The Grand First Episode Project. . .

[renzhe]

I'm currently watching some more episodes of 双面胶.

For the next show, 醉侠张三, I recommend starting with the third episode. The first two are quite silly, and he only moves to the capital and meets many important characters in the third episode. I'll write up the basic introduction to the characters etc. ahead of time, so it's easy to jump in.

I'm also pretty sure that the verycd version has subtitles (despite the warning). Unfortunately, it's downloading really slowly, so heads up to people planning to download to start early.

But, luckily, I've found a way to download things from youku, for the case when we can't find a download.

[imron]

I'm currently watching some more episodes of 双面胶.

I've been watching more of this too. It's actually quite a fun show, and not nearly as dramatic as descriptions of it made it seem.

[renzhe]

I will be gone for a week, probably without an internet connection, so I can't start the thread for our next show, 走向共和 (Towards the Republic).

I'll watch it (bringing my laptop along), but probably won't be able to comment until the middle of next week.

This show should be one of the highlights, I've heard recommendations from several people. Anyone wants to start the thread on the weekend?

[renzhe]

"Towards the Republic" is up, better late than never. There are so many historical characters in that one, so I didn't write up what happens, as I'd likely get much of it wrong. It's a worth a watch, though.

I've moved the inlaws towards the end, as I'm having trouble locating any sources. Earlier, I managed to download a bilingual (Cantonese + Mandarin) version, but I can't find it on verycd or youku now, strange.

[roddy]

Just had 与青春有关的日子 recommended if anyone's interested.

[renzhe]

I see no harm in adding it. Looks a bit like "Fendou goes PLA", though

[roddy]

Actually it was described to me as 'better than 奋斗'

[renzhe]

The latest show is up.

Here's a problem. I'd like to watch 野蠻奶奶 II for several reasons -- it's a Hong Kong show, it's very recent (2008 ), it takes place in modern time, there are fantastic summaries and explanations available online, and it was specifically recommended by calibre2001.

The problem is -- I can find no sources whatsoever. Even stranger is that I managed to find it before and I managed to download a bilingual (Cantonese/Mandarin) version. But now, for the life of me, I can't find it again. Looks like it was pulled from verycd and youku. I've tried traditional, simplified, and all combinations of substrings, to no avail.

Can anyone locate a source for this one? I can only find the sources to the original series from 2005 (野蠻奶奶), which is very popular, and features the same story with the same actors, but it is set hundreds of years ago, and we've had so many historical-type shows recently....

I'm pushing this show to the end, and if no sources are found, I'll swap the 2005 version in.

[skylee]

The shows name in HK was 野蠻奶奶大戰戈師奶 (sassy mother-in-law vs Godzilla). you may be able to find more resources on the internet using this name ->

http://so.tudou.com/psearch.do?type=tag&kw=野蛮奶奶大战戈师奶

[renzhe]

skylee to the rescue!

I had tried the complete name, but I hadn't tried tudou -- this seems to be the first episode we're looking for.

Good work!

[renzhe]

I've found some Emule sources for this weekend's show 花樣少年少女:

Emule (rmvb, hq)

Emule (avi, lq)

This one is longer than the usual 40 minutes, but it looks like it could be moderately fun after a quick glance. I'll put a vocab list together tomorrow.

[renzhe]

I've been going through the older threads and trying to add vocabulary lists and summaries. Right now, we have 32 episodes in total, of which 19 episodes have vocabulary lists, and 21 have plot summaries. Five of them have transcripts.

Big thanks to roddy for helping out with sticky parts. I probably won't have the time or nerves to do all of it, but I'll probably do a few more in the coming weeks. Is anyone finding these useful? Has anyone used the plot summaries or vocab lists while watching? Is there anything else that could make it easier for people to watch a show (especially the less advanced people)?

These are the shows still missing vocabulary lists (which are probably the most helpful resource):

微笑Pasta

康乾盛世秘史

编辑部的故事 (also needs subtitles)

北京人在纽约 (also needs subtitles)

美味关系

上海灘 (could use subtitles)

孽子 (also needs subtitles)

If anyone is going to watch one of these, and is willing to jot down the more difficult words, that would be great.

