I haven’t been going at it with as much fervour as I have in the past, but I’ve still been plugging away at learning Mandarin. It’s been a few years now, and I still, sadly, know very little. 我能写字好。我能不听和不言好。因为我能不听到，我就喜欢我的新CR2电台。每天我听“澳洲早安！“。常常我知道一两个字。

My estimate for being somewhat decent at Mandarin is 5 to 10 years – from now – at my current study rate.

Anyway, one thing I find very helpful is using Chinese media. I love to watch Mandarin movies and TV shows, but most of all I like listening to Chinese talk shows on the commute to work.

I have a healthy selection of Mandarin podcasts I sometimes sync onto my iPhone. Podcasts include, but are not limited to: iMandarinpod.com and PopupChinese. I used to listen to ChinesePod, but they went to a more aggressive charging model, and it doesn’t suite me; however, they have really good content so I still recommend them.

Podcasts are great, but syncing stuff to my iPhone is bit of a hassle. A hassle compared simply turning on a radio or TV anyway. Additionally, here in Australia, bandwidth is expensive and it’s capped – nothing on the internet from my point of view is “free” (Sorry Rupert).

So I set out to find a way to listen to Mandarin content anytime I wanted, without eating into my precious bandwidth.

Looking though a Chinese newspaper – yeah a real newspaper – I found an ad for the 2CR China Radio Network (澳洲中文⋯⋯什么什么⋯⋯电台). It’s a radio station that broadcasts 24 hours a day all in Mandarin.

The catch is, the station is on a non AM / FM frequency so you have to buy a special radio to listen to the broadcasts. It’s a pretty cool hack and it gets the job done. It operates in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, and it’s 24 hour non stop 汉语 (and some Cantonese) on three different channels.