文化 · The music and films

A vintage film projector standing three quarters on.

Kept by Carson 木林森

Study hours are finite. Listening hours are not. The fastest way to add Chinese to a day is to put it in the places you were already going to spend on music and films, and the only way that survives contact with a real week is if the music is good on its own terms.

Everything below is here because it is worth listening to or watching, not because it is at your level.

音乐 · Music

100 songs. Mandarin indie rock, hip hop and folk, mostly Taiwanese. It plays here.

Open 很好听 in Spotify →

Start with a band rather than the shuffle. Pick one, listen to a whole record, and let the same voice repeat for a few days. Repetition is the point: the fourth time through a song you are no longer hearing sound, you are hearing words.

草東沒有派對 No Party For Cao Dong

Taipei. Loud, flat-voiced, furious about being young. The gateway band.

Spotify YouTube

老王樂隊 Your Woman Sleep With Others

Same scene, softer edges, funnier and sadder writing.

Spotify YouTube

告五人 Accusefive

Taiwanese indie with big choruses. The easiest listening on this list.

Spotify YouTube

萬能青年旅店 Omnipotent Youth Society

Shijiazhuang. Trumpet, long build-ups, some of the best writing in Mandarin rock.

Spotify YouTube

落日飛車 Sunset Rollercoaster

Taipei. Warm, slow, guitar-led. Much of it is in English.

Spotify YouTube

deca joins deca joins

Reverb and murmured Mandarin. Good for listening while reading.

Spotify YouTube

二手玫瑰 Second Hand Rose

Northeastern folk opera dressed as a rock band. Nothing else sounds like it.

Spotify YouTube

刺蝟 Hedgehog

Beijing indie rock, fast and bright.

Spotify YouTube

海朋森 Hiperson

Chengdu. Post-punk, spoken-sung, very literary.

Spotify YouTube

凹與山 Our Shame

Taiwanese duo, electronic folk. Modern production, clear vocals.

Spotify YouTube

甜梅號 Sugar Plum Ferry

Instrumental post-rock. No words to keep up with.

Spotify YouTube

大象體操 Elephant Gym

Math rock led by the bass. Mostly instrumental.

Spotify YouTube

蛋堡 Soft Lipa

Jazz-backed Taiwanese hip hop. The clearest enunciation in rap.

Spotify YouTube

宋冬野 Song Dongye

Beijing folk. Slow, low, every word audible.

Spotify YouTube

拍謝少年 Sorry Youth

Taiwanese Hokkien rock. Not Mandarin, and part of the same room.

Spotify YouTube

五月天 Mayday

The stadium band. Everyone your age in Taiwan knows every word.

Spotify YouTube

逃跑計劃 Escape Plan

Mainland rock. 《世界》 is the album people mean.

Spotify YouTube

原子邦妮 Astro Bunny

Electronic pop, very clean vocals.

Spotify YouTube

旺福 Won Fu

Taipei. Cheerful, retro, easy on a beginner ear.

Spotify YouTube

Chinese Football Chinese Football

Wuhan emo, named after the American band. Guitars first.

Spotify YouTube

The playlist, song by song

Every cover opens that track in Spotify.

电影 · Films

Trailers play here. Watch the films with Chinese subtitles on if you can stand it, English if you can't, and buy or rent them where you normally do.

霸王別姬 Farewell My Concubine · 1993 · 陳凱歌 Chen Kaige Two Peking opera performers across fifty years of Chinese history. The one to watch first. Watch on YouTube

活著 To Live · 1994 · 張藝謀 Zhang Yimou One family carried through the same fifty years. Plain language, devastating. Watch on YouTube

甜蜜蜜 Comrades: Almost a Love Story · 1996 · 陳可辛 Peter Chan Two mainlanders making a life in Hong Kong. Mandarin, Cantonese and English in one film. Watch on YouTube

飲食男女 Eat Drink Man Woman · 1994 · 李安 Ang Lee A retired chef and three daughters, told through Sunday dinner. The kitchen vocabulary alone is worth it. Watch on YouTube

