato]

Gougou, try this. Doesn't seem to require a proxy:

http://www.podcast.de/podcast/5750/%E5%BE%B7%E5%9B%BD%E4%B9%8B%E5%A3%B0%E4%B8%AD%E6%96%87%E5%B9%BF%E6%92%AD

德国之声中文广播

[gougou]

Thanks, gato. I actually found that page before, but only tried the RSS link (which linked to the original feed that is blocked), but now found their own feed, which works just fine (even though it seems to be delayed by two days or so).

[Long Pan]

After many attempts, I finally managed to capture CRI 老外看点 streaming audio by using “Wondershare Streaming Audio Recorder” .

I take advantage of this post to list my favourite podcasts (all previously listed by others in this thread):

1. BBC daily news 中国丛谈. For those in China, you'll get the MP3 without proxy by going through a rss reader (at least it works with Google reader) : rss = http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/worldservice/chinareel/rss.xml ). I like this program both for the content (critical analysis of Chinese news) and the format (overall quite short - 15minutes, which makes it convinient to listen everyday - it starts with a 10 minutes 采访 which is relatively easy to understand as it is quite oral Chinese and then a 5 minutes press review or written news article, more complex Chinese but which transcripts are most of time available on line – although for this you’ll need a proxy if you are in China)

2. Princess Remy : my favourite casual podcast. Like a friend, she will mostly talk about everything but serious topics. Most people who start quickly get addicted to it.

3. 锵锵三人行, daily podcast from a famous Phenix TV talkshow. I listen to it at least one or two times a week, depending on the topic. Content is between an “all news program” and a casual one (recently tend to be more and more casual though). 文涛 the 主持人 is a funny guy, with a strong Beijing accent and a tendency for long tirades on topics he obviously does not always know much about. Frankly speaking if it was not in Chinese I would not listen to it. But the atmosphere is friendly and it is a good complement, as a talk show, to the previous podcasts I listen. Good language challenge also as the messy talks makes it quite difficult to understand – but this is what you get in a diner with Chinese friends, so better get used to it.

4.老外看点 just discovered and quite like it. For me, an excellent way to push myself to improve my quite bad oral Chinese. Some of these foreigners (for example Julien, the French guy) hae amazing Chinese. “Yes you can” is the message I get from it.