Boonie Bears and Music

[victorhart]

Boonie Bears is a great show for practicing one's Mandarin listening skills, and especially to watch with kids. The major advantage to the show is that, if you can enjoy Tom-and-Jerry-style slapstick humor, you don't need understand much of the dialogue to enjoy the shows. Thus, even a low-level student like me can watch endless episodes, painlessly adapting one's ear to the language.

 

I recently decided to learn the introductory song to Boonie Bears (Season 1). It took a REALLY long time, around seven hours, almost exclusively while driving. I then made a silly music video that you might get a kick out of viewing.

 

I now plan on watching all of Season 1, something like 100 episodes, over the next few months. They are all available on YouTube and are just 10 minutes long, 11.5 minutes counting the intro song.

 

Anyway, let me know your thoughts and if you have suggestions of similar shows that are worth checking out.

[Melanie1989]

Good suggestion, i like Boonie Bears. It was suggested to me through these forums actually when i first joined and i felt the amount i was able to pick up and understand was very encouraging. To be honest, my Chinese is so bad that i could do with taking it up again. It's very impressive that you learned the song in seven hours with no lyrics available. Are there none available on line? Nevermind, i'll take a look. 

 

It's also good for anyone with young kids if you're wanting to encourage Mandarin learning. I have a three year old and she loved it. After the first week, she would randomly start shouting 大笨熊 while pointing at her dad.

[victorhart]

I did find the characters online and did a Google translation into English, which comes out pretty funny (both pasted below). I would normally recommend anyone learning a song like this study the meaning intensively. I didn't do that because of the limiting nature of my experiment. Strictly speaking, I shouldn't even have looked up the translation, but I made an exception. Anyway, the characters don't help me, as I only recognize one (haha) - 我, one oh, and also the numbers 1-4, and a couple of other numbers, which learned from Qiao Hu.

 

I have spent a total of about 14 hours between the Boonie Bears song and Nan Zi Han (Make a Man out of You) from Mulan, but the latter I worked on first and never got very far, even though now I see that it's a bit easier, if longer. I plan on going back to Nan Zi Han now, and then learning "A Girl Worth Fighting For," also from Mulan. 

 

演唱：刘晨
冬眠假期刚刚结束
我还有点糊涂
鸟儿在头顶把森林叫醒
春天空气让我很舒服

天上太阳已红扑扑
看起来很模糊
远处山坡有几棵小树
去年冬眠前我没记住

青草香 浆果甜
喝着露水靠着树
抬起头 垫脚尖
加快我长大的脚步

吹口哨 哼着歌
摇摇晃晃找到路
晃脑袋 揉眼睛

 

 

hibernation holidays just ended 
I was a little confused 
at the head of the forest birds wake up 
in the spring air makes me very comfortable sun had flushed the sky looks very vague distant hillside trees trees last year, I did not remember before hibernation grass fragrant sweet berry tree against drinking dew toe pads looked accelerate the pace I grew up humming whistle rickety find a way to shake his head and rubbed my eyes I grew up there a little confused

[Mr John]

Hey Viktor,

 

You may have already checked it out, but just in case you haven't, there's a show called "Pleasant Goat and Big Big wolf" 喜羊羊与灰太狼 in Chinese.

 

Kind regards,

John

[victorhart]

Hi John, yes, it was pretty much the first show I heard of, and I understand it is the most popular cartoon in China. But, unlike Boonie Bears, without understanding the dialogue I could not enjoy it at all. I'll certainly go back to it at some point, if nothing else out of curiosity. Weird show for my Western sensibility!

 

Do you enjoy it?

[Mr John]

Hi again,

 

I only watched it a few times, back when I had only been learning Mandarin for a few months. I agree, it's harder to follow than Boonie Bears, but I still thought it was amusing at times. I will ask my Chinese friends with kids if they know any shows on a more similar level to Boonie Bears and get back to you.

