Growing Up With Chinese: A Great Video Series To Get Started Learning Mandarin

Last Updated on November 26, 2016

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One fantastic and free Chinese video series to watch to get started learning Mandarin is called Growing Up With Chinese (成长汉语). It is a series officially made by CCTV (China Central Television) and is quite professionally made. It starts out at the very beginning level, assuming no prior knowledge of Mandarin, and builds up all the way up to advanced levels.

Synopsis

Growing Up With Chinese is composed of 100 different videos. It follows the life of Mike who is a foreign exchange student, and Wang Xiao Ming and his family. Mike goes to live with Xiao Ming’s family, and the series follows their lives in very realistic and useful situations.

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The series focuses on being immediately practical, and doesn’t really go much into tones or how to draw Chinese characters. So, if you want a jumpstart into learning Mandarin Chinese, this is a great series. They focus on useful vocabulary and phrases with lots of other information information. The show also explains a lot about modern Chinese culture. The show doesn’t bog you down with grammar or esoteric parts of Mandarin. Again, it focuses on being immediately. Every episode is roughly 15 minutes long.

The Host

The host is Charlotte MacInnis (Chinese name 爱华). She has been living in China for many years having moved there at age 7. She is quite an energetic host, and and excellent teacher.

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The Dialogues

Every dialogue is played 2 times. The first time you are given English subtitles. The second time, you are given Chinese and English subtitles. Charlotte explains the meaning of words and the dialogue throughout the videos.

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Where To Watch The Show

The main page for Growing up with Chinese is located here.

For some reason, the videos on the cctv website are down. So, you can watch the Growing Up With Chinese Videos on Youtube starting with the video below.

Conclusion

This is quite a good and free video series to learn Mandarin. At times it is quite entertaining and funny, and the storyline is interesting. Although I have only seen a few episodes, the few I have seen are very educational. What did you think of this article? Let’s discuss it in the comments below.

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2 Comments

  1. Thank you for this useful review of Growing up with Chinese, will check it out :).

    1. Thanks

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