[newhouseb]

Watch reality Chinese television with subtitles. You get both the visual confirmation alongside the sound. They can be kind of a drag to get through (esp if you're used to HBO-level stuff), but the benefit of reality TV is that you can miss parts of a conversation and not be completely confused as to what's going on as there is no real plot.

[ravitation]

I find it really hard to watch foreign TV/Movies with subtitles because I lose almost all of the audio, and am pretty much just reading the whole time - path of least resistance to understanding, I guess.

[jackvalentine]

I think he's referring to Chinese subtitles. Almost all television in China is subtitled with Chinese characters.

[atratus]

can you recommend some shows/channels? Are there any online streams?

[imron]

Check out the Grand First Episode Project on Chinese Forums: http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/24097-tv-seri...

Some of the links are outdated, but there's a ton of info there, including descriptions, vocab lists, difficulty rankings and more.