Video

[XiaoXi]

This is my first post here, I've been lurking for a while and have learnt quite a lot. What I wanted to ask is if anyone knows of any DVDs or other video methods for learning mandarin? I think its very important when learning speaking to not only repeat what you hear as best you can but to also form your lips and mouth in the right way to produce the sound correctly. To a certain extent you can get the right idea just from reading a description of what is required in that respect but actually seeing it I think would be much more useful.

This is something that you of course would get when learning from an actual live teacher but for people like me trying to learn from home then we're missing out on this. A native learns to mimic his or her parents from a very young age simple by watching how their lips move etc.

I'm in the early stages of my learning and this is the most important time to get this kind of thing right because these will be my foundations for all my future mandarin.

Does anyone know of any DVDs, videos or online material of people speaking words or the Chinese alphabet slowly and clearly? Obviously we can see people's mouths move in Chinese TV or movies but its all too fast.

Thanks in advance.

Xiao Xi

[jeffofarabia]

are you in beijing? go to the foreign language bookstore in wangfujing, one nearest to the cathedral not the mcdonalds. upstairs they have language materials. i remember seeing video three years ago. i am sorry i can't be more up to date.

jeff

[XiaoXi]

Thanks for replying. Unfortunately I'm not in Beijing, I'm in the UK. If I was in Beijing I probably would have picked up this kind of thing from seeing people speak so often anyway I guess. So no one else has any suggestions? I'm surprised there aren't any resources for this kind of thing online.

[anonymoose]

There used to be a set of chinese lessons online produced by a department at Oxford University which showed videos of a chinese person speaking. Now it seems it has been removed and is available for purchase. Here is the link:

http://www.ctcfl.ox.ac.uk/mainj.htm

[horas]

*

http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/pronunciation/

http://www.glossika.com/en/dict/index.php

-

[XiaoXi]

Thanks that's really useful guys. Particularly that site with the descriptions of how to pronounce correctly is really detailed and with the diagrams too its really informative.