any good TV series recently?

[wensente]

 

 

The holy grail for me I think is to find good shows which also have "soft" subtitles (in Chinese) available, that is, a downloadable text file of subtitles. 

@realmayo, would you mind sharing with us which gems you have found (the combo mp4/srt files) and where we can download them? 锵锵三人行 doesn't appear to have subtitles at all.

[Luxi]

Realmayo, Viki may have heard you. They've just introduced a Beta Learners' Mode for browsers using html5. 

 

https://support.viki.com/hc/en-us/articles/231829048

 

I can't find Chinese videos with Learners' Mode enabled. Other than the three in the article above, none of the videos I tried were enabled. Hopefully they will be gradually, it seems a good idea. Every little bit helps.

[Yadang]

 

@realmayo, would you mind sharing with us which gems you have found (the combo mp4/srt files) and where we can download them? 锵锵三人行 doesn't appear to have subtitles at all.

 

Yeah, that would be great. Just yesterday I searched for hours trying to find Chinese subtitles for some of the best recommended tv shows and came up with almost nothing...

[dnevets]

Anyone still watching 中国式关系? I watched the final episode (36) last night. As you might expect there are a couple of dull-ish episodes in the middle, and some fairly odd ones too (the cow-rustling episode was a particular favourite), but everything comes together for a fairly satisfying ending. The bad guy, Luo Shi Feng, is suitably bad, which helps to keep things interesting.

[Guest realmayo]

@realmayo, would you mind sharing with us which gems you have found

 

wensente, sorry, just saw this ... unfortunately I haven't found this particular holy grail yet ...

 

... although thanks for the tip Luxi, I guess that means there will be a handful of viki series with Chinese subtitles ... but annoyingly I don't see any way to rip them out of the browser.

 

Anyone still watching 中国式关系?

 

I stopped after around 10 episodes. Have got much further with 嫁个老公过日子 which I'll finish, it's relatively enjoyable.

[eslang]

... although thanks for the tip Luxi, I guess that means there will be a handful of viki series with Chinese subtitles ... but annoyingly I don't see any way to rip them out of the browser.

 

Only some of the Chinese dramas have "soft-subtitles"

https://www.viki.com/explore?language=zh&country=china&type=series

 

[Request] How can I rip Viki subtitles?

http://forum.koohii.com/thread-11722-post-233614.html#pid233614

[Guest realmayo]

Thanks eslang, but most of those don't really have Chinese subtitles, perhaps just 10% of the episode (i.e. the theme tune is subtitled, I suspect).

[eslang]

Most of the Chinese dramas that I have seen online usually have Chinese "hard-subtitles" embedded into the video. 

 

I am not sure about the other dramas because I am looking for those with Japanese (translated) subtitles:

The Lost Tomb - 盗墓笔记 (about 2% Japanese subs for episode 10 but episode 1-9 looks quite complete)
My Sunshine (Director's Cut) - 何以笙箫默 (4 episodes complete)

 

These two dramas above have Chinese "soft subtitles", English language as well as other foreign languages.

[Yadang]

I've made some Subs2SRS decks for the first episode of each of the three shows (My Sunshine, The Lost Tomb, My Best Ex-Boyfriend) listed in the Viki link in Luxi's post (scroll down to "TV Shows").

 

 

I guess that means there will be a handful of viki series with Chinese subtitles ... but annoyingly I don't see any way to rip them out of the browser

 

I forget what I used for the video (I just googled "Viki download video" or something), but http://downsub.com/ works really well for getting the subtitles right off of Viki. It allows you to pick which language(s) to download, and even shows the % completion.

 

 

 

Most of the Chinese dramas that I have seen online usually have Chinese "hard-subtitles" embedded into the video.

 

If the soft-subs can be found from a different source, this isn't a problem (at least if what you're looking to do is make flashcards). Subs2SRS allows you to trim off the bottom of the movie when making flashcards. 

