Hi,

Anyone knows some more inspiring ways to study Chinese? I’m tired of all the hidden propaganda, lack of creaitivity and just hearing a part of the mainlanders talk right now makes me sad about the education and state of the society.
Anyone knows some good Mandarin material for e.g. from Taiwan or HK? Can be online newspapers, TV channel streams, music, etc.

But I really wish it to be quite open and fair about the state of anything, no newspapers or TV channels known to be influenced by Beijing or known to ONLY bash Beijing, for that matter;)

Whatever seems quite developed and interesting. Thanks!

get a chinesepod subscription if you are serious about studying chinese.

Watch TV Show or (Dubbed) Manga from Taiwan, you can find a good chunk of them online (with subs if needed)

Links? :)

This is really good.
It's a Chinese news station based in the US

[url]http://www.iavcusa.com/c/1338432944502.html[/url]

Also it's sad that we like a language so much that belongs to a country that has so much sh*t going on...at least we're not studying f**king Arabic though, blugh.

sure. ain't it great that we all come from countries that are so much more civilized, have no shit going on, are honest to their citizens, media is not a bit biased and governments don't snoop in our personal affairs. wouldn't china be so much cooler without all those stupid chinese everywhere? maybe we should open another camp like guantanamo and teach them a lesson about decent behavior? and those arabs! man, they sure have some havy shit going on, don't they? civilized countries try so hard to bomb them to freedom, help them kill each other for a good cause and they aren't even a bit thankful those bastards. that is sad in deed! freedom!!!

a language is the tool to communicate with people. and you are never in danger of feeling bored with the people here in china. there is always something interesting going on.
that is the real force behind my motivation. or to be able to read the store signs...
be able to read the special offers in chinese :)
there are so many reasons why its useful and fun to read write chinese - and of course to speak and understand it.

in order to produce more positive news (they call it the "third angle", there is this website: www.gbtimes.com and lots of new radio broadcast stations esp. in europe.

Hey Johan -

I'm having fun just finding things I'm into in english, and then finding some online Taiwan resources for them.

Not sure if you are able to access Facebook, but can have fun just following posts about things and reading all the comments:

Surfing: https://www.facebook.com/pages/衝浪客棧-Surfer-Inn/120953131315887

Bikes: https://www.facebook.com/cyclingtime.tw

Guy who's into reviewing and taking pics of restaurants, reviewing cameras:
https://www.facebook.com/wiselymood (or http://wiselyview.net/blog/)

Then can easily follow the string, see who they follow on FB, and so on.

Sounds like you're in student mode so may not be in the budget, but can also try to find some good manga. Right now I'm really liking 银之匙 (Silver Spoon) and 麻辣教師GTO.

If you have an iPad the kinda crappy MagV app lets me read a bunch of Taiwan, HK and mainland magazines for a flat fee (maybe $4.99 / mo?). So can geek out on car mags, men's mags with eye candy, travel magazines, you name it.

(Basically, I only try to fill my brain with fun Chinese. If it's not something I think is fun, than putting it in Chinese is not going to fix that...)

Good luck, hope this helps somebody!

- Ben

Chinesepod is great, and also look in www.douban.com for some chinese book and movie suggestions.

Movies and TV shows are a good resource, there was a thread with suggestions on here before. I like dual language subtitles- I have made a few of my own for movies that don't have them. You can pause and review, look up words etc.