audio: long pieces

illes
 October 18, 2009, 03:26 PM posted in General Discussion

Hello,

I'm a newbie with Mandarin, thanks to all for running Chinesepod. I started with several other sources and I've found them here together.

I'm not sure I'm posting this question at the right place.

I would like to hear continuous spoken Mandarin every day, like kids before they actually start to speak. I do not need to understand what is being said. Good audio books with contemporary spoken Chinese would be great, maybe from the Gutenberg project.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Illes

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matt_c
 October 31, 2009, 09:38 AM

Iles, I would suggest downloading the dialogues and advanced lessons as they are all in Chinese, then playing them all day. Then Downloa the ChinesePod Quick Review App for your iphone or Android and do the flash cards whenever you can.

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simonpettersson
 October 31, 2009, 10:15 AM

Hi, Illes! Check out this page: http://radiotime.com/genre/c_139/Chinese.aspx

It's a list of Chinese online radio streams. Works well when you're at your computer, though you can't get it into your MP3 player. Just make sure you get a channel from Beijing or Shanghai and not one from Hong Kong, since the Hong Kong channels (at least the one I listened to) are in Cantonese.

That said, I actually don't believe much in that method you're talking about (listening a lot to the language even though you don't understand it). I did it for a long time and it didn't help me one bit. Someone even said it's bad for your comprehension, since it gets you used to not trying to decipher what people are talking about.

However, I don't have any studies or anything to base this on, and I'm not qualified to give advice on these matters, so never mind that. Hope you find the above-mentioned resource useful!

EDIT: I listened to the Beijing Radio Story channel a bit (it's about halfway down) and what little I heard seemed to be of good quality and not too fast or advanced. So that might be a good station to listen to. Noted here maybe mostly for intermediate or UI learners reading this thread.