What are your online resources for learning Chinese?

[Guest]

Hey! What are your online resources for learning Chinese? What podcast, show, channel are you using to keep your Chinese at a certain level. I recently discovered a TV program broadcast on CCTV-1 called 生活提示 Shenghuo tishi (Daily Tips) where everyday topics are discussed.

[Jan Finster]

One word: Youtube!

 

It is not one channel, podcast or programme, but it is the mix of sources that make this fun. I cannot believe how awesome Youtube has become for language learners. You can find virtually any HSK grammar point explained by several sources, there are tons of different podcasts, channels, etc.

 

 

[Woodford]

On 6/27/2022 at 11:16 AM, Jan Finster said:

One word: Youtube!

 

Ha! I came here to say this, and I see that you already said it.  

 

I feel like the Chinese content on YouTube is getting better all the time. A lot of great, well-produced stuff. I sometimes wonder how that's possible, seeing that YouTube is blocked by the Great Firewall. They just use VPN? They register with the government? Or the government doesn't care or enforce stuff? Anyway, I enjoy the convenience of navigating an American site to find these channels.

 

I like "56BelowTV 零下56" because of its interviews with a whole range of people from every kind of background. It's actually about Chinese people who emigrated to Canada (which is irrelevant to me, because I'm not a Chinese person emigrating to Canada). Some of them regret their decision and want to go home, while others love it. I still find it interesting, and it has "soft" simplified subtitles.

李永乐老师 is just a fun STEM education channel for me. I like his delivery and his personality a lot, and can't really articulate why. The soft subtitles and his use of the chalkboard make him easy to understand for me (although he does talk really fast).

 

I like "小Lin说" for its reporting on Silicon Valley (she lives in California). She's quite challenging for me, and her mannerisms are...extremely lively. She does fun mini-documentaries about major fraud cases, like Enron, Elizabeth Holmes, Bernie Madoff, etc.

 

小叔TV is a popular one around here, of course. I like getting a tour of Chinese cities from him, and his speech is nice and simple.

 

Feng's Music Channel is where I learn about the theory behind popular and classical music. His enthusiasm is contagious.

贤宝宝 is more of a guilty pleasure for me. Silly Gen-Z humor (I'm a little older--in the millennial generation).

He doesn't talk too much (so it's probably not great for language learning), but "手工耿Handy Geng" is fun to watch. He can build any crazy machine in his garage.

 

 

[abcdefg]

On 6/27/2022 at 4:08 PM, Woodford said:

I like "小Lin说" for its reporting on Silicon Valley (she lives in California). She's quite challenging for me, and her mannerisms are...extremely lively. She does fun mini-documentaries about major fraud cases, like Enron, Elizabeth Holmes, Bernie Madoff, etc.

-------------- 

I like her too. Must admit that I have to be on my toes to understand her rapid, sophisticated speech. Interesting choice of topics. She's just so damned bright! I would like to surround myself with people like her. (At least part of the time; 24/7 would be exhausting.)

 

One of the great things about YouTube as a learning resource is that you can find something suitable at any level of language proficiency and you can find a variety of topics that will hold your interest, over a fairly diverse range of topics. 

 

[TheBigZaboon]

I mentioned this before in another thread, but as you have studied in Taiwan and might want to pass that experience along to others, a Taiwanese channel would be nice.

 

It's called NEXT TV in English, and 台电视 (in 繁体字) in Chinese. It's available in the Google app store, so if you're using a newer phone or tablet from the big companies in China like Huawei, you might have to side-load it. But if you're using an older Huawei etc., tablet or phone, Google stuff still works if it was on your device when you bought it.

I'm blissfully ignorant of what's available from the Apple Empire, but I can't see this not being available somehow.

 

It's a mainly TV news channel, with a number of categories usually found on a news channel: local news, international news, human interest, entertainment, etc. And because it's from Taiwan, the news isn't totally censored like it is in news originally from "you-know-where." There's even a streaming section for a live-stream of the current broadcast. I've never tried fancy stuff like downloading segments or stories, but as they're available for an unknown (to me) period of time, repeat viewing is easy.

 

I like it, and it is an extremely good fit with the iclp news and current affairs materials. Just sayin'...

 

TBZ

[TheBigZaboon]

Apropos of nothing but a previous couple of posts, 小Lin说 publishes some of her stuff on DVDs, if you're lucky enough to come across them. I have one on the Chinese space program that she did consisting of interviews with a really seminal figure responsible for some of the most important advances that put China in the international space race. 

 

Good hunting...

 

TBZ

[pon00050]

I am also a fan of 小Lin说.

I am looking for more channels like her channel now that I went through most of her videos.

By that, I mean I generated transcripts for her videos and identified the expressions that I'd like to review using Anki.

 

Does anyone have any recommendations for something that resembles her channel?

[Jan Finster]

Crazy thing is, none of us will likely ever find all the thousands of super small, btu valuable Chinese channels, because Youtube favours the popular ones.

 

Here are some channels I only found, because I clicked on the name of some people, who commented on a more popular YT video:

https://www.youtube.com/user/zhongshandl1/videos

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNVTO7pqo8tKHzBN30lQStA