Anyone know where in Beijing I might be able to buy these Hanzi learning episodes

[Chinese Learner]

Hi,

I came across this site a few months ago; essentially a set of children's programmes (probably made in the 80s...) that teach how to read chinese characters and how their radicals are derived.

http://hanzigong.st-eduworld.com/Home/tabid/55/Default.aspx

I don't want to buy from the Singaporean distributor because they are charging crazy prices. US$429 for a set of DVDs and US$379 for a set VCDs for their 'revolutionary Chinese video encyclopedia'...yeah, right....but I can't seem to find any info about the actual producer.

So as I am new to Beijing, I was wondering if anyone knew a shop where I might have a good chance of finding this set of programmes for regular Chinese prices?

Is there a great big bookstore or DVD shop where they sell 'everything' in Beijing?

Thank you!

[roddy]

Are you sure it's mainland produced? It's not on amazon.cn or dangdang. Does seem to be available on Taobao though. Edit: and also here. Not so good if you want to physically go to a shop in Beijing.

In the absence of any other info, I'd phone / go to the two major bookstores on Wangfujing, and also try Fab, a fairly large audio-visual store in the basement of the shopping mall on Wangfujing that I can't remember the name of.

[character]

I came across this site a few months ago; essentially a set of children's programmes (probably made in the 80s...) that teach how to read chinese characters and how their radicals are derived.

There are some books which are along the same lines. I wonder if the videos would move too slowly for a non-child learner.

[Chinese Learner]

Hi,

Thanks! I'll probably order them on that site once I can get a friend to enter the details for me!

Chinese site: Equivalent to US $53

Singaporean site: US$ 379

There is something wrong somewhere...the Singaporean version has subtitles apparently and a login for an educational website, but I think they are being a bit 'enthusiastic' with their pricing...to be polite

To be honest I (think I) don't mind watching kids programmes as I speak so little Mandarin to begin with anyway. That's how I learnt Cantonese when I was a kid, so I'm hoping it might work again the second time round...

Thanks!

[Radial]

These look like pretty good study tools... particularly since I have decided to get my tones perfect. The video that I have gotten... come with sutitles... and there is lot of learning opportunties... not just the characters that they are introducing... though they do a good job of linking characters with images... and other learning ques.

It is possible to find these videos on some of the sharing sites...

I am going to go over to book city and see what the physical set up looks like... and whether they have books which go along with it.

[Chinese Learner]

My teacher found a set on taobao.com for 300 Yuan all in - Special Chinese New Year discount price. Should be arriving soon. I hope I can handle it being for kids...actually, I hope I can understand it!

It's been one of those days where I couldn't understand or utter a word of Mandarin!

[farfromhome]

Hi Chinese Learner

That looks like a pretty interesting resource. I'm a complete beginner but I might be interested in getting this at some stage. Would you post back here after you start using it and tell us what you think of it?

Also be careful which one you order, the link to Tabao that roddy posted looks only to be half the set - its lists it as being 30 vcds. However, the link in your original post says that the full set is 60 vcds...

[farfromhome]

I'm just bumping this thread as I was wondering if the original poster had any update on how he/she is finding this series so far as I'm interested in getting this

Chinese Learner, how are you finding this series so far? Would you recommend it as a tool for learning chinese characters? What what sort of level would someone need to be at before this would be useful to them? (I'm just a beginner at the moment with no real exposure to learning characters yet)

[Chinese Learner]

Hi,

I have to admit that I have been really busy recently so I have not really watched as many episodes as I should. I have actually quite enjoyed the episodes that I have watched. Some episodes are more straightforward and logical than others.

I think there are two versions of this tv series; one with english subtitles and one without. I have the one without so much of the time I have no idea what the kids and the old man are saying to each other but when you see an animation of something become a character and you read the pinyin, you do understand what the character is (half of the time). I have to admit that I pause the program every minute or so as much of the time I have never come across the word they are describing.

Every episode describes about 6 characters. What is also good is every episode has a logic - they try to build upon radicals etc. so you can see how different words use the same radicals. However like I say, I have only watched a few. So one episode will be every character to do with birds or fish or clouds etc.

I think it's worth it if you don't mind watching a kids show but sometimes the characters look nothing like the actual objects they purport to be.

There are 4 or 5 boxes in the set. I would suggest buying box 1; the version with english subtitles and try it out.