5 to 10 mandarin songs with simple lyrics

[Nathan Mao]

I can't believe I forgot to mention this before now.

 

YouTube!

 

Here's a famous song, also easy to understand:

http://youtu.be/8sH1O2437w4

 

This one includes pinyin, and there are links to other songs with pinyin in the right column.

 

Here's another one of my favorite artists. The pronunciation is clear on this one, but the grammar is a little complex in the chorus...

http://youtu.be/JZu6NkCx364

 

Two more of her songs, but the characters are extremely small in both. Recommend finding the lyrics elsewhere, and reading as you listen.

http://youtu.be/-cRvMnaQe2I

http://youtu.be/ddM7sgOW3Ao

 

Follow links to other songs.  You will find songs and artists you like, and those you don't like.  Stick with the ones you really like, and you get language practice without feeling like work.

[zhouwei]

i put some Chinese songs with pinyin and story of them ,if you like,contact me ,i can send to you.I made it because some foreigners asked.

[roddy]

Perhaps you can post them here?

[zhouwei]

i have a try .but that is in ppt.

[roddy]

ppt files should be ok, maybe it's too large? If you want to make it available you can email it to me (admin@chinese-forums.com) and I'll upload it for you. 

[laurenth]

 

if you can recommend me the Chinese Nick Cave or Johnny Cash, I'd be forever grateful! But I guess that would be a different topic.

 

I don't know about a Nick Cave equivalent, but if you're interested in good indie rock, you could try Carsick Cars. One of their best songs is here; listening to it now is kind of timely.

 

You could also try PK14, starting with 他们 or  暴风的中心 (right now, I can only find extremely thrashy live versions on Youtube, but I'm sure they have a good studio version too).

 

And, of course, there's  二手玫瑰 - now that I think of it, they are probably closer to the likes of Nick Cave. Try 火车快开 for a start. Excellent stuff IMO.

[Ruben von Zwack]

I'm already a big fan of all these bands you mention, but thanks, Laurenth!
The video to 他们 is too funny. A pity there only seem to be this Low-Res version circling around.

[roddy]

Ok, the ppt file was .pptx, so it wasn't recognized. Zhouwei, I'm attaching the ppt and doc - I'm not uploading the videos, they should be easy to find online. 

康定情歌 kang 1 ding 4 qing 2 ge 1.doc

遇上你是我的缘.pptx

[lechuan]

This is one of my favorites. It's not about love, is quite simple, and has useful language:

http://ktvxiaojie.wordpress.com/2008/08/10/%E6%97%A9%E5%AE%89%EF%BC%8C%E6%99%A8%E4%B9%8B%E7%BE%8E-zao-an-chen-zhi-mei-by-%E7%9B%A7%E5%BB%A3%E4%BB%B2-lu-guang-zhongcrowd-lu/

[laurenth]

Ruben, I just discovered this gem (thanks to Olle's new "Resources") . Check it: wonderful wacky song with the transcript.

[Melanie1989]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQW-H1gLWo  This helped me when i first started learnign, might be useful to you too. Nice song, little mushy, but very easy to understand. Don't know if you're learning Traditional or Simplified though? This is a Taiwanese band so the lyrics are Traditional but it didn't get in the way of me learning simplified. 

 

Nevermind, i found simplified lyrics too:  http://studymorechinese.com/video/matzka-q-ngr-n-de-y-nl-i

[Demonic_Duck]

If you like learning songs you're gonna have to deal with traditional characters eventually, they're on all the karaoke machines!

 

I often half-joke that all my knowledge of traditional characters comes from two sources: KTV, and 蜡笔小新.

[BlackBird]

A website I havn't seen mentionned yet, which I think is worth looking at: http://www.singchinesesongs.com/ratings.php

 

It features a few hundred songs sorted by difficulty level and lyrics in simplified characters are provided. There is also pinyin that is displayed in the player while the song is being played.

From the few easy one I checked so far, the singers are famous artists and the lyrics are pretty clear.

[Jon Lee]

Guang Liang - "Tong Hua"

Rainie Yang - "Ai Mei"

Jay Chou - "Shuo Le Zai Jian (Ocean's Heaven)"

Harlem Yu - "Qing Fei De Yi"

Wang Lee Hom - "Duo De Shi Ni Bu Zhi Dao De Shi"

 

... Check them out on Youtube.com...  You can type the pinyin if you want...