General Discussion

I've finished watching most of the shows on my to-do list and need something new! I've been meaning to watch some shows to help get some more natural experience with languages that I'm learning but I don't know where to start looking for them. That's where I was hoping the multicultural community of FR could help me out!

I've taken 5 years of Mandarin but I'm not very conversational. I can read Cyrillic and know a handful Russian words but I've never had any formal instruction. I'd love if there were English subtitles to help me out lol

Alternatively, if you know anywhere that I can find English shows dubbed in either of those languages that would be cool too! Less cultural immersion but still helpful

I'm also open to other languages if the show is good, those two are just the languages I'm prioritizing

I WOULD LIKE TO RECOMMEND TO EVERYONE:
Our Song (2019) - "Wo Men De Ge" - You can find the first season with English subs on youtube (episode 12 is fan subbed on dailymotion). I am on this huge music show binge and this was such a good one! It's mainly Mandarin but there is a bit of a blend of other languages like Cantonese during the songs. They pair older singers with newer generation singers and they compete to see which pair is the best - sort of like a mentorship system. I thought the competition was light hearted and it was cool to see how they collaborated!

For other recommendations, I liked Super Vocal (2018) - another singing one where the invited 36 singers who are singers that can make teams to sing bel canto/opera/musical theater performances. There was nice music in this one too! Two of the new generation singers from Our Song were on this show.

I liked King's Avatar and Grand Patriarch of Demonic Cultivation (Mo Dao Zu Shi). They have live action versions that are actually complete - the animated versions haven't been finished yet. I believe they are all English subbed on youtube! King's Avatar is about esports of this game called Glory where the protagonist was the best player but needed to start over from scratch. MDZS is a period drama where kids fight monsters and then fight in wars.

for russian. are you ok with like.. cartoons? because smeshariki is excellent [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/2/24/Smeshariki.jpg[/img] its not just for babies like it sometimes explores some philosophical themes? also its generally just good vibes. i like it a lot i need to bingewatch the whole thing again however i dont know if english subtitles are available? id imagine theres at least some fansubs out there theres also a few spinoffs, and theyre mostly 3d, but the 2d og is just better honestly. i do like one of these spinoffs though bc its educational on a lot of things

Definitely recommend Wu Zetian (Empress of China). It's a 74-episode periodic Chinese drama that follows that story of China's only "Female Emperor", Wu Zetian, and her rise to power. You can find all 74 episodes for free on Dramacool and they have English subtitles.

However, the show is pretty brutal, starting from episode one. If you're sensitive about characters sabotaging each other and pretty frequent deaths, perhaps you'll want to avoid it. Nothing is too gorey, but violence is pretty frequent in the show, since that's just ancient China.

[quote name="PixelSpiral" date="2021-02-26 00:59:14" ] for russian. are you ok with like.. cartoons? because smeshariki is excellent [img]https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ru/2/24/Smeshariki.jpg[/img] its not just for babies like it sometimes explores some philosophical themes? also its generally just good vibes. i like it a lot i need to bingewatch the whole thing again however i dont know if english subtitles are available? id imagine theres at least some fansubs out there theres also a few spinoffs, and theyre mostly 3d, but the 2d og is just better honestly. i do like one of these spinoffs though bc its educational on a lot of things [/quote] I knew that someone would’ve suggested this already... I only started actually realizing the amount of philosophical themes in this show when I was re-watching a while ago. It is on YouTube so there should be at least auto-generated English subtitles, they might not be the best though. I recommend the 2d versions too, the newer 2d’s aren’t as good so starting from the first episode is better.

I really loved Better Than Us.

It's a Russian Sci-Fi series (honestly, Russian sci-fi in general is so good) that follows the idea of developing family-oriented androids. It's a race between countries to build the best AI, and whomever wins, their model is mass produced. Unfortunately, a Russian company with the best performing android has used mysterious blueprints from ???. It's a mystery, thriller, drama and I just... love it. (And yes, it has English subtitles!)

Mo dao zu shi, tian guan ci fu, nezha (2019)

I grew up watching Chinese stuff so...

If you have Viki, Go Go Squid from 2019 was pretty cute. if you want something relatively easy to digest. I watch a lot of xianxia, wuxia type stuff but Go Go Squid is a cute modern one set in the e-gaming industry.
The sequel Appledog's Time( actually a prequel) is airing right now and Viki is real-time english subbing it.

Netflix has Ashes of Love and Three Lives, Three Worlds, Ten Miles of Peach Blossoms if you don't mind fantasy xianxia romance type stuff.


I'm also going to recommend the more straightforward wuxia ones that I'm familiar with through my parents and grew up hearing about and/or watching when I was a kid.

Legend of the Condor Heroes. Viki has the one from 2009 with Hu Ge and Ariel Lin in it. But there's been multiple incarnations of this series, it's based off a really well-known novel trilogy series by the late Wuxia author Louis Cha.

The second and third novels in the series Return of the Condor Heroes and Heavenly Sword Dragon Slaying Sabre also have been made into tv shows a lot. There seems to be a new version coming out every couple years. The most recent version of the last book in the series, Heavenly Sword and Dragon Slaying Sabre was aired in 2019? not sure if it's fully subbed in English though. The version from 2009 I believe is fully subbed.

Netflix also has the Handsome siblings from another really well-known wuxia novelist.

And older stuff that I grew up watching when I was a kid(melodramatic old historical stuff so might not be your cup of tea) like (Princess Returning Pearl, My Fair Princess in English), Romance in the Rain based upon novels by the well known Chinese romance novelist Qiong Yao are also available on various platforms. They've been subbed in english for a long time, I watched Princess Returning Pearl in Chinese without subs originally when I was around 10 or so and the series came out in the early 90s or so.
Romance in the Rain, Princess Returning Pearl are both fully english subbed on youtube.

@Nevros Chinese words I recognize! Those all sound fun and easy to find, I'll definitely check those out thanks!

@PixelSpiral @evidence Kids' shows are great! Probably more helpful for language learning too since they use simpler words. My sister is quite a bit younger than me, I'd watch some of her cartoons with her and it was interesting to see how engaging they could be for someone older. With two recommendations for it I'm very excited to check it out, thanks for telling me about it!

@Jxckal That sounds great! I don't know nearly as much about Chinese history as I should. My Chinese teacher introduced us to a few historically based Chinese films that were pretty intense. Thanks for the recommendation!

@Grune It sounds fun and it's on Netflix! The plot sounds so much like what I'd expect from an American show lol, it's fascinating to see how different cultures approach topics like AI. Thanks for recommending it to me!

@StormCaleum Added them to the list, thanks! I'll check them out

@Sedai Oh wow that's a lot! I don't have Viki but I can look into getting it or finding the shows elsewhere, I can certainly watch the Netflix ones. I'm enjoy a pretty broad range of things so I'll eventually watch all of them that I can find. The huge list is super helpful, thanks!