The Grand First Episode Project. . .

[atitarev]

Atitarev, would you like to recommend any of those shows for inclusion? We already have 奋斗 coming up shortly.

Roddy, I haven't been following this thread and I am not sure what you are asking (checked the first page but I didn't quite understand). Inclusion in what? If you ask about captions, yes, I am very interested in getting them if you mean in some work on extracting the subs for the 1st episode, I already agreed to that.

[roddy]

I've added a (hopefully) clear explanation to the first page. Not sure if anyone wants to volunteer to help make up transcript / subtitle files, I was just thinking that if you've watched some of these shows you might want to recommend one or two for us to watch.

[atitarev]

Yes, I recommend it. My Chinese colleague watched it in full and enjoyed it. I like it too despite my poor understanding, only watched a few episodes. Unlike some Taiwanese TV series, this series are quite natural, more serious and the actors play well. They speak clearly (IMHO) and it seems like a good show to start practicing Chinese on real Chinese movies. Nice plot too.

[imron]

The reason I'm not watching is that I've never used those computer programs before, and am rather reluctant to download them or other things

I don't know if there's any spyware on youku,

Nope. Youku is exactly like youtube except that for these shows I find it more convenient because 1) I'm in China and therefore it's faster, normally the entire show will stream without pausing for download. 2) Youku will put the entire episode as one file, whereas on youtube they seem to always be split into several pieces.

The picture quality of Youku is not the best, but it's more than adequate, and is how I've been watching everything so far.

[roddy]

Youku's usable but it really falls down on dark scenes - was a particular problem with 狄仁杰.

Have added emule and youku links for all the shows we currently have scheduled.

[roddy]

Lucky episode seven, 落地请开手机 is up.

[renzhe]

I have just discovered that I still have a vocab list I made back when I started watching 好想好想谈恋爱. About 150 words for the lower-intermediate learner (upper intermediate learners will know most of them).

Alas, it covers many episodes and I'm not sure where the first episode stops. Still, I could go through it again and freshen it up if there is interest in adding it to our grand project.

It is basically Chinese Sex and the City. The topic doesn't appeal to me much, but the acting and production are top-notch, and the show is reasonably entertaining and easy to follow, even if the language is quite difficult. Pretty girls all over the place too

Any thoughts?

emule youku

[roddy]

Added it into the schedule - to be honest the threshold is very low - we're only watching one episode after all, and the wider range we cover the more chance there is of there being something for everyone. I'm not adding any new shows in myself, just the ones people are suggesting. If we run out I'll grab some from the 'top 100' lists or see if I remember any decent ones myself.

[muyongshi]

Then possibly considering adding 美味关系 a Taiwanese drama. Those that are interested in cooking might get something out of it....

[renzhe]

Do you think it would make sense to add a basic grading of the difficulty to the summaries? I imagine that people will be finding this thread for months (years) to come, and it could help them choose something suitable for their level.

Something like My own swordsman (advanced), or A soldier's sortie (intermediate), or something similar. Right now, someone thinking of jumping in would have to read through all of the discussions thread, and some don't have any info on the difficulty level anyway.

I'll be watching all of them anyway, but perhaps we can avoid people starting with something too difficult and losing interest quickly...

[roddy]

Could certainly do that - perhaps the best idea would be to ask people who watch and respond to the discussion thread to include a grade / comment on how difficult they found it?

[monto]

Great.

[renzhe]

EDIT: Moved the difficulty rating over here, to have all the info at the same place.

Edited June 8, 2009 at 12:17 PM by renzhe

[imron]

I would put 空镜子 and 魔幻手机 probably at around the same level as 落地请开手机, except that 魔幻手机 has a ton of references to 西游记 so if you don't have an understanding of that story then you'll be lost in places.

[imron]

Made a topic for 魔幻手机. It's a day early, but as I've watched it already I figured I might as well do a write up for it.

[skylee]

I've been wondering .... why do you guys have so much time for these dramas ...

But then I am re-watching korean drama "Winter Sonata" again (due to a fever after a recent visit to Seoul), so probably one can easily make the time to watch whatever one wants ...

So far of the recommended series I am only interested in 武林外傳.

[renzhe]

It's a part of studying for me. Nothing on this planet would make me watch cheesy soap operas otherwise. I don't even own a TV.

Since I live abroad, I need a lot of listening practice, and this is a good source of spoken Chinese. I usually watch an episode a day, which is about 40 minutes. I spend anywhere between 30 minutes and 2 hours on Chinese on workdays (3-5 hours on weekends), and I have to find time for it, because otherwise I wouldn't learn anything.

[muyongshi]

Yeah pretty much it's about practice and finding the time for it for me too....and an excuse to fry my brain. I also don't own a TV and my apartment doesn't come with one so I am happy about that.

After these spurts of TV without normally watching stuff the only conclusion I can come to is that TV only serves the purpose of causing people to 胡思乱想.

[imron]

Haha, yep, I justify it as studying too

[atitarev]

I am joining the club, although my listening skills are still poor for TV series, I am watching for the sake of learning too but it's always good if you also enjoy what you watch.

I found some software to convert from RMVB to AVI (+ other formats) and I put those files on my Pocket PC - now I can watch movies on the train, ask me how, if you need to do the same (PM me, please).

Now I am looking for a cheap option to make DVD's from AVI, the program that shipped with my camera crashed and I can't fix it.

--

I watched several episodes from a couple of Taiwanese series, it gave me some exposure to Taiwanese version of Mandarin. Regarding the mixing si/shi, etc. issue. Do they really pronounce "shi" as "si" (exactly the same sound) or they just don't roll the tongue enough (compared to Beijing accent), so you get something between si and shi when it is a shi?