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FluentU: The best way to learn Chinese through videos
In this article, I am going to review FluentU, a database of YouTube videos in Mandarin with subtitles (and much more).
Why?
Because I think videos are the best way to achieve “immersion” while studying a foreign language. Admittedly, talking with native people on a regular basis is even better; however, it’s not always possible and, at least when you are starting out, it’s extremely difficult.
What is immersion? And why is it so important?
You can’t learn a new language by just “studying.” In the end, mastering a language comes down to being able to communicate effectively with native speakers. The language you can learn through books is usually quite different from the spoken language, and with Chinese, the gap is even larger than with English or French, for example.
During the time I spent in China, I met many people who, after studying Chinese in their country for several years, came to China and became completely frustrated. Why? Because Chinese people were unable to understand them and, even worse, they couldn’t understand what Chinese people were saying. Even if they had good grammar and vocabulary basics, they had never been in contact with the “real” language.
How can I achieve “immersion” in my own country?
There are many ways: listening to Chinese music, watching Chinese movies, or chatting with Chinese people, to start. You can check out this list of free online resources for leaning Chinese to discover websites where you can get in touch with Chinese native speakers.
However, all the methods I listed become interesting only after you already have a good knowledge of the language. So, let’s get back to FluentU…
What is FluentU?
FluentU is a language learning tool that offers a large database of short, authentic YouTube videos with well-synchronized subtitles (in Chinese).
The subtitles are especially important, as they will allow you to pick up many more words than you could understand by watching a movie without subtitles or listening to a song.
Why do I like FluentU?
FluentU is much more than a selection of YouTube videos; it’s an excellent interactive software designed to help you learn Chinese efficiently. Here are some of its most useful features:
- Videos: At the time of writing this article, FluentU has more than 1100 videos (they are constantly uploading new videos), which are carefully chosen and organized by level of language proficiency (Newbie, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced), topics (Everyday Life, Science and Tech and so on) and format (Movie Clips, Commercials and so on).
- Audio: It also offers a large selection of audio recordings with subtitles.
- Interactive word definitions: This is probably the feature I like the most. At any time, you can hover over any word in the subtitles with your mouse and the clip will pause immediately. You can then click on a word and its definition, along with three example sentences, will appear. At this point, if you want, you can add the word to your custom vocabulary list to review it later.
Source: http://www.saporedicina.com/english/fluentu-learn-chinese-with-videos/
I agre with immersing yourself in the language if trying to learn it. However, based from experience, immersing is not enough. Real-time corrections are important too, because you may be pronouncing the words all wrong but since people understand you anyway, they bother to correct you. To learn English from native speakers, I enrolled myself in http://preply.com/en/skype/english-native-speakers as a follow-up to my daily conversations. You can also do this while learning Chinese or any other language. Get someone to correct you whenever you are wrong.