Chinese Podcast - Chinese Culture in Chinese

[Chinese Colloquialised]

Hello,

 

I created a podcast series aimed at intermediate to advanced learners who want to listen to more spoken Chinese to improve or become more used to pronunciation and sentence structures. Along with each podcast episode, I also set out the script (in simplified Chinese and pinyin) for that episode on my website (https://chinesecolloquialised.com/). 

 

The podcast episodes are under the name "Chinese Colloquialised", which can be found on most major podcast platforms (e.g. Apple Podcast / Google Podcast / Spotify / Overcast/ etc). 

 

If there are any intermediate to advanced learners, I would be keen to hear your thoughts on the podcast. Particularly: 

 

1. Is it helpful? 
2. Is it too easy or too difficult?
3. Do you find the episodes interesting? 
4. Any other thoughts, whether it's positive compliments or constructive criticism.

 

Thank you and best wishes, 

Kaycee

 

[abcdefg]

I think it's terrific @Kaycee! Thank you very much! 

 

I listened to the podcast about the First Opium War (number 16). Your voice is clear, the pace is comfortable, and the audio quality is superb. (I listened on my laptop, not on my phone.) The content was interesting and the presentation was well thought out. It's helpful to have the written transcription.

 

Will confess that I found my attention wandering at about the 10 minute mark and had to take a break. Probably best not to make these podcasts too long. 

 

The mission statement is succinct and the project should prove useful to lots of students. I always complain that it seems like so many new tools are aimed at beginners. This one fills a niche for intermediate learners very well. Bravo for that!

 

Quote

I endeavour to give you, Chinese students, the option to step into such an ecosystem to bridge the gap between beginner level and higher level Chinese without having to fly to the other side of the world.

 

Five stars from me! Keep up the good work! 

 

 

[Moki]

16 hours ago, Chinese Colloquialised said:

Is it too easy or too difficult?

 

For intermediate learners the speed may be just right, but it could feel a bit slow to advanced learners. Personally I think it's never too early to start listing to native speed materials, especially since you are providing the script. If its too much I wouldn't worry about it, its good content and a nice resource already, but if you are looking to improve it sitting down to do sessions like you have plus a native speed version in my opinion would make it even more valuable for learnings.

[Jan Finster]

This is great.

 

Do not change anything! Just add more episodes

[roddy]

What do people think about the pinyin transcripts? My view is that a) anyone listening at this level won't need the pinyin too much, and b) everyone has a dictionary or a plug-in or something to find the pinyin when they need it. But others may disagree. 

 

What I would add: at the top of the page, key vocab for that podcast (and the pinyin would be useful here). So for the coronavirus one, 新冠状病毒, 疫情, 量体温 etc. 

 

Good luck with this. I'm not a podcast listener myself, but you've already got a couple of fans. 

[Dlezcano]

I think this is a great project and I look forward for listening more. The themes chosen are very interesting and the level is fine. Some suggestions:

I would say you could combine shorter chapters (less than 5 minutes) with longer ones (about 10 minutes).

On the other hand, searching for older chapters looks a little cumbersome since the text of the headings is so big.

The pinyin is't necessary for this level of Chinese, but maybe it would be more helpful for some learners explaining the meaning the most important words in the context.

Please keep on working on it!

[abcdefg]

I agree that the Pinyin is unnecessary. 

 

@Moki

Quote

 Personally I think it's never too early to start listing to native speed materials, especially since you are providing the script. If its too much I wouldn't worry about it, its good content and a nice resource already, but if you are looking to improve it sitting down to do sessions like you have plus a native speed version in my opinion would make it even more valuable for learnings.

 

I thought it was native speed. Was I mistaken? Some CCTV newscasters talk at a relaxed pace and others race through the material. I always figured that was just a matter of personal style. I didn't get the impression that @Kaycee was consciously slowing down to make things easier for us, but it could just be true for the 3 or 4 podcasts I sampled. 

 

I speak slower English here in Texas than someone from Massachusetts or New York. Especially true when I'm trying to communicate a difficult concept to a stranger instead of just shooting the breeze with a close friend. 

 

[Moki]

1 hour ago, abcdefg said:

Some CCTV newscasters talk at a relaxed pace and others race through the material. I always figured that was just a matter of personal style. I didn't get the impression that @Kaycee was consciously slowing down to make things easier for us, but it could just be true for the 3 or 4 podcasts I sampled. 

Thats a good point, I only listened to the virus related interview with her mom I think and it certainly wasn't what I would call extremely slow, but to me there seemed to be clear pauses and spaces between words and sentences that wouldn't otherwise be there. Part of it maybe is just because they are reading the script and trying to pace themselves, but it felt like they were doing it intentionally for the listeners. The dialogues and conversations in podcasts I've listened to are all faster and don't have those pauses. 

[feihong]

1 hour ago, abcdefg said:

 

I thought it was native speed. Was I mistaken? Some CCTV newscasters talk at a relaxed pace and others race through the material. I always figured that was just a matter of personal style. I didn't get the impression that @Kaycee was consciously slowing down to make things easier for us, but it could just be true for the 3 or 4 podcasts I sampled. 

