Videos and Podcasts for Learning Chinese
Comprehensible input is easily the most FUN way to learn a language. You get to watch videos, listen to podcasts, and read stories that actually interest you. You learn about culture, current events and every day life while improving your langauge skills. Think about it this way: if you watch a 15 minute Chinese video, you'll probably hear roughly 1500 words (assuming slower paced learning content). Think about how boring it would be to do 1,500 word drills. Not only do you get repeated exposure to words in context, you'll start to pick up on grammar patterns, sentence structures, and even pronunciation naturally. It really happens faster than you think.
One way to make this stuff STICK is to use active recall. After watching a video or listening to a podcast, try to summarize what you learned in Chinese. You can use Bookchoy to quickly look up and save words that you want to remember, or quickly get an explanation. for grammar or words in context. Your review sessions are a lot more fun when you can tie them back to the interesting content where you originally encountered a word or sentence. Just paste the link into Bookchoy and start watching.
Lazy Chinese
Beginner: 5/5 | Intermediate: 5/5
Playlists: Beginner | Low Intermediate | Intermediate | High Intermediate
Suqing's channel is one of my favorites. She uses TPRS (Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling) to teach Chinese in a very engaging way. When I first started watching these, I was shocked: "Wow I can actually understand Chinese."
She has videos for all levels. Even starting from absolute beginner, her videos are useful because she combines pictures and gestures to help you guess what shes saying without looking up every word. Up to high intermediate, her videos are pretty fun to watch, and cover pretty deep topics like do you stay friends with your ex?
She does collabs with other Chinese teachers and content creators and her channel has a TON of variety. Highly reccommended.
Tea Time Chinese
Beginner: 3/5 | Intermediate: 5/5
Playlists: Literature (文学) | History (历史) | Culture (文化) | News (新闻)
Nathan's channel is another favorite of mine. He covers a wide range of topics related to Chinese culture, history, and literature. The podcast has a variety of formats: sometimes he'll read a story, sometimes he'll talk about his own life, and other times he'll discuss interesting cultural topics or current events. His videos are well-researched and deeply fascinating. He speaks at a moderate pace, making it easy to follow along. The vocabulatry is slightly more varied, but stil accessible for intermediate learners. Total beginners might struggle a bit, but it's worth trying out. If it's too hard, you can take it slow and look up words as you go, or just come back to it when you're ready.
Zhangkai Chinese
Beginner: 3/5 | Intermediate: 5/5
Zhangkai's channel is so aweome. His videos highlight daily life, often him vlogging out and about in China. He speaks at faster, but still easy to understand pace, but definitely uses a very authentic accent and natural speech patterns, not classroom Chinese. Amazing to get used to what real life Chinese sounds like. He takes the time to highight and repeat the key vocabulary words, and his vlogs are the perfect visual aid. You can probably learn a lot of words without even looking up their English meanings.
SyS Mandarin
Beginner: 5/5 | Intermediate: 5/5
Sys Mandarin is a great choice if you prefer a more structured approach. Their videos are will often take a specific topic, song, or scene from a movie and break down grammar and vocabulary word by word. They have been around for years and have around 600 videos to choose from.
Conclusion
These are just a few of my favorite channels that I can personally reccomend after years of watching and learning from them. There are tons of other great resources out there, so don't be afraid to explore and find what works best for you. The most important thing is to find things you're actually intersted. This makes it so much easier to stay motivated and consistent. Happy learning! 加油!