Also, if anyone locates transcripts or subtitles for any of these, that would be great, as they make vocabulary lists much easier to make.

EDIT: I've just counted, and we have collected over 800 vocabulary items in this project so far, at different difficulty levels, and covering all sorts of topics. Somebody who watches through all the shows in here can learn up to 800 very useful words, and hear them in context.

Edited September 23, 2008 at 09:52 PM by renzhe

[renzhe]

As some of you might have noticed, I've been updating the old threads. Today, we've reached an important milestone, as all shows in our project now have a vocab list, a plot summary, or (most of them) both. The only exception is 北京人在纽约, for which no subtitles or transcript are available.

I've also located some subtitled versions of shows which didn't have any. Right now, only two shows (北京人在纽约 and 编辑部的故事) have neither a transcript nor subtitles. Both are old, so there probably simply aren't any.

I'll probably knock together a few more vocab lists in the coming weeks, but I'm slowly burning out, and we're basically nearing completion -- each one of these threads now offers some assistance for learners looking to watch the show. Thanks to roddy and others who have helped out with translations and finding transcripts and the like.

You can follow the progress in this post, which also serves as an overview of the shows' difficulty.

EDIT: Yeah, and I've been seeing more and more people browsing the forum, sometimes up to 8 people at the time, which hopefully means that somebody is watching these. So post something

[roddy]

Sterling work, Renzhe!

[renzhe]

Listen up, everyone!

I'm thinking about trying to start watching one of our series all the way through, similar to the way it was done a couple of years ago with "Chinese Style Divorce". The rest of the project (weekly episodes) will go on, at least until all the scheduled ones are finished, but not too many people seem to be watching those, so it shouldn't interfere with each other.

atitarev and I have just started watching 奋斗. We'll try to get through the whole series, at a relatively slow pace. We'll try to post some discussion stuff, perhaps an interesting conversation or two, interesting words, etc. in the 奋斗 thread here in this forum. The reason why 奋斗 is a good candidate:

- it's one of the easier shows in terms of language

- the language is modern and relevant

- the show is very popular, and most people who watched it say they've enjoyed it

- many people have seen it, so they can offer help with sticky parts

You can get the links to download/watch here, and find the discussion on this show here. There, you'll also find a summary of the first episode, the transcript, as well as the vocabulary list (with translations), so you can get through the first episode. If you need help, shout!

Everyone is welcome to join!!!! Especially the less experienced learners!!!! Everyone, struggle, now!!!! Let's hear a YAY!

(I'm aware that some forum members have seen this already, but all of them are too busy to commit to a whole show are this time, and they can still offer help and insight from the sidelines if we get stuck)

[imron]

Fendou is a good choice I think.

[renzhe]

The last scheduled show (Wars of In-Laws II) is up. I'm taking a break from the project. It's taking far too much effort, and I've burnt out.

I'll try to finish the shows that are missing some love right now 5 shows are missing summaries, and 7 shows are missing vocabulary lists, and I'll try to improve that a bit until basically all shows (with a few exceptions -- missing subtitles etc.) have summaries and vocab. lists), but I'm concentrating on FenDou from now on.

If we have helpful annotations for most shows, maybe somebody will find it useful in the future. When you combine all the vocabulary lists, we have well over 1000 vocabulary items collected, covering different shows and different styles. Even if there are many duplicates, that's still a lot of relevant, interesting vocabulary.

[skylee]

Another good tv drama series is 金枝慾孽 (War and Beauty). Perhaps you would consider watching it if you have not.

[imron]

Even if there are many duplicates, that's still a lot of relevant, interesting vocabulary.

Thanks for all your hard work Renzhe :clap

[mvk20]

Sorry to hear you're burned out, renzhe, but with all you've done here it's easy to see why. I've poked around this part of the forum to drool over what I might be able to do if I stick with my studies, as a sort of motivation. But unfortunately I'm sure it's over my head right now. When do you think would be a good time for me to try watching one of these? I know that's hard to quantify, but as a point of reference, how many volumes of NPCR do you think I would have to go through before I could feel like I could start to work through this sort of thing and not just find it totally frustrating? I just wanted to post to let you know that your work will be of benefit not only to those who are using it now, but to those who will use it in the future as well.