MP3 listening resources

[Crivens200]

I wonder if anyone has come across any source of listening practice in mp3 form? My Chinese friends that are learning English seem to have an abundance of material in mp3 form to learn English but it seems not possible to find the equvalent for Chinese learners.

I know chinesepod has lots of downloads but to be honest even the lessons described as "intermediate" should really be termed "not beginner" as they are so simple and have lots of english spoken.

Previously I have converted tapes to mp3 but this a bit of a time consuming process. It would be good to buy some ready made mp3 files that accompany a text book.

Are the BLCU ting li books available in CD form rather than tape form? At least they could then be quickly converted to mp3.

[roddy]

To be honest, if I was producing Chinese learning material, I would do everything possible to stop it be converted to mp3. Some books do now have CDs available, but often they are simply taken direct from the tape, and you are lucky if the lessons have even been divided into tracks.

'Authentic' - ie not designed for learners materials - You might want to try looking on VeryCd.com for audio books - they're often quite poor quality, but still usable. There's also Listenworld, though last time I looked you had to pay via SMS - not sure they ever actualy took any of my money though. I also made a post a few weeks ago with links to Chinese language podcasts, but I'm on a very slow connection just now and can't find it for you.

[PollyWaffle]

i have about 10 textbooks worth of material converted from cassette to mp3... if enough people are interested i can upload a lesson a week including text to some webspace somewhere...

i don't think the world's worst violaters of international copyright law have the right to complain... not that i recognise international copyright law personally...

[in_lab]

Crivens200, you could download iTunes to download some Chinese podcasts, even if you don't have an ipod. I haven't had very good luck, generally, downloading podcasts from websites. They require registration, or the links or broken, or sites in China are too slow. So, iTunes is a fairly convenient way to download. Post about it f you find something interesting.

[kudra]

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showpost.php?p=48079&postcount=22

and

http://classes.yale.edu/chns130/

has lots of mp3

the full mp3 that goes with David and Helen

along with drills and other stuff.

[dougdu]

PollyWaffle,

I know a website you can upload your lessons to, the website is http://www.castpost.com

You can upload them and retrieve the link.

Doug

[woliveri]

If you search for sites they are out there. I found more than one source for the Integrated Chinese books and was able to download much more than I could absorb in a year's time (I guess). One, and the main source, was a college who had everything available for download.

Now I'm in China and I'm digitally recording all my classes (Main text, Speaking, Listening and Reading). I've been here 3 weeks and I have over a gig of material. My main purpose is to review the lecture again since they are speaking all in Chinese but I will have this as a library to refer to in the future.

[PollyWaffle]

I know a website you can upload your lessons to, the website is http://www.castpost.com

http://chinesetexts.castpost.com/

if enough people are interested i'll post more

[Shadowdh]

Many thanks Polly, I for one am very interested in more....

[anonymoose]

Thanks for the posts, PollyWaffle.

I found the PDF of the book especially useful, and would be very grateful if you can upload some more.

[HashiriKata]

PollyWaffle,

I second Shadowdh & anonymoose. More please!

(I see the audio for L2 but without the Text. I suppose it's coming?)

[in_lab]

I just listened to that lesson one, and it reminded of a friend's friend who did the same thing. She bought a really expensive pair of shoes and then tells her parents that she got them for a ridiculously low price, and everyone was happy.

[zenwizard]

Good stuff, thanks for posting your materials

Here is another site with mp3 podcast style learning.

http://blog.melnyks.com/

[snarfer]

Thanks PollyWaffle,

Now that you've started posting these recordings I will definitely be buying the book. Funny how that works...

[snarfer]

Castpost is kind of strange. I finally figured out that in order to download an mp3 instead of just streaming it with their weird player there is a direct url. something like:

http://chinesetexts.castpost.com/lesson_x.mp3

I don't know if anyone else was having this problem, but I thought I'd post the solution...

[dougdu]

Yes, of course there's a way to do this without streaming it to the internet.

You have to find your document you uploaded to castpost in XML format. I believe the button is an orange color on Castpost. Press it and grab the link inside the XML format. It's more faster than going directly to the website and streaming the lessons.