Daily news with subtitles/transcript?

[Badger]

I have been trying to listen to news on YouTube daily. Learned Chinese for 8 years pretty seriously, and it still bugs me that I can’t watch Chinese News relaxed, and often can’t understand some sentences due to speed/formality. 
 

Anyone know of any news network that releases subtitles or transcripts after? Would increase learning efficiency. I watch 东方 news on YouTube, it’s great but as usual with news, no subs. Cheers

[889]

TVB's nightly 普通话 news broadcast is subtitled in Chinese. You can watch it every day on YouTube.

 

https://youtu.be/1cdBQFuUmI4

 

(From 03:46 the unbelievably disgraceful way elderly Covid patients are being bedded outside in the cold.)

[phills]

Any with soft subs?  Meaning that you can click the CC button.  That way you can download the transcript. 

 

The TVB one doesn't have soft subs.

[Badger]

@889Thanks! Almost what I am looking for, but unfortunately this is a HK broadcast and mixes in a lot of 粤语 and some not super 标准 (aka hk style) mandarin. Probably not the best source to focus in on as my daily news content. Otherwise perfect. 

[889]

I actually prefer it because nobody really talks in real life like the super 标准 CCTV anchors and the content isn't quite as boringly super orthodox as the Mainland news.

 

I've often thought that if anything could kill your interest in China and Chinese, it's watching 新闻联播 night after night!

[Flickserve]

On 2/21/2022 at 6:30 PM, 889 said:

if anything could kill your interest in China and Chinese, it's watching 新闻联播 night after night

 

True!

[Badger]

@889 haha hmm I am weird, I love watching Chinese news. Since my primary purpose of watching is too learn though, I'd just rather not learn some of the bad habits of the HK newscaster. I showed it to my mainland friend and they said they spoke not very 地道 for a mainlander (HK mandarin and dalu a bit different) and mixed in a bunch of Cantonese. But maybe I'll mix it in once in a while, just maybe not suitable as the main source to learn from. Great suggestion.

[qingci]

On 2/21/2022 at 4:55 AM, phills said:

Any with soft subs?  Meaning that you can click the CC button.  That way you can download the transcript. 

 

The TVB one doesn't have soft subs.

 

A semi-cumbersome way of doing this is to watch the broadcast with subtitles on using a laptop or tablet and then, with a smartphone or another tablet, use the image translator on the Google Translate app aimed at the subtitles. I did this for a few minutes with the video set to 50% speed so the app could keep up, and it more or less made sense. However, sometimes the camera loses focus and you have to move it around.

 

This is really not a way of learning the language though...it's really just to find out what's going on because it's difficult to translate and also listen to what the news reader is saying.  There's probably easier ways to do get the news unless it's a crisis.

[889]

You may as well freeze frame it and make your own transcript. Nothing like writing something down to help remember it.

 

[phills]

On 2/24/2022 at 6:34 AM, 889 said:

You may as well freeze frame it and make your own transcript. Nothing like writing something down to help remember it.

 

That's way too much work.  That's more useful as a motivation to get better at listening so I can avoid relying on subtitles altogether  

 

I'm not that far away from it already.  I'm using subtitles to try to pick up that stubborn last 10% that refuses to be easily understood.  Having soft CC helps me zero in more on that, but just glancing away / occasionally missing some of the content will also do the trick.

 

I don't type Chinese at anywhere near the rate where I can take notes in Chinese in real time.  I barely can type Chinese at all, just mainly spelling out pinyin and picking slowly from a list.  Or cut and pasting from something someone else wrote.

[becky82]

YouTube allows you to "filter" search results, and one of the possible filters is "subtitles" (see screenshot).  So if you search for news 新闻 (using the Chinese word), and filter 过滤 for subtitles 字幕, you can find news with subtitles.  Sometimes the subtitles it finds are English, so you might have to use a bit of trial and error.  In this way, you can find BBK Network (which I think is Malaysian), which has multiple such videos, such as this one about the current turmoil in Ukraine.

 

In this way, you can also verify that there aren't many options for Chinese-soft-subtitled Chinese news YouTube videos.

[TheBigZaboon]

So someone else has finally discovered my secret hiding place. I often listen to self-styled "Mandarin" radio stations from peninsula Malaysia, Sarawak, Kalimantan, and the bigger Indonesian cities. They seem to recognize that their listener base does not always have a lot of native Mandarin speakers, and so adjust their speaking habits accordingly. News programs are generally pretty standard. But call-in speakers and guests will often have some hilarious accents that leave me feeling better about my p*** poor pronunciation, so listening is always an adventure, and certainly lots of fun.

 

Just my two rupiah...

 

TBZ

[TheBigZaboon]

NEXT TV 台电视 (sorry I don't have Taiwanese 繁体字enabled right now) is a very nice app, only limited by the fact that because it's from a Taiwanese TV station, it's only available in full form characters. It's a full scale app dedicated to this one TV station, so in addition to news, it also has entertainment and live streaming in a full-featured, easy-to-use format. Rather than separate transcripts, the transcript of the individual news items are an integral part of the presentation. Don't expect BBC or VOA self serving gravitas, after all, it is a local TV station. But it's more than you could ever use in a lifetime of self study (admittedly of Taiwanese Mandarin).

