hi! im also trying to learn mandarin, if you had the time, do you recommend any movies / tv shows ? either way, good luck on your journey! hope your day is going well.
hey! i haven’t really watched any chinese media for a long time so there’s a lot more recent (& arguably better quality) shows i haven’t watched though gonna try to watch more this summer for sure!! just waiting for my mum to finish her current v boring contemp romance show which i don’t vibe w lol
so whilst i would definitely rec finding some more recent content, here’s some of the shows i remember watching as a kid (a little nostalgia trip u feel)
还珠格格, historical chinese drama, the romance no thank you 😬 but it’s still a classic. intro music slaps
家有儿女, basically a typical chinese family chilling in their apartment, pretty good for day to day conversational vocab that people would actually use!!
一起来看流星雨, it’s SO cringey my soul left my body just watching it (but the kind of show that’s fun to watch because it’s so bad), there’s a new 2018 version i don’t have the time to watch that at least looks like they can act a little :/. much better cdramas out there i HOPE
爱情公寓, iApartment in english apparently?? huh. anyway a chinese version of Friends
喜羊羊与灰太狼, just convert the Annoyance of minions into a sheep version, haunts me to this day, their voices are seared into my brain
西游记, the cartoon one that’s like ‘journey to the west - legends of the monkey king’ i think?
ok but this deserves its own bullet point, NO SERIOUSLY the intro of journey to the west vibes SO hella hard as does the ending LIKE. bops bops BOPS
哪吒传奇, the legend of nezha, the cartoon version not the new film
葫芦娃, calabash (?? lol who knew that was the name of the veg) brothers, love the animation style but all i remember is being v upset at the ending, there’s a film too, again the intro sequence YEAH BOI
小鲤鱼历险记 last cartoon aha, adventures of the little carp, i never finished this one but i have a lot of stickers of that fish lmao
also random reality tv shows like literally the most awkward dating shows (非诚勿扰) and also a show (爸爸去哪儿) where celebrities take their kids on a summer camp basically to cool parts of china lmaooo. but good for learning useful mandarin words i suppose...
步步惊心, i think the more recent korean version (scarlet heart) based on the same books is more popular but i haven’t watched it. another historical chinese court drama, there’s a lot of them out there if that’s your jam!!
also vaguely remember a series where they take u round china and show u different recipes etc but idk what that one is called. there’s probably quite a few if you like learning about food hehe
some of these are v good, some trashy and insipid, some classics, some i wonder how i sat through them (not all those points r mutually exclusive alas) so i wouldn’t rec all of these for their content... though to be fair, the ones that are cringey probs taught me the most mandarin!!
films wise, i’m pretty bad at watching films but have these links saved to work through which might interest you!! (not all mandarin specific)
in terms of where to watch, try
tbh a lot of stuff is up on youtube (like there’s still copyright issues obvs but i think they’re not quite as strict on it because it doesn’t rly cut into the chinese market if stuff is up on yt)
just checked w my mum who has superior knowledge u feel, she uses duboku which has a nice interface, has dramas, films (artemis fowl???? 1917??? ready or not?? marv*l?? they’re in the original english w chinese&english subtitles what is this collection of content lmao edit: ok idk if this stuff is legal might want to put the site through a virus checker lmao), anime, and reality tv so a good mix! and i don’t think too many ads? good stuff. trending list too for ur perusal!
other misc recs for your perusal (bc. i like rambling lmao)
my brother is (apparently i don’t believe it) watching 美丽中国 (Wild China is the English version) which is a documentary co-produced by bbc/cctv (so like. def rose tinted but if u like documentaries!!)
may be a bit childish, but chinese nursery rhymes/songs are good for your speaking, like getting into the rhythm of the language and improving pronunciation (like these: one ! two !). a lot of the more well known/classic ones that all kids know (like. twinkle twinkle little star level of renown) tend to be famous poems as well aha (like by 李白/li bai), here’s a starter list of some poems.
lots of good yt channels like this one
and tongue twisters! v good for your speaking here’s some
and thank you lovely!! good luck to u too, hope this helps - i got a little carried away perhaps aha sorry 💓
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