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

[Steveo]

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.

[Daan]

Check out Beijing Sounds

[edelweis]

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).

[Steveo]

Perfect! Thanks guys.

[imron]

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.

[Kenny同志]

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.

[imron]

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?

[Kenny同志]

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

[roddy]

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.

[Areckx]

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

[roddy]

With pinyin subtitles?

[Areckx]

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

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

[roddy]

Read what the OP actually asked for.

[Areckx]

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.

[ChinaStreet]

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

Economics

Culture

Sports

Technology

Education

[webmagnets]

On jw.org you can download the audio and pinyin of the Chinese translation of The Watchtower and Awake magazines published by Jehovah's Witnesses.