 

You're welcome...

 

TBZ

[TheBigZaboon]

Sorry to keep interrupting, but I realized that I didn't tell anyone how to get the apps I mentioned in my two previous posts.

 

I never realized that half the world seems to use the name "NEXT TV" in some form or another. If you put it in a search engine, you'll probably get an Israeli station and some station from I don't know where that uses Cyrillic script. So be sure to put in "NEXT TV Taiwan" as your search term, and you'll get lotsa stuff about not only the app I mentioned, but also You Tube references for the same station.

 

For the radio stations, in the Android app store, look for "myTuner Free," or any other streaming radio app, and then use the search features for Chinese as the language, followed by any city in South East Asia that will have a substantial Chinese minority (hint: Sarawak, Sabah, Selangor, Medan, Bandung, Kuala Lumpur, etc.).

 

Makes ya feel like you're really living the life of a freewheeling adventurer in the most exotic and faraway places imaginable, don't it...!?!?!?

 

Enjoy...

 

TBZ

[markhavemann]

the CCTV used to have this, with the video on top and transcripts on the bottom. 

 

You can see at this link: 

http://tv.cctv.com/2019/04/23/VIDEOxRgjf7e4JBRXnXzcfo3190423.shtml

 

unfortunately it seems like their website has changed and I can't find a daily summary. But if you look at this news peice:

https://tv.cctv.com/2022/03/02/VIDE1J0WQGVxyxpeYGPaNFrz220302.shtml?spm=C31267.PXDaChrrDGdt.EbD5Beq0unIQ.7

you will see it has transcripts below. I guess it's just what's on the teleprompter. 

 

https://tv.cctv.com/lm/xwlb/?spm=C94212.P4YnMod9m2uD.EfOoEZcMXuiv.1

You can go to this page (the news for the day) and click through the videos below. Some have transcripts and some don't. 

 

[abcdefg]

On 3/2/2022 at 11:41 PM, markhavemann said:

https://tv.cctv.com/lm/xwlb/?spm=C94212.P4YnMod9m2uD.EfOoEZcMXuiv.1

You can go to this page (the news for the day) and click through the videos below...

 

I no longer watch the CCTV evening news regularly like I did when living in China. Reviewing several of these clips reminds me of how important it is for the presenter to work in the leader's name several times in the opening minutes of each segment. Doubt that was just coincidence. 

[markhavemann]

On 3/3/2022 at 9:13 PM, abcdefg said:

I no longer watch the CCTV evening news regularly like I did when living in China. Reviewing several of these clips reminds me of how important it is for the presenter to work in the leader's name several times in the opening minutes of each segment. Doubt that was just coincidence. 

Many of the stories are about policy changes, government meetings or important national events, it wouldn't surprise me if the president of the country is mentioned since he sort of heads these things. "Biden" shows up three times on the CNN home page today, doubt that was just coincidence... since he's the president of the US and it's a US news site.

 

Having a look at the 国内联播快讯 (daily national news summary, link below) for yesterday, it doesn't look like 习近平 or 习 is mentioned even once. Definitely CCTV news is a different style to western news, but I don't think it's quite fair to say that it's just an endless string of 习近平's. 

 

Usually I'd go for the 国际联播快讯 (also linked below) which is a quick summary of international news. It's short and less dry than some of the other stuff, and for entertainment there's the occassional stab at the US. 

 

国内联播快讯

https://tv.cctv.com/2022/03/03/VIDE8D3fuNVNKlPIg7yO5L8d220303.shtml?spm=C31267.PXDaChrrDGdt.EbD5Beq0unIQ.35

 

国际联播快讯

https://tv.cctv.com/2022/03/03/VIDEZclNYGzSyRGwT2jrpqoP220303.shtml?spm=C31267.PXDaChrrDGdt.EbD5Beq0unIQ.43

[abcdefg]

On 3/3/2022 at 6:25 PM, markhavemann said:

Many of the stories are about policy changes, government meetings or important national events, it wouldn't surprise me if the president of the country is mentioned since he sort of heads these things. "Biden" shows up three times on the CNN home page today, doubt that was just coincidence... since he's the president of the US and it's a US news site....Definitely CCTV news is a different style to western news, but I don't think it's quite fair to say that it's just an endless string of 习近平's.  

 

Yes, I think you are right. I had not carefully thought through my comment. 

[TheBigZaboon]

I dunno, I kinda thought you were right on target. Although there are those who might say that opposing viewpoints, the existence of real opposition parties, and dissent of any kind are actually vastly overrated...

 

Again, just my snarky two 块钱...

 

TBZ

[Guest realmayo]

I'm sure there is some kind of sensible running order that means the #1 story of the day should almost always be what Xi did, and in any other story it makes sense to lead with what his views are on the matter.