Radio – Listening Skills 老外看点

[Tianjin42]

Whilst in Beijing I have been trying to make the most of the FM radio in my phone to sneak some extra Chinese listening practice.

There are a number of decent stations out there but I have been listening to CRI News Radio (90.5 in Beijing). There were some commentaries on important periods in Chinese history that I found useful. I understood a smaller percentage than I would have liked and some of the “history” was fairly subjective in my opinion, but it was good practice.

However recently I have really got into 老外看点 on at 22.00 every night. The guests’ levels of Chinese vary but they are all fairly strong. I think this has been great for my Chinese generally as it seems to achieve that golden ratio of being interesting and comprehensible for that group in between intermediate and advanced/ fluent. I think this is due to the fact that though very good speakers, the foreigners on the show naturally tend to use a high percentage of the set structures taught in universities and text books. For this reason, the new words you will hear are bedded in a fairly familiar form. If you listen let me know what you think.

If you have any other radio station/ programme recommends then do share.

[imron]

You can also listen to their show online.

[giraffe]

A number of Chinese radio stations are available here: http://tunein.com/radio/China-r100322/

You can also listen to these stations with the Tunein Android or iPhone app.

[scoff]

I second giraffe's suggestion of using tunein.com for Chinese radio stations.

If you're in Beijing I'm partial to 有我陪着你 on 北京交通广播 (103.9). Usually on after 10 IIRC. Variety show with rotating guests and topics. It's interesting to hear comments on various social issues from weibo users or people texting their comments in to the show.

[Aray2]

Thanks for the recommendation, it's an interesting show. I think Julien Gaudfroy and Dashan are the better presenters, some others seem to not have as much tact as them.

E.g. the American lady on tonight's show mentioning that Americans will only watch American and English Tv shows because the Australian accent is too strong (yeah right). Later mentions that native English speakers would not have a name like 'swallow' because it has alternative meanings in English, and Chinese TV would not be popular enough to be watched in America with the exception of men with 'yellow fever'. Seriously??