BBC Podcast in Mandarin

christian

January 06, 2008, 12:31 AM posted in General Discussion

BBC China has a nice 15-minute news podcast in mandarin whose presenters tend to speak slowly and clearly. It's available <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/podcasts/chinareel/">here</a>.

maxiewawa

January 06, 2008, 03:17 AM

SBS Australia also has a podcast: http://www20.sbs.com.au/podcasting/index.php?action=feeddetails&feedid=1

mei3hou2wang2

January 06, 2008, 04:26 AM

加拿大国际广播电台也发表汉语播客。而且我特别喜欢这个播客，因为除了新闻总结以外，还有许多关于加拿大或住在加拿的华人的题材。 http://www.rcinet.ca/rci/ch/

bazza

January 06, 2008, 11:22 AM

Nice find, I've subscribed. :)

davidfong

November 24, 2010, 12:10 PM

SBS Australia has more than podcast now, it has a full half-hour weekly news broadcast on television, in Mandarin, with English subtitles!

http://www.sbs.com.au/chinese/

The first episode features an interview with the foreign minister (and former prime-minister) Kevin Rudd 陆克文, in Mandarin of course!

Thanks very much for that - I think I can make regular use of this. The news reader's diction is super-clear; rivals ChinesePod! An interesting artifact is the amount of English that is thrown in - by the news reader as well as Chinese Australians who are interviewed. You are much more aware of this in Australia than in China.

I find the English sub-titles a bit of a distraction, they are so big (I looked to see if you can turn them off but I couldn't find anything.) And curious in a way - I guess they are there for Chinese people who are learning English. I am so tuned to seeing Chinese sub-titles these take a bit of getting used to (I am trying to watch without reading because it really gets in the way of your listening.)

Anyway, the news is focused on the Australia-China relationship - I find it interesting and useful.

PS. You get to see a foreigner (Lu Kewen) making a decent fist of Chinese - and you get grovelling politics thrown in. "My Chinese is SO bad I hardly know any words at all.. but Deng Xiaoping's record is extremely interesting, particularly how he fell from grace three times and managed to re-invent himself each time .. blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah"

For those who visit the site and are puzzled by some breaks in the program: Under the SBS Act, SBS can raise revenue by broadcasting advertisements and sponsorship announcements. The SBS Act provides that SBS may broadcast advertisements and sponsorship announcements that run in total for not more than five minutes in any hour of broadcasting. They can only be broadcast before or after programs and during natural breaks. This provides a valuable source of revenue for SBS, allowing more funds to be channelled towards program making.

It seems if you watch from China there is just a blank screen for a while - we don't get to see the ads.