 

Catch ya

[maigheann]

The kids (and as a result, I) have watched every episode of BB there is -- plus all the feature length movies -- numerous times.  It is a funny show.

 

A word of warning:  熊二 (the younger, light tan bear) speaks with a bit of speech impediment.  I think the purpose is to help the audience differentiate between which bear is speaking when they're both in dialogue.

 

The kids also like:

• Young Sima Guang （少年司马光）<----- SG is smart child and frequently outwits adults through games and ruses.  The villain voice actors on this show can get sort of frantic and whiny though.
• Wisdom Island (智慧岛）<----- School kids try to escape from a computer game which has transported them to a computerized island where they have to use their wits to get back home.

[Angelina]

熊出没 is so adorable! 

 

喜羊羊 is definitely the most famous cartoon in China, I didn't know more interesting ones existed. 

[Angelina]

Be careful Victor 

 

http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzA3NzkxODkwMA==&mid=206587220&idx=1&sn=446c6627fb1719e9af839bb954a3e861&scene=1&key=8ea74966bf01cfb6782a1fe3f20cb3eef2af27bb68e4027bf7f320cc060ea3c1fd611451e152e58c362b8abeb789ae1f&ascene=0&uin=MTk1NjAwMjEzOA%3D%3D&devicetype=iMac+MacBookAir6%2C2+OSX+OSX+10.9.5+build(13F1066)&version=11020012&pass_ticket=4%2BfTjQc6ZiJGl8LDmfjyQdejaqfB4EMy13i%2F3zAtZnHNjOJH56Kfr%2Bw5JCa%2F8wq9

[victorhart]

 

 

Be careful Victor http://mp.weixin.qq....6Kfr+w5JCa/8wq9

 

Angelina, that's really funny!

 

I used Google translator to understand the article, of course. But I had already read something about this type of criticism. I think if I were a Chinese parent I would feel the same way. And it's true, as the article suggests, that some contemporary American cartoons are incomparably better on various levels, including the morals they teach.

 

So why I am watching this stuff, and subjecting my daughter to it? It's authentic, watchable, and sometimes pretty funny. I'll quote my blog:

 

"I’m happy to report that my daughter Camila Daya also got back into watching Chinese videos with me, especially Boonie Bears, and tallied nearly six hours in the same period. I don’t necessarily expect her renewed enthusiasm to be sustained, but we always have fun and I think the exposure to Mandarin is positive for her on various levels (even if the exposure to the Boonie Bears’ sadistically violent tormenting of Vick the Logger is not morally enlightening)."

"The Boonie Bears have been a great bonding experience with my daughter and even with my wife on a few late nights when no one was sleepy! While watching the sadistic bears and their logger nemesis in action is not any more culturally or morally edifying than Bugs Bunny or Tom and Jerry, the great thing is that you can enjoy the plot and the antics without subtitles."

[Angelina]

I like this part 

 

这几天，郑州家长张女士有些郁闷，3岁半的儿子最近一不开心，就嚷嚷着“我要砍死你”，要么就到处叫人“臭狗熊”。原来，小家伙迷上了《熊出没》，总爱模仿其中的动作和语言。正是这种模仿，让张女士很担忧，她不知道该怎么给孩子选择动画片。

 

 

It's not only this show, you should be careful what kind of language you are exposing yourself to because this will be the language you will learn. 

 

I wonder if there is anything for children with nice language. You are obviously right about how this kind of comedy is good for you. Anything similar with more expressive language? 

[grawrt]

Have you watched a show called Big head son, little head dad (大头儿子小头爸爸)? I started to watch it recently because it plays during a time that I'm too lazy for serious study and just want to kick back to review my vocabulary or practice writing characters. One episode has many small segments inside that aren't very long and very easy to understand.

 

Plus its a good show if you want something to promote morals.

[mandzukic]

hello guyz can i get the lyrics to boonie bears introductory song please? i've tried to search over the net but i cant find

[Shelley]

@mandzukic see post #3