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Anyone got good Mandarin content to recommend? Have a goal to be fluent by 40... Am watching Three Body but the dialogue is sometimes a little tricky to follow

Anyone got good Mandarin content to recommend? Have a goal to be fluent by 40... Am watching Three Body but the dialogue is sometimes a little tricky to follow. When I think about how I assimilated Japanese from Anime, the reason it's so doable (IMO) is that the language used is reasonably straightforward and they actually talk quite slowly. I found this once you watch movies in Japanese and noticed it was harder to pick out what people were saying.

insomagent 3y ago
I live in Taiwan, I've been learning Mandarin for 8 years and use it daily. I kind of can't stand the mainland accent, and I can't understand simplified characters. You may have an easier time finding interesting content if you are learning mainland Chinese. The big problem with Mandarin is that there's a content drought. I ask all my friends here what TV shows, games, YouTubers, movies they recommend. It's kind of hard to find good content in Mandarin. Off the top of my head, though, there are a few really good ones. Here in Taiwan, though, the best stuff is either mixed with Taiwanese (Southern Hokkien) or purely in Taiwanese. That's a bit inaccessible for L2 folks such as myself, but I'm doing the best I can. If you're not interested in Taiwanese content, sorry if these are of no use to you. In no order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marry_My_Dead_Body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marry_My_Dead_Body https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A4%8D%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E2%80%94%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%B2%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%A9%E8%BD%89%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%BA https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A4%8D%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E2... (Taiwanese heavy, maybe 100% Taiwanese) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Love_(2021_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Love_(2021_film) (I think 100% Taiwanese, sorry!) I think the content/culture drought is one of the most difficult factors in learning Chinese, personally. I used to study Japanese very seriously, and there was always a never-ending stream of amazing anime, games, TV shows, music, you name it. I will say, though, if you're into music, the Taiwan indie music scene is world-class. Really good stuff.
- djtango 3y ago
  I know enough Hokkien and Teochew that Taiwanese won't sound completely alien. I'll add it to the list haha - thanks!
- yorwba 3y ago
  There's lots more good stuff if you go further back in time. I haven't watched many Taiwanese shows, but I remember https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BE%AE%E7%AC%91PASTA https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BE%AE%E7%AC%91PASTA from 2006 as quite entertaining – I watched it via https://www.viki.com/tv/1775c-smiling-pasta https://www.viki.com/tv/1775c-smiling-pasta
- hackernewds 3y ago
  > hard to find good content in Mandarin. what does this mean? aren't almost all the shows in Mandarin?
  - insomagent 3y ago
    It means it all sucks.
drp 3y ago
Many Disney movies have great Mandarin dubs on Disney+.
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  That’s very recent. Six months or so ago they had no mandarin dubs on Disney+ at all. We were pleasantly surprised to recently find that they added Chinese dubs for most of their content, even Encanto’s songs are redone. Netflix is hit or miss. You can also just sub to various Chinese TV services.
wibr 3y ago
Here's my list, the three stars indicate the rating on douban.com: https://www.jiong3.com/gradedwatching/ https://www.jiong3.com/gradedwatching/ I would personally recommend: Secret, On Children, A Sun, Light the Night, Office Girls, Scissor Seven, Ancient Detective, Back to 1989
martindbp 3y ago
Seems like a good time to plug my project https://lazybug.ai https://lazybug.ai perhaps it could a bit with Three-Body. It has interactive subtitles for that show in particular (https://lazybug.ai/player/threebodytencent/1/1 https://lazybug.ai/player/threebodytencent/1/1) and many others that I've extracted with purpose-built OCR. It's 100% free and open source, runs client-side but with free server syncing of your data, with the obligatory Anki export. Most of the shows on the list are ones I've seen recommended by others at some point, so perhaps if Three-Body is too tricky there you could find some inspiration there
d33 3y ago
Here's what I tried and recommend: https://www.youtube.com/c/DANLIAOFreeToLearn https://www.youtube.com/c/DANLIAOFreeToLearn - "Free To Learn Chinese", teacher uses a "natural method" where all of the content is in Chinese and most difficult words are paraphrased (HSK1-6) https://www.youtube.com/@ShuoshuoChinese https://www.youtube.com/@ShuoshuoChinese - similar but HSK1-4 and parts of the contents are in Chinese

