Happy Chinese Learning Obsession Time

I’m currently obsessed with the Happy Chinese Learning series.  Here’s a sample, if you have time to watch:

Here’s a playlist of the whole series.

There is a website with seemingly related material.  Or maybe they’re unrelated, I can’t tell.

Anyway, the cool thing about this Happy Chinese Learning is that the video is actually very high quality language-learning material.  There is highly polished videos… some would say that the transitions and animated vignettes… and certainly the audio design… are all overproduced.  But the live-action itself is excellent.  Here’s why I like it:

• The actors are all native speakers (including Susan, the white girl).
• They are all over-acting, which is a dream for language-learners.
• The speech is not dumbed-down to insulting level, they use real expressions that wouldn’t be taught in a curriculum (remember, listening comprehension follows a radically different syllabus than first year textbooks).
• They’re talking normal speed for actors.
• The characters are sit-com goofy, written to be lovable.
• The animated vignettes that review the vocabulary are kind of awesome.

Happy Chinese Learning does have some shortcomings, which makes it all the more endearing:

• Listening comprehension target is just above where I am now, which is great for me, but since they start with “你好” I have to conclude their aim was quite a bit lower.  Someone with listening proficiency lower than my own could enjoy this show aesthetically, but they’d need hella support to even start to focus on form.  It shows that they have zero concept of the novice language learner’s experience.  In the classroom, that’s maddening… but as a YouTube artifact it’s kinda funny.
• The grammatical commentary is presented in a special segment… but it’s so textbooky and technical that, although it’s academically solid, it’s all kinds of ineffective.  Paired with over-wrought sound design and animation overload, I cannot help but see comedy in it.
• There’s the requisite clueless foreigner whose personal life is a disaster, and who speaks perfectly but due to some cultural differences, ends up stumbling into hilarious situations that everyone learns from.  The character is supposed to be American, but her mannerisms are 100% Asian (trust me, I know) and the rare occasions when she does say English words (e.g., “dad,” “early”) she manages to not say them with the accent of an native speaker of American English.  There’s nothing wrong with that per se, but as a character I find her hard to believe in.

So the show is kind of ideal as a language-learning media artifact; it’s authentic, it’s entertaining, it’s academically solid, and it’s culturally appropriate (even in ways it doesn’t intent to be).  If you’re focused on form (which you should be!  don’t just read the subtitles!) it’s easy enough to rewind and re-watch, down to the sentence or the word you missed.

What’s not to like?

One last thing:  besides the writing being authentic target language delivered at normal speed, I really appreciate that there’s plot which involves conflict.  Not violent conflict, but conflict nonetheless.  The first few that I’ve watched involve some innocent mistakes or misunderstandings, which lead to people taking actions based on assumptions, which serve to escalate the confusion until the end, when everything gets happily resolved.  Yes, it’s a formula, but it’s a theatrical formula; there was someone there that has studied theater and screen writing and it’s not just some academic trying pathetically to string a bunch of target vocabulary into a poorly-written scene. There’s obviously a director working with the actors, who is making sure the actors know their motivation and timing.  My point is that they made not just a language-learning sit-com, but an actual sit-com as well.

Compare that to the relatively clunky French in Action or worse, the mind-numbing Destinos.

Thank goodness this post is done, I’m going to watch another episode of Happy Chinese Learning.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE! In lesson six part one: Americans eat nothing but hamburgers; breakfast, lunch, and dinner! In lesson six part two: Americans’ expectation that Chinese people are always practicing kungfu is CONFIRMED!