Easy to follow soap operas in Mandarin (with subtitles)

[atitarev]

Guys, could you give me a title or two of an easy to understand (from your point of view), decent (watchable by a family) Chinese soap opera in Mandarin. Everybody says they are good for practising listening skills. I'd prefer one with dual subtitles, if possible (Mandarin and English).

I'll check in our Chinatown DVD libraries/shops.

My listening skills are still low, although I covered a few beginner's textbooks, maybe it will give me a boost.

[wai ming]

I know you specifically asked for soap operas, but perhaps you might consider some cartoons (even if they are quite childish )?

For example, lately I've been watching Chinese-dubbed-and-subtitled Doraemon (aka 机器猫). The language is pretty simple, as you would expect, without being 2-word sentences, and the pronunciation is pretty clear (I can't say the same for Crayon Sin-Chan 蜡笔小新 though ). The episodes are also quite short, which makes repeating them for language-learning purposes a lot more feasible. They're usually available in Chinatown video/dvd shops too.

The only drawbacks are you might not enjoy watching something so childish (as I do ) and they're unlikely to have English subtitles, although they almost always have Chinese subs.

[skylee]

I love Doraemon (it was called 叮噹 when I was a kid). And I dreamed of eating that textbook-copying bread every time I had to take an exam.

[atitarev]

Thanks for the advise, guys.I recorded the Chinese name. Will check the stores in our chinatown. I actually learned some Japanese using anime's (cartoons).

[wai ming]

Yes, Skylee is right, Doraemon is usually known as 小叮当 in Chinese.

[roddy]

Atitarev - I can't remember if you joined us in watching Chinese-Style Divorce, but I'd recommend starting there if you didn't. Otherwise, there are a couple of other suggestions in the original topic

Everyone else: I used to confiscate Doraemon comics from the kids I used to teach, and then read them while they were working. I've only ever seen him called 机器猫, or some transliteration of Doraemon, which I think was 多来梦.

[geraldc]

Ding Dong is Doraemon's Cantonese name

[PollyWaffle]

the pronunciation is pretty clear (I can't say the same for Crayon Sin-Chan 蜡笔小新

funny, i find the characters in the crayon kid much easier to understand than 机器猫's funny retarded voices

[Ferno]

I know you specifically asked for soap operas' date=' but perhaps you might consider some cartoons (even if they are quite childish )?

For example, lately I've been watching Chinese-dubbed-and-subtitled Doraemon (aka 机器猫). The language is pretty simple, as you would expect, without being 2-word sentences, and the pronunciation is pretty clear (I can't say the same for Crayon Sin-Chan 蜡笔小新 though ). The episodes are also quite short, which makes repeating them for language-learning purposes a lot more feasible. They're usually available in Chinatown video/dvd shops too.

The only drawbacks are you might not enjoy watching something so childish (as I do ) and they're unlikely to have English subtitles, although they almost always have Chinese subs.[/quote']

so.... is this for people who are already proficient at reading Chinese but aren't good at listening to spoken Mandarin?

[Quest]

Ding Dong is Doraemon's Cantonese name

It was the name in Mandarin too. CCTV (when it was still one channel) used to show it every sunday. Few years ago someone decided that it must be called 多拉A梦.... now it's 多拉A梦 everywhere. I prefer 叮当, 多拉A梦 sounds so foreign.

[geraldc]

I never read Doraemon comics, I used to read 老夫子 comics, and you didn't even need to be able to read to understand them, I guess that explained the illiteracy of my youth

[youpii]

I like Crayon Sin-Chan 蜡笔小新, I think it's a very good listening exercice

and it's easy to find on DVD

[honeybums]

The drama that got me interested in Chinese. The soap opera that took the whole South East Asia "Meteor Garden" 流星花園 its came from a japanese manga that the taiwanese made into a drama 18 episodes.

[lpascoe]

You can get Meteor Garden on DVD from YesAsia with both English and Chinese subtitles. I liked a lot, but it's got a lot of slang.

[DrZero]

Maybe I'm in the wrong thread, but where could I get Chinese Style Divorce? And are there transcripts online? Thanks a lot.

[imron]

See this thread for details of how to get Chinese Style Divorce, and this thread for a discussion about transcripts.

[DrZero]

Great ... thanks Imron

[renzhe]

So I guess the idea of group watching soap operas is not alive anymore?

Right now, after finishing "hao xiang tan lian ai", I'm watching "zhang san", a terrible drunken-master gongfu popcorn nonsense. It's terrible, but it's easy watching and relatively easy to follow...

[DrZero]

I'm up for it. I'm thinking of either Chinese-Style Divorce or Ban Sheng Yuan. I do not have the former, but I do have the latter on DVD. But I don't have transcripts for it.

I need to improve my listening.

[here2learn]

I've been watching a funny series called　“寻夫记：我爱芙蓉姐”。

I bought the dvd's here in china, a set of two, and each one has maybe (6) 1-hour episodes. There are no english subtitles, but of course it has hanzi subtitles. I think it's way easier to understand than Doreamon or other cartoons. Frankly I think cartoons speak too quickly! And sometimes the subject matter is not very useful if it's a cartoon about fighting or super-powers or mythical things.

This series is about a woman and her mother-in-law, presumably from a rural area, who go to the city to find the woman's husband. It's cute because they don't understand some modern things like how to use a cellphone, and their social skills aren't quite city-like. They're a bit bumbling. The other characters are modern and normal, either trying to help them, trying to hide from them, or otherwise getting mixed up in their escapades...

The vocabulary is about normal life - in fact the first episode talks about finding her husband.. let's take a taxi... we don't have much money... where is this address... he's moved... new address.... phone number... oh sorry, it's my fault... no we don't want your money, no take it, no you take it... what's in your bag miss? peanuts, haha... would you like some peanuts?.... Oh no it's raining, where will we go?...

Of course there's more to it than that, and I didn't understand every word at first, and still don't. I've watched most of the episodes once through (though often as background noise while I'm online) but I'm really just watching the first 2-3 episodes over & over so I can absorb them. I now understand about 70% of the first episode, 50% of the 2nd/3rd, and 10-40% of the later episodes that I only watched once.

At first I knew some things should be funny but I didn't know why, Now after the 4-5th time or so, I realized I'm laughing at something new each time I watch it... I'm really enjoying it.