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Mandarin: My New Harry Potter Process Is Crazy Efficient! (Even for Beginners)
An audiobook with sound effects and dual-language subtitles
The Mandarin audiobook for Harry Potter is way more engaging than the English version. It is full of music, sound effects, and ambient sounds. In Chapter 4, the Keeper of Keys, there are sounds of the storm outside and Hagrid breaking the door down.
When Hagrid empties his pockets, there are sound effects for every single object he puts on the table, including a copper kettle. The level of pure detail with the sounds makes this audiobook intrinsically enjoyable.
The perfect synchronization of sound effects and their corresponding words makes it easy to intuit new vocabulary through context. It feels as though this audiobook was designed for language learners.
Even if you’re not learning Mandarin, I would buy this audiobook as a language-learning treasure.
If you’re on Day 1 of your Mandarin journey, read on — this is for you! If you already have foundational Mandarin, my new process works just as well.
At the beginning of my Mandarin journey in April 2023, the FIRST thing I did was try and get the Harry Potter audiobook. It was so complicated that it took me 6 months to figure out!
But don’t worry, for you this will be super easy! Mandarin Harry Potter is a huge time commitment, but with my new process, it’s logistically simple.
My previous venture into the Ximalaya app
The Ximalaya app is only available in Chinese to Chinese nationals.
Having the mind of a language learner, I tried to verify my identity through Alipay, WeChat, or Pindoudou. It was a giant game of guess and check crossing into the Chinese internet to see if they would let a weird American onto their platform.
Finally, Alipay let me in!
I downloaded Ximalaya onto my desktop and of course it was all in Hanzi (Chinese characters). Ximalaya wasn’t available in any browser, so I couldn’t simply…
