I was searching for something completely unrelated, but stumbled upon this YouTube channel. It has 130 videos with short dialogues followed by vocabulary words. The few I've watched are just strange enough that they have been oddly amusing. The ones I've watched so far have been simple slowly spoken dialogues.

I am curious to hear what other users think about them. They don't appear to have too many views.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheAngryFamilyCH

OR

http://linguacast.ncl.ac.uk/v3/pages/chinese.html

Pure genius. I feel like I should watch them stoned though.

James

Not bad! Hosted by Newcastle University, so not by some nutcase with too much time on his hands as I first thought.

The first lesson is too slow, but more advanced ones are good for me, like this Angry Olympics one on the three versions of "can":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrB5QIv4I6Q
or this one on "would like":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-S23mU1zhkQ

That is just awesome. I can understand the slow speaking speed, not sure why there is so much space between sentences though.

I agree the pauses in between seem a bit long, but I suppose it's better then it going too fast. I just enjoy that they took the time to make dialogs that don't feel like the boring textbook style dialogs.

@James, I suppose it might help some people watch them, though for me this style holds my attention without haha.

A ridiculous plot base filled with sarcasm and dry voice overs is certainly a win in my book. Much more so than a practical optimistic airport dialog.

I went to Newcastle university, and can confirm, Kai, that the place is not entirely free of nutcases with too much time on their hands. Which was, in fact, part of the place's charm. Come to think of it, as an art student, I may have been at risk of being included in their number.

Anyway, this is entertaining stuff, although a touch slow, and is refreshingly free from the deep earnestness of most Chinese language learning materials.