Anyone managed to listen to Chinese radio in the car via the Internet/DAB in the UK?

[pingpangqiu]

Hi all,

I like listening to CRI News radio to improve my listening:

https://www.reciva.com/index.php?searchBar=CRI+china&option=com_cloud&action=search#

However I'm often in the car for work and get bored of Radio 1 and Five live after a while. I finally downloaded some free podcasts on to my ipod and have bought an adaptor so I can listen to them while driving.

My question is the following: Has anyone managed to play Chinese radio in their cars? either via the Internet or DAB radio etc

Any ideas ?

It is discussed in the link below but this does not provide a satisfactory solution.

https://www.reciva.com/index.php?option=com_joomlaboard&Itemid=108&func=view&id=42228&catid=3&limit=10&limitstart=0

P.s. Does anyone know any quality upper-intermediate/advanced podcasts that can be downloaded to your ipod for FREE? (cos I'm a bit of a cheapskate

For those people that haven't seen these 2 websites yet which were suggested by other posters on this forum, these two sites are 2 of the most fantastic Chinese learning resources I've seen (and that's not just hyperbole!): If only I could get of my lazy ass and use them more often I would improve more quickly!

http://www.clavisinica.com/voices.html

http://www.laits.utexas.edu/orkelm/chinese/index.html

Happy Chinese learning! The hard graft is worth it in the end, trust me!

Many Thanks.

Ping pang qiu

[fanglu]

P.s. Does anyone know any quality upper-intermediate/advanced podcasts that can be downloaded to your ipod for FREE? (cos I'm a bit of a cheapskate

This thread has some suggestions.

I like 德国之声 but there are others.

[pingpangqiu]

Many thanks Fanglu, you're a star! There is a lot of good stuff in that thread.

Half of which I've downloaded to my ipod, including 德国之声 which seems

just the kind of the podcasts I'm looking for.

I will get my FM transmitter connector thingy me jig on Monday and finally be able to listen to Chinese while driving all over the place, and boy will I be a happy bunny! It's far better than practicing my spoken Chinese to myself while driving, other drivers must think I'm a bit mental talking to myself!

Apologies for talking about myself but I guess some people talking about their own experiences learning the language can sometimes help others. I feel I've reached a bit of a plateau after living and studying/working in China for 2 years, as I've now been working full-time in the UK for the last year so study time is limited. My speaking and listening are quite good, considering the amount of time I spent in China.

For newbies interested to know how I improved my spoken Chinese while in China I improved my speaking/listening by taking every opportunity to speak to the locals, I shared a flat with Chinese people throughout my time in China and due to my hobby......well ping pang qiu of course! I played in different clubs 3-4 times a week and often 90% or more of the players (even in Shanghai) didn't speak English so I got to practice my speaking and listening all the time. I'm not ashamed to say that I even went to some of the so called seedy bars where it's bar girls job to talk to you. I negotiated in Chinese with the bar manager and got cheap beers, had some banter with the girls (that means jokes, nothing else honestly!) and spoke Chinese 5-6 hours non-stop during many evenings.

Ok I may of got to bed at 5am and thus missed my Chinese class at Uni but would come in to class a few weeks later and apologise prefusely to the teacher using a few Chinese idioms that I had picked up for the night before! and the teacher would be impressed. I found my speaking was better than most in the class who followed a different approach to studying (each and everyone to their own) of spending 4-6 hours in their room with their head in the books, reading and writing Chinese characters. Sorry but I tried that approach for a few months and it did my head in! Sorry for essay, but it's just my experience of learning Chinese, it it can be useful for one person then I'm happy.

I would just like to talk about a positive experience that happened to me recently if you don't mind that made the last two and a half years of studying Mandarin all worthwhile. Basically I got to use my Chinese at a fairly high level meeting while in China for work and made a presentation in front of a good number of Chinese business executives. Despite the fact that I left my presentation in the taxi on the way to the meeting (DOH!) due to the preparation I had done I managed to more or less nail it and used a number of Chinese idioms which resulted in applause and laughter (laughing with me rather than at me I think!) from the Chinese business executives. I feel they appreciated the fact that a " lao wai " had taken the time and effort to learn their language (albeit with quite a few grammatical mistakes!) and understand and show respect for their culture. After the meeting a number of them maded positive comments. Sorry to talk about myself, I hate blowing my own trumpet. But this made all those hours of learning this language worth it!

Due to my strategy of focusing on speaking and listening my reading and writing are absolutely pants! (I don't use that word normally but they really are terrible!).

I've been trying to motivate myself to improve my reading/writing as in the long term I can see myself relocating to China so the better my Chinese the better my career prospects. But as I'm working full-time and keep busy in my spare time I've hardly done anything in the last 9 months to improve my reading/writing. It's probably been said a number of times, but to improve (at anything) I reckon it's a good way to set yourself targets. Simply enough it finally clicked that the best way to improve my reading/writing is to sign up for the HSK in the UK. After a little research I found there are just 2 HSK centres in the UK that I could find, maybe more:

SOAS London - http://www.soas.ac.uk/languagecentre/awards/hsk/

Sheffield University - http://www.shef.ac.uk/confucius/hsk.html

According to the Sheff Uni site the next HSK exam is on the 12th December 2009. I would encourage people who want to improve their Chinese, not only reading and writing to take the exam as a motivational tool. To be honest while studying at a Uni in China I used to be of the school of thought that the HSK is a load of rubbish as it doesn't even test your speaking level. However now I've kind of reached a plateau and I think quite a few non-Korean/Japanese (who already have some familiarity with the characters) are in the same position. Whereby many Chinese learners from the US/Canada/Europe may focus more on the speaking/listening aspect of Chinese, especially those that are not academics like myself. However in the long term if you want to move from an intermediate to an advanced level I believe that it's really important to learn the Characters to be able to read articles on the net and Chinese books and also write.

I'm afraid I will not share my HSK score with you after next year as you will take the piss out of me!

Thanks again fanglu you've made my life that little bit happier by being able to listen to Chinese in the car while I'm driving I will now be driving with a big grin on my face!

Anyone who wants to flame /criticise me for this long post I really don't care. I've just given some honest insight into the way I've managed to get to a reasonably fluent level in spoken Chinese. The journey that learning this language has taken me on has brought me a lot of happiness and satisfaction and enabled me to meet some fantastic people and visit parts of the world that I never imagined I would see. Getting emotional here!! ha ha!!

Good luck everyone learning this wonderful language.

Where there's a will there's a way!

Ping pang qiu