In our extended family Mandarin and Cantonese are used as a second language. I do not speak Chinese ( even though I want and plan to learn, possibly together with my daughter), my husband speaks only Cantonese ( and he is a bit rusty, as he was away from Macao/HC for over 20 years), I was thinking to possibly expose my daughter to the sound of both Mandarin and Cantonese, even before we will start “oficially” learning them. From what I understood, doing so as early as possible will condition her brain to easier register these languages later, when she will be actually learning them ( I am thinking of getting a learning DVD later and also expose her to language carriers, play groups, etc).
So here is my question. Does anyone knows of any on line resources where I can download something like that, since I can not read Chinese myself, and it will have to be an audio of someone else doing it, or drama or songs. Or did you use something that you can share. I am mainly interested in audio at this point so I can put it for her during one of the nursing times…
I am looking for something along these lines, not necessary lessons, but rather dramas or stories read… Classical pieces perhaps. Was just wondering in case someone knows.
I had some free time this morning so I googled your topic to see if I could find anything. One of the links below has been mentioned on the site below but not sure where…hope this helps!! I will be researching the topic more throughout the day so I will update you on my findings
I found this a few days ago and I feel like I’ve hit a jackpot. (The same feeling I got when I got the Homeschool Freebies of the Day link from this forum). You have to download a little tool (beta version) that allows you to download song, story books, shows, poems… many more, all in Chinese. It is from China, so it is simplified Chinese (Mandarin). I’ve scanned it and did not detect any virus. The best thing is, you get all these for FREE!
http://player.61baobao.com/web/?fromold
Most are flash files, the songs (and others) are from various sources so quality varies, but I have already found tons of great stuff. And I’m thrilled to find familiar songs of my childhood that I haven’t heard in ages.
This is great for people who can read Chinese, if you can’t, you may still be able to use it after you’ve familiar yourself with the interface. http://player.61baobao.com/web/html/help/21.html
The buttons across the top are: Songs, Stories, Learning Center, Games, Cartoon, Cartoon Series, Early Education, TV Series, Premium Service, System Setup
So far I only use Songs, Stories, and Learning Center. I had a quick look at the listing of cartoons series and TV series. Those are from regular kids TV so not something I want my kids to see anyway.
K to you! It looks like exactly what I was looking for and I am so-o thrilled! Thank you for sharing it! I will look at it later on today, after my little one in bed .
I do not read or speak Chinese at all . So I might have a few questions to you along the way, if you do not mind… This is something awesome about this community, that everyone is contributing to it in so many unique ways, and neither one of us would be able to provide materials to our Children in such way on our own!
I found another site with great children songs with values in Chinese ( Mandarin). The fun part is that you can find the same songs in English (and some even in Spanish) on the same site. So it is a neat, because you can have an idea what the song is about, even if you do not speak Chinese ( like me :nowink: )
Some are Christian and Bible songs, others are songs with values, stories or just for fun.
I tried playing them to my daughter, she loved them! I did not expect she would show that much interest. Right now, I just playing them in Chinese, and checked out the lyrics in English to know what they are about. I think it is a great idea as it is getting her used to the sound of Chinese, so when we will start teaching it to her, she will be more familiar with it.
The way I found english versions of the songs ( with lyrics), I just took the name of each song that I wanted to find and looked it up in the alphabetical list of english songs. It takes a bit of time, but it worked.
I am still trying to get around to figuring it out. My computer has a hard time with Chinese Interface ( it shows only little boxes instead of characters :nowink: ), and since I do not read Chinese, characters would not help me much either
Just wondering, can you get stories for children in MP3 from there? If you can, would there be a couple that you would recommend ( and give just a short synopsis, outline of?), so I can use them to put for my daughter? At this point I only would need 1 story every couple of weeks, so was wondering if you would have a suggestion for the first one? Or if you can help me in getting it from the website, and sending it in PM attachment, Naming it in english? I think my biggest problem with files that are named in chinese, and my computer has a hard time reading that…
Thank you so much for the links! This website is great!
Joan,
I’m sure the website you recommended is great, but since I don’t know a bit of Mandarin I didn’t know where to start Any guidence?? :blink:
A friend of mine has been teaching her daughter Mandarin and she has bought different CD’s. She mentioned that you can find a lot in the internet, but some of the products are not very good quality. She recommended this CD http://www.chinasprout.com/shop/MCS032 I havent not bought it because the shipping is kind of pricy.
I know it’s a little hard for non-Chinese speakers to use this software. I will create some LR files using the materials and upload them here. Hope that will help.
Joan, thank you so much! That sounds great, keep us posted. K to you!
Joha, glad you liked those links, my daughter seem to really like and pay attention to the dramas there on chinese as well ( different voices, tones, etc.). It is neat to see that you also going to be teaching Chinese, even though not a Mandarine speaker yourself. I am looking forward to exchanging tips and sharing progress!
Thank you so much. That would definetly be very helpful :yes:
Skylark,
That sounds like a plan let’s exchange tips and methods. Right now we are just showing her Little Pim mandarin and we play in the background the Mandarin Pimsleur chinese CD’s. This week I’m going to start playing songs from the website you shared to see how she does. How do you know your daughter likes them since it is only sound? :huh:
I’ve added another one - little snow flake. This one is just the video. Obviously this will be much quicker to produce.
http://forum.brillkids.com/downloads/?sa=view;id=6457
Here’s a rough translation: little snow flake, little snow flake, floating in the air like a flower, on the window it turns into window art, into my hands it disappears.
Joha, sorry I have not replied earlier, it was simply busy week :biggrin: And I thought I wrote here, but I have not, ha
Well, about her liking it. She is pretty good at communication. She very clearly shows when she is interested or likes something and when it is not so interesting for her. I was putting her in the jumper lately for the time when she was listening to Chinese songs, she would start jumping and giggling to them, and would stop when they would stop. I also put a Chinese Children drama/story with narration for her, and put her in her swing to listen. She listens pretty intently, and when it is over she start asking to be picked up, but not while its playing.
The songs from the site I mentioned work out great for me, because they are pretty high quality and really fun ( not boring) musically. I also just started putting the same song in Chinese and English at different times during the day. My husband, said that doing that helped them as kids when they were learning a few dufferent languages. Of course it is not easy to find lots of songs that are done in different languages with good quality, but I am working with the ones from the site right now and it is working out great. I think I will continue doing that.
I also started with 4 different songs and one drama/story, then the next week I added two new songs and retrieved 2, and added another story, just to have a measure of repetition with some new things…
Could you share how you managed to extract the videos from the http://player.61baobao.com/web/?fromold website? I’ve downloaded some videos from there but could only play them online. I cant see much of the website content hence dont understand most of the instructions. Your help is greatly appreciated. Thanks.
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. So I might have a few questions to you along the way, if you do not mind…