Sunday, November 9, 2014

Videos in Chinese for kids

Something else I've been using is stories told in Chinese for kids on YouTube.

Fun to read Chinese - Many picture books, read aloud in Chinese, with Chinese characters and sometimes English words on screen. The videos are short, 1-2 minutes. The voice is very 'high-pitched', little-kid-ish, but I guess that fits with the content of the books.

Miss Panda's Reading Playground - Miss Panda reads popular English kids' books in Chinese (e.g. "The Hungry Caterpillar","Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you See?" There's only 6 at this point, I hope maybe there will be more someday!

Short Chinese Stories for Kids by MandarinChinese Lessons- These are a series of 100+ short cartoons for kids, narrated in Chinese, with Chinese subtitles (no pin-yin though). The videos are less than 2 minutes long each, but it's hard to know what's going on in the story sometimes.

Kids Chinese Songs by MandarinChinese Lessons - These are cartoon videos of Chinese songs/rhymes with Chinese subtitles, including pin-yin. Each one is less than 2 minutes long.


These are geared for pretty young kids (probably preschool to younger elementary), but I think even my 10 year old and 8 year old are OK with this as an introduction to hearing Chinese and trying to follow along with pictures. It may seem a big babyish, but we're going to use these until they can understand more, then move on to more complex cartoons. I'll post some more complex ones when we move on to those.

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I know this is a post about videos, but since you mentioned that one of the sites involves someone reading popular English books in Chinese... Maybe you can read such books to your kids yourself! There are actually a lot of popular English children's books that have Chinese versions. I have bought books on both the following sites:

http://www.asianparent.com/
http://www.chinasprout.com/

You have to be careful to buy the type of book you want. I always look to make sure I am buying books with traditional characters and zhuyin / bopomofo. They also sell books using simplified characters and pinyin. Sometimes it is only characters, no zhuyin or pinyin.

Sometimes the book comes in JUST the Chinese version, exactly like the English version, only the words are in Chinese. (This is the format of the "Mister Seahorse" book by Eric Carle that I have, and also "Goodnight Moon" by Margaret Wise Brown.) In cases like that, it might be fun to have the English version as well, so you can cross-reference the vocabulary side-by-side. Or, if the readers are very familiar with the English version, it might help them to more easily figure out the Chinese words in context.

Other times, they have Chinese and English side-by-side on the same page. (My copy of "Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now" by Dr. Seuss" takes that format.) Or, there are even books where you have the Chinese version in full - that is, the text is printed with the pictures and everything - and then at the end of the book, you just have the English text printed out, no pictures. (The "Frog and Toad" series by Arnold Lobel that I have follow that format.)

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