Anyone have recommended cartoons for an intermediate-level Chinese learner?
To work on my listening skill, I have been watching the Chinese-language version of Courage the Cowardly Dog (胆小狗英雄). I highly recommend it, as it is both the most bizarre show you will ever watch, and also PERFECT for the low-intermediate - intermediate level Mandarin learner.
In my lead up to moving to Taiwan, I will run out of episodes and would love if anyone has recommendations for TV for the intermediate learner. To define that level, I basically mean that I can hold a conversation, and have a decent, albeit basic vocabulary. When reading online, I generally need to look up a word about every sentence…
Also, as a complete aside - I asked my Taiwanese friends if they had ever watched the show (I live in Chicago, so the sample size is quite small) and they had all heard of the show. Turns out that it was regularly aired for them while growing up… Just found that interesting…
Thanks for any ideas.
Mike
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When it comes to Western cartoons do Choose Disney and Cartoon Network cartoons. As you know most cartoon humor is made up of puns. Cartoon Channel and Disney do their best to rewrite the dialog to fit.
DO NOT USE NICKELODEON CARTOONS!!! They translate the dialog literally with no regard to puns at all and it makes NO FREAKING SENSE.
Example: Penguins Popcorn adventure:
Julien and Skipper exchange men and make a bet. Skipper says that Julien would fail.
Julien says that he would no fail. In fact, he says he will do the opposite of fail… But he could not remember the word.
He assistant said “Succeed?” Julian says “No, we will not suck seed. No one will be sucking seed!” It was translated just like that. GAME OVER!!! There were so many errors of this type, my Chinese family lost interest. My english speaking kids loved the puns.
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One more suggestion. I love cartoons, as you know. Phineas and Ferb is a great start if you want to learn songs in other languages. They do a great job of translating and or rewriting their songs and they are catchy in any language. Try Gtichi Gtichi Goo in Chinese, French Hebrew etc. Little Brothers is also a good song as well. They all are good.
https://youtu.be/SNRt2feqml4
https://youtu.be/MwUNk23sjtA
https://youtu.be/R3_R5Zsvc7Q
That’s crazy about the literal pun translation… I guess Nick decided to cheap out a bit on the translators.
Thanks for the link to Phineas and Ferb. Also, Scooby was a personal favorite when I was growing up. I’m honestly loving watching cartoons as a learning method. I’ve read that the best way to stick to a consistent language practice is to find something you enjoy and this is totally working for me at the moment!
Cheers,
FF
FreedomFries, I love the name. Do you have Boomarang, (MOD Channel 19). They have the current Scooby Adventures. They are playing Be Cool Scooby do, What’s new Scooby Do and Mystery Incorporated. Thank heaven not so much of the latter.
Anyway, What’s New Scooby Do has a pretty good sounding Chinese song as its intro. It’s called "我的Scooby Do ", the Chinese name for the Series. I actually stumbled across a Chinese version of one of the Chase Songs. Usually they are just kept in English. Of course my PVR was full and I could not record it 
I’m not sure how the Chinese dialog is because, I don’t let my kids listen to the classics like Loony Toons et all in Chinese because the show is so rich in English Puns. It could be good but we don’t have that much TV time.
I’ve recorded the awful puns by the way and one of these days, I’ll create the subtitled version and post it. It will be funny to see. If I find the raw version on my computer which is “somewhere”, maybe I’ll send it to you.