How To Mandarin With Brian Yu

[BrianYu]

Hey guys!

 

I wanted to quickly advertise this new "show" I've created on Youtube called, "How To Mandarin With Brian Yu." 

Been developing this for a while and finally wanted to post it. 

I'd love some support in getting this show off the ground

 

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhftQ-glDwsQ0Olnp1Im9Zz-H6i9vP1_U

 

Basically what I wanted to do was teach Mandarin from an American perspective. 

I know how hard it is when trying to learn a new language, but with this series, I aim to explain things clearly while also having some fun. 

I've done 9 lessons so far with plans on doing more, but would love some feedback on how I can improve these. 

A like, comment, or subscribe on Youtube would be great support! 

Thanks

 

[daofeishi]

You are clearly comfortable in front of a camera. Filming a show entirely from your car? I've heard crazier ideas, and it can work well with good planning and editing, but some things make the format a bit less effective than it maybe could be. One of the problems is the mic you are using. The sound itself isn't the best, especially when you speak directly into it and the sound starts clipping. Even worse, the mic sways back and forth and makes the sound level uneven. It's even visually distracting, since my eyes keep focusing on the one thing in the picture that moves with the sound level. 

 

As for the content itself, I think you'd do well with including a bit more meat in a single episode. After having watched a 4-6 minute episode, I feel like you could have crammed more real language-learning content into it. You should also make sure that you have nailed down the target audience, because I'm still a little bit confused as to who the show caters to. The absolute beginners will probably struggle with the phonology and tones, and will have problems following you. Those who already know the basics of Chinese will probably already know the phrases and vocabulary you have presented so far, so if that's the group you want to reach you could probably dial up the difficulty a little bit.  

[Shelley]

I am glad I will never share a road with you. Has to be one of the most dangerous things I have seen lately.

 

i couldn't concentrate on what you where saying with all the distracting background out of the windows and a fear that any moment now you were going to crash, most of the time you had only one hand on the steering wheel and because you were thinking about what you going to say I don't know how you could have been giving enough attention to the road.

 

As daofeishi says you are obviously comfortable in front of the camera. Put this to better use, in static situation you could have a means of showing some writing, pinyin and characters would be good. You could then add more things later.

 

Please be safe and go static.

[BrianYu]

Daofeishi: 

 

Thanks for mentioning I look comfortable in front of the camera. That's kind of hard for me to gauge myself. I definitely open up even more as the lessons progress. There's not much planning that goes into these, honestly. I just say a bunch of stuff for 40 minutes and edit it way down to 7 or 8. As far as the mic goes, in lesson 2 onward, I hold the mic throughout and don't let it sway. Thank you very much for letting me know about the clipping. I was aware of that, but didn't know if it was a big problem. I will definitely be mindful of volume control from now while filming and editing. And yes as far as the content, I do start off too easy- a whole lesson dedicated to just "hello" is moving a little too slow. I definitely jam more phrases into each video as the lessons go on, but you're completely right, I need to better figure out who exactly my target audience is. I encourage the viewer to comment and let me know what they would like to learn. That would be the best way for me to know how to plan out these lessons. 

 

Shelley: 

 

I appreciate your concerns for my safety! But rest assured I am super careful on the road. My eyes are always looking straight ahead, unless I'm stopped at a red light of course, then I engage more with the camera. I mention in the intro that I don't have any time at all during the day to make videos like these. The only pocket of time I get in my busy schedule is the drive to work in the morning. I'm usually at my most energetic and my head is the most clear. And also, the natural lighting that floods the inside of my car is something I could never achieve in my tiny, dark apartment. And part of the reason I enjoy making these videos in my car is because it feels a little more kinetic with the moving background. It was actually one way I wanted to separate myself a bit from the other videos out there which are usually more static. I thought about overlaying some pinyin or characters, I could easily do that over this footage as well, and it is something I will for sure explore in future lessons as they progress in difficulty. If I ever get a bigger space to record in, with great natural lighting, and more free time, I would definitely do more lessons from home. 

 

Thanks for the feedback Daofeishi and Shelley

[Shelley]

Well..... you could do in your car in a well lit, sunny car park, or by a river or other beautiful places, landmark buildings would work well too, you could incorporate it into your lessons.

[Flickserve]

I had a look at one of the lessons - lesson nine.

For me, I think there's too much English. You spend about two minutes (? or so) speaking English. That bored me. In fact, that's why a lot of Chinese learning material out there on the internet bore the pants off me. Their introductions or explanations are too long. I want to get stuck in there with the Chinese after about 30 seconds! When you actually got to the Chinese part, I think that was OK because you repeated it a few times and I didn't need to keep playing it back.

Plus, it's a bit boring just watching you drive. If you had a shot showing your environment, walking around, saying your are hungry (plus a few variations), ordering food, describing in simple terms about the dish, the sensory and learning experience and thus the interest to the viewer is just so much greater.

Or, if you are in the car and you are saying you are hungry, have a packet drink and a biscuit at hand, eat a bite at a stop. Then you can tell them phrases like, put the food in your mouth, what you are chewing, swallow, if you are full. It's quite common to teach people how to say I am hungry. How about "I am full"?.

The other points that the others said are also valid for me.

If you go walking around with a camera and filming simple real life conversations with objects around you (not scripts), I think that would be more appealing. The difficulty there is the sound quality of other people and controlling camera shake. When you do that, explain what the other person said and I think that would be great.

For example, I saw one video which had a native speaker being asked a question and he answered "big eyes" - 大眼睛。 In fact, I could not hear the '睛' at all． Although the translation was explained adequately, they missed out the the variation in this word. I showed the video to another native speaker explaining the what I couldn't hear (it's an easy word), and they said it's like an accent. variation.