Best authentic video sources for beginners

[victorhart]

What authentic video sources (movies, shows, cartoons, children's shows, and anything else made for a Chinese audience) have you found that are good for Mandarin language acquisition for beginners? I am conducting a language acquisition experiment based on watching authentic videos in Mandarin, which you can read about at www.mandarinexperiment.com.

The best source I have found thus far, in terms of ease of acquisition, is Qiao Hu. Here is a great example. For instance, you can easily learn the names of various types of fruit. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37PKBUs0TNk. The only problem is that it is inane, boring viewing for adults! In other words, it's a bit of a chore to watch. However, I'm sure for someone's who is really dedicated, and is into more traditional methods of learning, such as studying vocabulary lists, flashcards, etc., this could actually be a welcome break. And, although I'm not trying to learn script, I've noticed it would be a great way to start learning to read characters as well. Momo is good, too.

My favorite viewing source are quality Chinese movies. My favorites so far have been Hero and Journey to the West, but I've also enjoyed Fearless, The Road Home, Lost on Journey, Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles (part Mandarin, part Japanese), House of Flying Daggers, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. Of course, these are inordinately difficult for a beginner to learn much from, so you either use them for gradually accustoming your brain to the cadence, phonemes, etc., or you use English subtitles to help you pick up some vocabulary, which I consider an acceptable but not ideal way of learning.

A great source for kids and adults, which is fun viewing if you enjoy slapstick, well made cartoons, is Boonie Bears. However, again, it is a difficult source for beginners, in that you cannot easily understand anything. However, you do have the benefit of repetition. After watching some 50 episodes, I definitely understood many terms, such as "hat," "bears," "honey," "let's go", "great," and so on. And you can definitely enjoy the plot and keep watching episodes without understanding much of what is being said.

There is a lot more information on these sources and theoretical discussions on acquiring Mandarin and other languages on the blog, as well as notes on my progress.

[victorhart]

I would be grateful for suggestions of other sources.

[deremifri]

Hello victor: 

 

as you can imagine, cartoons might be your best bet. I personally have only heard from others about this one: 

 星游记 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB_oZBdi7k&list=SPF068DA90359EDE0D&feature=share 

 

If you prefer to have English subtitles, I can recommend The legend of the White Fox. This show was a big hit in the 90s: 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKzb7ISclt0 

 

Although not necessarily beginner friendly, very enjoyable to watch. 

 

In addition, this forum has a page called "Great First Episode Project" where various shows' difficulty level is indicated. 

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-series-recommendations-and-index-thread/ 

 

people usually recommend either 家有儿女 or 奋斗 

[victorhart]

Hi deremifri,

Thank you for those recommendations! They were pretty much all new to me. And the Great First Episode Project is a great resource.

So none of this is truly at a beginner level, such as Qiao Hu, which is made for toddlers, but nonetheless good sources of viewing for me now and more so in the future.

Thanks again!

[simc]

I really enjoyed the Chinese dub of the Japanese cartoon sitcom Crayon Shin-chan. It's Chinese name is 蜡笔小新. The humour is adult orientated but the main character is a 5 year old kid, so the language is relativley simple and about everyday life. Its a comedy so it has a bit more rewatch value than a drama, and each episode is only 7 minutes long.

 

I'd probably classify it as more of a low to mid intermediate level than beginner though.

 

There seem to be both mainland and Taiwan dubs, I watched the mainland one.

[victorhart]

Hey, I like that simc! Thanks!

 

Definitely still way above my level, but I'm probably able to understand about 5%, which may seem incredibly low, but with regular videos I probably get only about 2%.

 

My problem currently is that what I most enjoy are classic Chinese films, but I understand next to nothing without subtitles. And Boonie Bears is really easy viewing (and has become a small tradition with my daughter), but again I understand very little of the Chinese (although the plots are extremely easy to follow).

 

What I should probably do is watch Qiao Hu as much as possible, since sometimes I understand up to like 30%-40% of what is being said, until I can get to the level of a show like Crayon Shin-Shan, and then gradually (over months and years, since I only watch about 30 minutes a day) make my way up to more interesting material like the films. But at the end of a long day, sometimes it's just too boring . . .

 

I'm buying a bunch of Disney films dubbed in Mandarin, which should arrive in June. I think that will be a really good change of pace, and something to build on, since my daughter and I will already be very familiar with the plots, which will facilitate picking up vocabulary and acquisition in general.

[hedwards]

This is a common problem. Turn off the subtitles. Take a listen to this: http://www.languageisculture.com/episode2 it's not Chinese specific, but it should work for Chinese. I mostly suggest against focusing that much on listening. People should do other things as well.

 

Or, better yet, go nuts and do away with the videos completely I spend a fair amount of time with just the radio on listening for vocab and structures that I know.

[victorhart]

Thanks hedwards for that link! I listened to the first half of the podcast and found it very interesting. Though I share the basic premise, my approach is different because (1) I only have 30 minutes a day, while Vladimir mentions devoting up to 8 hours daily, (2) I believe videos are much better for a beginner learning an unrelated language than straight audio, (3) I'm doing this not only to learn, but as an experiment.

 

I think huge amounts of listening is highly desirable for language acquisition, but agree with you that combining other skills--namely speaking, reading, and writing--is much better. I'm focusing exclusively on listening because of the experimental nature of my project.

[Demonic_Duck]

@victorhart:

 

Good rec with 巧虎, this will be my new go-to rec for simplest Chinese-language TV show (simpler even than 爱探险的朵拉). The language is also more "babyish", though (well, I guess that's to be expected for a programme for toddlers).

 

@simc:

 

蜡笔小新's pretty great. I would say in the grand scheme of native material it's still "beginner", though. At least, as a beginner, you can understand a good deal of it, though you'll also miss a good deal.

[hedwards]

@Victor, you might only be able to do 30 minutes at a time, but you probably have more than 30 minutes during the course of a day, few people are generally so booked up that they can't find more than that. But yeah, I think that 8 hours is really too much for most people, even if they have time. That's time that could and should be used for other languages activities, assuming you have the time.

[roddy]

Victor, how's the video watching going? Any favourites from the recommendations?

[victorhart]

Hi roddy, the video watching is going well, but very slowly of course. My favorite and overwhelming recommendation is Qiao Hu. It's an amazing source for beginners and (I assume) intermediate students. Not that I enjoy it ... but I make myself watch as often as I can. What I enjoy are classic Chinese films with subtitles, but that is not a particularly good way for a beginner to learn, in my opinion. If you're intermediate or advanced, then without subtitles, would be great. My favorites have been Hero, Journey to the West, and House of Flying Daggers, but there are several other quality films I've liked that I can recommend.