hokkien podcast, finally
Hokkien is a language I bumped into a couple of months ago while looking for Chinese language lessons aside from Mandarin at the Internet. As I was a little familiar with Fookien counting, I recognized the similarity of Hokkien and Fookien immediately. I showed this to my Taiwanese classmate and true enough, she recognized this as Shaman Hokkien used somewhere in the province of Taiwan.
In my efforts of looking for audio training, I only found Mandarin podcasts, audio materials and youtube episodes from serious broadcasts to comical translations. However, the search for a Fookien audio material hadn’t brought any good print or audio space material.
All hail to Jason McDowell for being the first to provide a Hokkien podcast. In this iTunes era, podcast for Chinese have proliferated the scene but the focus is too much on Mandarin. I guess, the niche for Hokkien learners is latent in demand since there are only a few who is willing to learn the language. In McDowell’s case, the determination rose from the fact that his girlfriend is a Taiwanese and had pursued learning the language at a course subject and on his own. Now, he’s podcasting for free at iTunes and his website. It is my lucky day ^_^
Currently he have 2 podcasts uploaded. The first is his Introduction and the second is his First Episode. Well, I’m off to learn this language offline during the weekend.
Learn Taiwanese at:
My Taiwanese by Jason McDowell