Reading Sara’s post on Soviet Winnie the Pooh truly inspired me. As a beginning Chinese student, I love watching C-dramas, but sometimes it’s a bit challenging to understand what’s going on, especially with the complex love triangles! Children’s cartoons are a great way to introduce yourself to more Chinese media, especially because they’re designed to use elementary-friendly language. Even if they don’t have captions in English, the animation style can make it easy to pick up on the story and characters. Here are some recommendations I’ve found, plus a bonus C-drama recommendation!
喜羊羊与灰太狼 – Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf
小企鹅宝露露 – Pororo the Little Penguin
小猪佩奇 – Peppa Pig
This channel has Peppa Pig episodes with captions in English, pinyin, and both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
The official Peppa Pig Chinese YouTube channel posts marathon-style videos of episodes, which are great to play in the background! (Note: these do not have closed captions.)
悟空小侠 – Lego Monkie Kid
This is a Lego-themed animated spin-off of the famous Chinese story 西遊記 (Journey to the West)! (Note: I could only find episodes from season 5 in the Mandarin dub.)
Bonus: 流星花园 – Meteor Garden
I’ve been watching episodes of this C-Drama since I started learning Chinese this semester. At times, it is very overdramatic, but I’ve picked up some useful vocabulary and grammar!