I just discovered these bizarre videos on Youtube called iamxiaoli. They’re supposed to be for learning Chinese, but they’re a little unorthodox, to say the least. Here are two of the ones I found more interesting:
0003 How To Say “Friend” In Chinese
0005 How To Say “What is This?” & “He Doesn’t Know” In Chinese
I’m curious how effective these videos are at teaching Chinese. Can anyone voice for having learned some words or phrases from these videos?…
Recently a comment on Sinosplice brought to my attention the fact there are many different videos of poems read in ancient Chinese (古代汉语) [more information on Wikipedia's classical Chinese entry].
In case you’re not familiar with the concept, every language is slowly changing over time. So not only would the vocabulary and grammar of a language be different if you were able to go back in time and observe, but so would the actual pronunciation. The farther back …
We live in a world of fascinating, interactive web services, but unfortunately, those of us in China are cut off from some of the leading websites. Most conspicuous among these are YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook. None of these websites are currently accessible in China, cut off by the Great Firewall (GFW) of China. Twitter and Facebook, most notably, have APIs, which enable other software, web services, and mobile phone apps to connect to and interact with …
This is an odd combination:
The video is a promotional thing for a new podcast show on ChinesePod called Poems with Pete.…
Recently discovered this hilarious video on Youku. Be sure to watch it to the end.
The video appears to be from Taiwan.
This got me thinking… “funny animal videos” (along with “cute baby videos”) belong to a small set of video types which has universal appeal. If you watch funny animal videos on Youku, you’ll notice that most of them come from outside China, and were simply “ported to” (copied and uploaded to) Youku. Obviously, it could go the other …
I was searching Youku for interesting Chinese videos about Obama, but all I could find were a few CCTV news clips. If only average Chinese young people liked to video themselves talking about all sorts of topics and put it online, like American kids do on YouTube!
In the process, I ended up doing a search for 黑人 (“black person/people”). Most of the search results were rap or hip hop or dance related, but there was one bizarre one…
It’s been a while since I last wrote about sign language, but some interesting YouTube videos by Alice (胡晓姝) recently pulled me back into it.
Below is the video that I found most fascinating. It’s subtitled in Chinese, but worth a watch even if you don’t read Chinese. I’ll sum up the main points in English below the video.
Before I list Alice’s main points, I need to first explain some background. In the video, Alice discusses …
The phrase 中国特色 means “Chinese characteristics,” and it’s one you hear a lot in China-centered conversations. When it comes to instant messaging with Chinese characteristics, the only game in town is QQ. Even though it started out as a clone of the once-popular IM client ICQ, over time it has gained its own personality (although I will never forgive it for its malware phase). I really like its “hide” feature, and I wonder why other IM clients don’t …
It has been my pleasure to work with the SpanishPod team at Praxis Language over the past year, and they have just made it to their 100th lesson today (if you listen carefully, you may hear a mention of me in that episode). They’re really doing amazing things!
Check out one of their recent videos, Spanish Fever in China:
Other SpanishPod videos: Milestones, Old Photos.…
YouTube has just been blocked in China. Somehow I don’t care nearly as much as I used to when this happens. It’ll be back.
Coincidentally, today I just stumbled upon a website called Down for everyone or just me?. The interface is dead simple:
I tried it out on YouTube and got this result:
Strange. My “IP sleuthing” seems to reveal that the site’s servers are in France. Did I do something wrong, or is YouTube also down elsewhere?…
John has lived in China for
11.5
years. He is a linguist focused on SLA and tech.
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