It’s definitely slower. Using 故事FM as a reference, many of the storytellers speak slower because they aren’t professional speakers. But the speaking speed here is even slower. I suspect that even if you sped it up 2x it would still be understandable to a native speaker. But most podcast software now lets you speed up the audio by 1.5x or 2x, so advanced listeners who find it too slow can try that.

[Chinese Colloquialised]

Wow, I cannot express enough of my gratitude for the comments. They are both encouraging and constructive, thank you so much everyone! 

 

@abcdefg - I do agree and think that 10 minutes might be a tad too long but there are so many podcasts out there that are 30 minutes or so, I thought it was my short attention span that was the problem! I will keep these short and sweet going forward ?.

 

@Moki @feihong - Thank you for your comments. Regarding the speed, I wasn't deliberately trying to slow down. As @abcdefg commented, I think it's very much my personal broadcasting style (albeit, at times, somewhat inconsistent). 

 

@Jan Finster - Thank you!! 

 

@roddy @Dlezcano - The pinyin was a request from a listener, which I thought was a good idea in case people wanted a quicker reference point than googling/searching. But I do agree that it makes the page look rather chunky. I will work on a solution for this. @Dlezcano - glad to hear that you like it!  @roddy - Having key vocabs at the top of the page is a great idea, I will try to incorporate this in the future - thank you! 

 

Thanks again, everyone. If there are any topics you'd be interested to listen to, let me know! ?

[abcdefg]

I defer to the opinions of those who know more than I do, such as @feihong and @Moki above. But for purely selfish reasons, I hope that @Kaycee continues to make at least some of the future podcasts at this same relaxed, comfortable speed because they are just right for me. This pace lets me focus on the subject matter and not have to struggle with the language. Makes for a more enjoyable listen. 

 

Would be interested in hearing the opinion of the author as to whether she was consciously "dumbing down" the material and/or slowing down the reading speed for us foreigners. @Chinese Colloquialised -- what do you say? It's time for you to enter the discussion (please.) 

[jannesan]

First of all, thanks for the great resource! Listened to the first 3 episodes and really liked them.

 

4 hours ago, Chinese Colloquialised said:

I do agree and think that 10 minutes might be a tad too long but there are so many podcasts out there that are 30 minutes or so, I thought it was my short attention span that was the problem! I will keep these short and sweet going forward ?.

 

I for one, wouldn't mind longer episodes at all, maybe you can just mix them up, have multiple categories:)

[imron]

Regarding speed, I did a quick analysis of one of the podcasts, and average speed was ~220-230 characters per minute.

 

From memory, average speaking speed of a native speaker is around 250 cpm, and newsreaders will read at ~300cpm.  I think the speed of these podcasts is within the range of native speed.  Compare it for example to a politician giving a speech.  That will usually be slower than the OP

[大块头]

14 minutes ago, imron said:

average speaking speed of a native speaker is around 250 cpm

 

255±29 CPM

[imron]

Nice find.

 

I was about to comment that this appears to be testing reading speed not speaking, but then kept reading and found

 

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The texts were printed in the same format as described above for the pilot study and were read aloud at a distance of 40 cm

 

So I think it's a reasonable comparison, especially as OP is likely reading from a script while recording.

[Chinese Colloquialised]

 

18 hours ago, abcdefg said:

@Chinese Colloquialised -- what do you say? It's time for you to enter the discussion (please.) 

 

@abcdefg - apologies for my late entry, it took so long for my message to be approved! 

 

@imron @大块头 - thank you, both. Lots of new information learned! I wonder if President Xi's New Year speech is at a similar speed to the Queen (of the UK)'s Christmas speed.... 

[abcdefg]

4 hours ago, Chinese Colloquialised said:

I wonder if President Xi's New Year speech is at a similar speed to the Queen (of the UK)'s Christmas speech.... 

 

Interesting thought! 

 

As you can see, you now have a grateful following here on this forum. I have now had a chance to listen to several more of your podcasts. Excellent! Have mentioned them to a couple of friends. Keep up the good work!

[imron]

10 hours ago, Chinese Colloquialised said:

I wonder if President Xi's New Year speech is at a similar speed to the Queen

It's not just President Xi though - my initial memory was of a speech by Wen Jiabao (former premier) where I recalled he spoke quite slowly and clearly.  Then I figured it'd be more relevant to find something a bit more recent, so searched for a speech by Xi instead.

[luc9999]

Excellent really good podcast, please upload to Stitcher too if you could (can easily set it up once and forget about it instructions here :  https://support.sounder.fm/article/7-how-to-add-your-rss-to-stitcher

Can't access the others easily as in China... on Ximalaya would be so helpful too

 

[Chinese Colloquialised]

@luc9999 - thank you for your message and suggestion. Glad you enjoy it! It's now linked to Stitcher but may take up to 2 weeks for it to show up. Ximalaya is a little bit more tricky as I'm unable to create an account with my UK number - let me work on this.