大佛普拉斯 The Great Buddha+ · 2017 · 黃信堯 Huang Hsin-yao Taiwanese, black and white, narrated by the director. Mostly Taiwanese Hokkien, so read the subtitles. Watch on YouTube

血觀音 The Bold, the Corrupt, and the Beautiful · 2017 · 楊雅喆 Yang Ya-che Three generations of women working Taiwanese politics. Polite, formal, poisonous dialogue. Watch on YouTube

十二公民 12 Citizens · 2014 · 徐昂 Xu Ang Twelve Angry Men, remade as a mock jury in Beijing. Two hours of argument in one room, which makes it the best listening practice on this page. Watch on YouTube

我不是藥神 Dying to Survive · 2018 · 文牧野 Wen Muye A man smuggles cheap cancer medicine from India. Contemporary spoken Mandarin, all registers. Watch on YouTube

鋼的琴 The Piano in a Factory · 2010 · 張猛 Zhang Meng A laid-off steelworker builds his daughter a piano. Northeastern accents, deadpan comedy. Watch on YouTube

風聲 The Message · 2009 · 陳國富 · 高群書 A locked-room spy thriller in occupied Nanjing. Fast, plotty, fun. Watch on YouTube

花樣年華 In the Mood for Love · 2000 · 王家衛 Wong Kar-wai Two neighbours in 1962 Hong Kong. Cantonese and Shanghainese more than Mandarin, and worth it anyway. Watch on YouTube

重慶森林 Chungking Express · 1994 · 王家衛 Wong Kar-wai Two loosely joined stories about lovesick people in Hong Kong. The other Wong Kar-wai to start with. Watch on YouTube

一一 Yi Yi · 2000 · 楊德昌 Edward Yang A Taipei family, three generations at once, three hours long and not a wasted minute. Clear, ordinary, everyday Mandarin. Watch on YouTube

牯嶺街少年殺人事件 A Brighter Summer Day · 1991 · 楊德昌 Edward Yang Taipei teenagers in 1960. Four hours, and the film people mean when they say Taiwan New Wave. Watch on YouTube

悲情城市 A City of Sadness · 1989 · 侯孝賢 Hou Hsiao-hsien A family in Taiwan between 1945 and 1949. Long takes, quiet, historical. Watch on YouTube

三國演義 Romance of the Three Kingdoms · 1994 · CCTV, 84 episodes The classic novel as a television series, and the source of half the 成语 you will ever learn. Search YouTube

How to actually use this

Songs first, films second. A song is three minutes, survives a hundred repeats, and teaches you a handful of lines you will keep. A film is two hours you only have once. Put one album on repeat for a week, look up the four or five words that keep coming back, and add them to a deck. That is the whole technique.

Frequently asked questions

What kind of music is on the playlist?

100 songs. Mandarin indie rock, hip hop and folk, mostly Taiwanese. The playlist is called 很好听 and plays on the page or opens in Spotify.

Do the songs and films need to be at my level?

No. Everything on the page is there because it is worth listening to or watching, not because it is at your level. Some notes say so up front: The Great Buddha+ is mostly Taiwanese Hokkien, so read the subtitles, and In the Mood for Love is Cantonese and Shanghainese more than Mandarin.

Where should I start?

Songs first, films second. A song is three minutes and survives a hundred repeats. Pick one band, listen to a whole record, and let the same voice repeat for a few days. The fourth time through a song you are no longer hearing sound, you are hearing words.

Where can I watch the films?

16 films, each with a trailer that plays on the page and a link to YouTube. Buy or rent the films where you normally do, with Chinese subtitles on if you can stand it and English if you cannot.

What do I do with words I pick up from a song?

Put one album on repeat for a week, look up the four or five words that keep coming back, and add them to a deck. That is the whole technique.

Words you meet in a song are worth keeping. Look one up in the dictionary, save it, and it comes back on a schedule that fits how you forget. The whole course, HSK 0 through HSK 6, is $49 once for lifetime access.

Start free