Want to listen to recordings of people speaking Mandarin while reading the pinyin. Does this exist?

December 4, 2011 at 10:57 AM

As the title says, I want to find MP3s or video clips (or whatever) of people speaking in Mandarin. I want to read the text of what they're saying (pinyin with tone markings) as they say it, so I can improve my listening skills.

Does this sort of thing exist?

Any advice appreciated.

Thanks!

PS I am a beginner - I have been studying Mandarin for three months.

December 4, 2011 at 01:01 PM

Check out Beijing Sounds

December 4, 2011 at 01:23 PM

http://zhongwenred.com/ (also green and blue) has lessons with characters and pinyin.

For instance the 1st lesson (click on the Download XX teacher reading these sentences links to listen to the audio).

December 4, 2011 at 02:35 PM

Perfect! Thanks guys.

December 4, 2011 at 09:32 PM

You might want to check out Cultural Interviews with Chinese-Speaking Professionals from the University of Texas.

It has a large selection of interviews with Chinese speakers with a diverse range of backgrounds and accents and has Simplified, Traditional, Pinyin and English transcripts for each one.

December 5, 2011 at 01:25 AM

The clips of the interviews are good for improving your listening skills, but not so for imitation - many (5 of the 7 I watched) of the speakers speak bad Chinese.

December 5, 2011 at 01:58 AM

By bad, do you just mean that their accent was non-standard, or were there other aspects such as grammar, word usage and so on that were problematic?

December 5, 2011 at 02:16 AM

It's more about grammar and word usage. Some sentences are simply disjointed or tangled.

December 5, 2011 at 10:18 PM

I haven't listened to them, but I suspect that's how people speak in real life. I'm lucky if I can remember the beginning of the sentence by the time I've spoken the end of it.

December 5, 2011 at 11:56 PM

Or you could just flip on the tv and watch anything...

December 5, 2011 at 11:58 PM

With pinyin subtitles?

December 5, 2011 at 11:58 PM

http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMzI4ODY2MjA0.html

skip the pinyin, do that in class. or just...

December 6, 2011 at 12:13 AM

Read what the OP actually asked for.

December 6, 2011 at 04:33 PM

I know what the OP asked for. I'm saying it's a waste of your time and effort when you can just get started on doing what actually needs to be done, which is character recognition and listening skills. Pinyin is designed for one thing(well, two if you count IME) and that's as a tool for learning the readings. Not as a replacement for learning characters.

To sit and watch a video with pinyin would slow your progress down dramatically.

December 22, 2011 at 06:55 PM

This is what I use. It's a German newspaper that publishes many articles in Mandarin. The daily news section usually always has a recording and the associated text. Other sections have recordings associated to their articles less frequently, but they're there. It's a great way to get a good coverage of vocabulary and topics. Best of luck to you! Hope this helps!

Daily News

Media's look at China