insomagent 3y ago

I live in Taiwan, I've been learning Mandarin for 8 years and use it daily. I kind of can't stand the mainland accent, and I can't understand simplified characters. You may have an easier time finding interesting content if you are learning mainland Chinese. The big problem with Mandarin is that there's a content drought. I ask all my friends here what TV shows, games, YouTubers, movies they recommend. It's kind of hard to find good content in Mandarin. Off the top of my head, though, there are a few really good ones. Here in Taiwan, though, the best stuff is either mixed with Taiwanese (Southern Hokkien) or purely in Taiwanese. That's a bit inaccessible for L2 folks such as myself, but I'm doing the best I can. If you're not interested in Taiwanese content, sorry if these are of no use to you. In no order: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marry_My_Dead_Body https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marry_My_Dead_Body https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A4%8D%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E2%80%94%E8%8A%B1%E7%94%B2%E7%94%B7%E5%AD%A9%E8%BD%89%E5%A4%A7%E4%BA%BA https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%A4%8D%E5%8A%87%E5%A0%B4%E2... (Taiwanese heavy, maybe 100% Taiwanese) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Love_(2021_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_in_Love_(2021_film) (I think 100% Taiwanese, sorry!) I think the content/culture drought is one of the most difficult factors in learning Chinese, personally. I used to study Japanese very seriously, and there was always a never-ending stream of amazing anime, games, TV shows, music, you name it. I will say, though, if you're into music, the Taiwan indie music scene is world-class. Really good stuff.

djtango 3y ago
I know enough Hokkien and Teochew that Taiwanese won't sound completely alien. I'll add it to the list haha - thanks!
yorwba 3y ago
There's lots more good stuff if you go further back in time. I haven't watched many Taiwanese shows, but I remember https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BE%AE%E7%AC%91PASTA https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E5%BE%AE%E7%AC%91PASTA from 2006 as quite entertaining – I watched it via https://www.viki.com/tv/1775c-smiling-pasta https://www.viki.com/tv/1775c-smiling-pasta
hackernewds 3y ago
> hard to find good content in Mandarin. what does this mean? aren't almost all the shows in Mandarin?
- insomagent 3y ago
  It means it all sucks.

drp 3y ago

Many Disney movies have great Mandarin dubs on Disney+.

seanmcdirmid 3y ago
That’s very recent. Six months or so ago they had no mandarin dubs on Disney+ at all. We were pleasantly surprised to recently find that they added Chinese dubs for most of their content, even Encanto’s songs are redone. Netflix is hit or miss. You can also just sub to various Chinese TV services.

wibr 3y ago

Here's my list, the three stars indicate the rating on douban.com: https://www.jiong3.com/gradedwatching/ https://www.jiong3.com/gradedwatching/ I would personally recommend: Secret, On Children, A Sun, Light the Night, Office Girls, Scissor Seven, Ancient Detective, Back to 1989

martindbp 3y ago

Seems like a good time to plug my project https://lazybug.ai https://lazybug.ai perhaps it could a bit with Three-Body. It has interactive subtitles for that show in particular (https://lazybug.ai/player/threebodytencent/1/1 https://lazybug.ai/player/threebodytencent/1/1) and many others that I've extracted with purpose-built OCR. It's 100% free and open source, runs client-side but with free server syncing of your data, with the obligatory Anki export. Most of the shows on the list are ones I've seen recommended by others at some point, so perhaps if Three-Body is too tricky there you could find some inspiration there

d33 3y ago

Here's what I tried and recommend: https://www.youtube.com/c/DANLIAOFreeToLearn https://www.youtube.com/c/DANLIAOFreeToLearn - "Free To Learn Chinese", teacher uses a "natural method" where all of the content is in Chinese and most difficult words are paraphrased (HSK1-6) https://www.youtube.com/@ShuoshuoChinese https://www.youtube.com/@ShuoshuoChinese - similar but HSK1-4 and parts of the contents are in Chinese