this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2023
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Chinese language 中文 漢語

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Discussions and resources for studying or learning about Chinese languages (Mandarin, Cantonese, Hokkien, Hakka, Classical Chinese, etc.).

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Does anyone have any donghua (Chinese anime) or video games they would recommend for learning Chinese?

I'm open for most kinds of TV shows, though since I'm not fluent then something with not too advanced language would be good!

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[–] kurosawaa 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

A lot of switch games have Chinese language options. I recently played through Luigi's mansion in Chinese and also played dragon quest with the voice language set to Japanese with Chinese text (which is how a lot of native Chinese speakers experience games anyway) and had a fun time.

Starcraft 2 also has a great Chinese translation with both mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin dubs.

[–] stroopwafel 1 points 1 year ago

Nice, thanks for the suggestions! :D

[–] nednobbins 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've been experimenting with this a bit myself. One problem is that people speak strangely in video games. I don't normally run around telling people I'm gonna kick their but and throw lightning bolts at them so it's not obvious that I'm getting much grammar or vocabulary help.

But I do end up listening to a bunch of voice actors speaking Chinese with proper accents. I figure that helps with my pronunciation and speech recognition. I try to repeat whatever they say for a little extra practice.

Some games let you independently set the spoken and written languages. I focus on those since I can still play the game but they speak a bunch of Chinese. I'm thinking of trying to start some new game and setting it entirely in Chinese to see what happens if I try to force myself through it.

For now I've got the following games set to do dialog in Chinese:
Total War: Three Kingdoms
Anno: Mutationem
F.I.S.T.
Warm Snow
Amazing Cultivation Simulator
Word Game: Episode 0 (Warning this is way too hard for me)

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The problem I encountered when I started switching the in-game language to Chinese was that descriptions of game mechanics and systems can be quite hard to read, whereas it's relatively straightforward to keep up with the narrative.

I did the same as you initially and just set audio to Chinese for games like Cyberpunk, and I think it did help my listening. Now I've played through a few games with text and audio set to Chinese and it has gotten a bit smoother.

[–] stroopwafel 1 points 1 year ago

Oh, and I also made a community for discussing donghua, for anyone interested: https://lemmy.world/c/donghua