[baihua]

I discovered 变形计 which I think is a really exemplary TV show with a good moral tone. It's run its course now. They tend to swap a rich prat with someone in one of the poorer regions, and thus the consequences are quite humbling for all concerned. Lots of regional dialects, and sometimes 少数民族

Recently I encountered 大声说出来. It goes out five times a week here. Partners, ex's or sometimes even family members go on the show to air their differences to an audience and 4 experts.

中国成语大会 is a 成语 competition programme, but the ones I saw were unsubbed. I think long-term I would be interested in returning to this programme.

Purely personal, I will pretty much watch anything with 马苏 in except period dramas. I liked 我的美丽人生 and 北京青年, though the latter did get silly in places. I started transcribing 我的美丽人生 because the show is only 28 episodes, but it's a work in progress.

[wensente]

I know this has been discussed before, but 世界青年说 is a gem for upper intermediate learners. The topics are light hearted, silly and easy to follow. Because the panel is composed of non native speakers the vocabulary and grammar structures they use are both simple and intuitive. I'm at about an HSK5 level and I understand 90% of the dialogue.  I understand less than 50% of a similar show with native Chinese speakers. 

 

The second season is not as enjoyable as the first (the presenter yushasha is extremely annoying and they added a Japanese guy who speaks pretty bad Chinese to poke fun at, poor guy) but it remains extremely useful, tolerable and motivating (to get to their levels). 

 

I wonder if any English speaking country has mimicked this concept for English.

[Angelina]

English speaking countries have excellent TV. Obviously, not all English-language TV is good, but there is a lot of good quality you don't even have to try to find, it is just there.

世界青年说 is a sad copy of a Korean TV show. I remember I once had lunch with David (from 世界青年说), mean no offense, but things are the way they are.

[wensente]

What don't you like about it? Dawei is the russian guy right, not my favorite, but pretty cool you had lunch with him!

[zander1]

Does anyone have any recommendations of anything like 欢乐颂？ i.e. relatively new, modern setting (I find anything set in the past too hard to understand currently), and actually alright TV and not a reality show or talk show( I am really enjoying Ode to Joy but will finish it soon). Preferably mainland China, but Taiwanese is also fine.

 

Thanks!

[iekkim]

I really liked watching  他来了请闭眼 (especially because of Wallace Huo, I had a crush on him when I was younger when I saw him in Dolphin Bay and Westside Story) and another TV show from the same author,  如果蜗牛有爱情 . The shows were so thrilling (他来了请闭眼) and was a bit cute (如果蜗牛有爱情) and I really enjoyed these crime-themed shows. 他来了请闭眼 reminded me of criminal minds! Both shows had  王凯.

 

I'm looking into watching those grave robber shows like the movie I recently watched,  盗墓笔记 .

[JeroenB]

If anyone here likes to watch animated shows, I highly recommend 全职高手. It's based on an online novel named the same. The show is about a professional online gamer who gets kicked out of his team and starts to work as a manager at an internet cafe, meanwhile trying to get back as a pro player. It has many funny interactions between the characters, often using online slang.

 

A new episode with both English and Chinese subtitles is released each Friday on the Tencent Video channel on YouTube. Or, if you prefer a version without English subtitles (or can't access YouTube in China), you can find it on v.qq.com.

[艾墨本]

Thanks for the recommendation @JeroenB. I watched the first few episodes and enjoyed learning the language in it and I like this overall flavor of it but not really the topic. The whole glorified gaming/gamer doesn't really interest me. Do you have any other Chinese anime that you like? Something similar to this would be great.

[Wurstmann]

I might already have mentioned it before, but 最好的我们 is really good. 灵魂摆渡 is fun too and has 3 seasons, I think. 

[AaronUK]

It's taiwanese but I quite enjoyed 两个爸爸 two fathers

[JeroenB]

10 hours ago, 艾墨本 said:

Do you have any other Chinese anime that you like? Something similar to this would be great.

Unfortunately not, this is the first Chinese anime I watched. If you come across anything, be sure to let us know.