ABC launches Mandarin-translation of popular children's podcast, Soundwalks
For the first time, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), has produced a Mandarin translated podcast of popular original ABC Kids audio series Soundwalks. The immersive and sensory-rich audio experience for children offers a variety of guided relaxations featuring the soothing sounds of Australian nature and is available on ABC Asia's audio tab, ABC Kids listen as well as on third-party podcast platforms.
Hosted by bilingual performer, MC, voice and speech teacher Nikki Zhao, Soundwalks promotes mindfulness, calm and curiosity, helping children manage their emotions. The 10-episode series offers a gentle and playful introduction to language and can be used as an educational resource to support bilingual development in children.
ABC International Head Claire M. Gorman said: 'This exciting new series will delight international and domestic audiences across the Mandarin-speaking diaspora and marks an important expansion of ABC International's content offering via the newly launched ABC Asia audio tab.'
Executive Producer ABC Kids Audio Veronica Milsom said: 'We are thrilled to be expanding our audio offering with this beautiful audio series that acts as a source of comfort and support for children and their guardians. Creating accessible and inclusive content is a key priority for our programming and by delivering this series in Mandarin we hope that even more children will be able to access the health and wellbeing benefits of this series.'
WAYS TO LISTEN:
Soundwalks in Mandarin is available wherever you get your podcasts or via the ABC Asia Audio tab or ABC Kids listen.
For all media enquiries, contact Annalise Ramponi, Marketing and Communications Coordinator, ABC International
Ramponi.annalise@abc.net.au
We acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the First Australians and Traditional Custodians of the lands where we live, learn and work.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Andy And The Band: Rock Star Magic
Andy And The Band: Rock Star Magic ABC Kids Music & Movement Friendship Watch Duration: 24 minutes 14 seconds 24 m Article share options Share this on Facebook Twitter Send this by Email Copy link WhatsApp Messenger With less an hour to go, the band and students launch into action to put on the best show possible to save the school. Little do they know, some Rock Star Magic might help...
ABC News
an hour ago
- ABC News
Beloved Australian actor Claudia Karvan says there's a chilling authenticity to Like, Follow, Die
Like, Follow, Die is a psychological thriller that begins with a knock on the door. Probationary detective Kyle Nazarian wants to speak to Corinne Gray about her son Ben, a sweet-natured child who loved history and dreamed of swimming for Olympic Gold. Ben has done the unthinkable, and his mother pours herself into uncovering the sinister figures and shadowy online communities who prey on vulnerable young people like her son. It's fiction. But beloved Australian actor Claudia Karvan (Bump, Puberty Blues, Secret Life of Us), who stars as Corinne in the multi-cast narration of the audiobook, says there's a very real edge to this story. "I think there's real truth to it," Karvan told ABC News. "There's a very real tussle happening right now in front of us between the old world order and new progressive ways, and we're watching that happen right now. "So, it couldn't be more timely." Karvan, who has a 23-year-old daughter and a 19-year-old son, says she agrees with What About Men author Caitlin Moran, who implores fellow feminists to ponder: Where are the boys, and are we making sure they're keeping up? "It's a conversation that my son and I have to have delicately," Karvan said. She says in Like, Follow, Die, Corinne unpacks the job she did as a parent. "[She's] trying to work out what cultural influences may have derailed her efforts [and] being very honest with her own deficiencies." Like, Follow, Die is written by the bestselling author of Dark Mode, Ashley Kalagian Blunt, who says there's been an overwhelming response to the audiobook since it was released last week. "I've had a bunch of readers get in touch with me to tell me how much they love the twists and just how the story really hits them, especially if they're parents," Kalagian Blunt told ABC News. "The main thing I want to do with Like, Follow, Die is show how in the men's rights activist space, there are groups that are specifically targeting teenage boys through places like YouTube and Instagram, TikTok, the places where teenage kids hang out. "It's not that they're just naturally drawn to that, maybe in some cases, but it's that there's actually people who are investing money and strategy in thinking about how do we draw these boys into our world view? Kalagian Blunt says she wants to contribute to an existing conversation around social media and teenagers, what they're exposed to, and how that's shaping their world view. "The reason I wanted to write from Ben's point of view, from the teenage boy's point of view through his journals, we only see him from age 12 to age 19, is because I wanted to show how he developed this world view, and how he was targeted by groups that very specifically were looking for vulnerable teenage boys. "And I think there is this societal conversation and dialogue right now around men's violence and toxic masculinity and modern feminism, and those are really important conversations and really important topics. Like, Follow, Die is on Audible and features an all-star cast including Claudia Karvan as Corinne Gray, Ryan Corr as Kyle Nazarian and Laurence Boxhall as Benjamin Gray.
ABC News
2 hours ago
- ABC News
Rising festival 'sound experience' Saturate asks audiences to jump in a pool
It's not every performance that requires an audience member to strip down to their togs. So, from the outset, Saturate, an underwater musical "experience" on during this year's Rising festival, establishes that it's little bit different. Picture 60 or so people together in a public pool — the historic City Baths in the centre of Naarm/Melbourne — serenely sharing what is usually a very active space. "Your ears need to be underneath the water to hear the sound composition in its full frequency spectrum, which means that you need to be either diving under the water or floating on your back," the show's creator, sound artist Sara Retallick, says. Retallick, who has produced and performed different underwater listening experiences — including at Rising 2021, and Brunswick Music Festival — says her underwater composition presents a "really different way of listening". "We're geared towards imagining sound [under water] to be quite muffled, [for example] if you were to listen to a radio that was submerged in water or someone singing or talking under water. "But because I'm using underwater speakers that are designed for this process, the clarity of the sound is actually really quite incredible." She's deliberately used instrumentation that couldn't acoustically be performed under water — "air-reliant instruments" like flutes or voice, and electronics — which she presents under water with clarity. Some of the sound is also recordings of water. "It's designed to get people thinking about whether they're hearing the sound composition or hearing the water around them. [It's] sort of playing with reality versus recording. "So it's this very different encounter with sound." Retallick is keen to ease her audiences into the show, which "starts in a fairly gentle way". Front of mind is that she's asking her audiences — disrobed, submerged in water — "to be in quite a vulnerable position". "That's definitely something that has a been a theme through all of these underwater works that I've made, is that that care for the audience is really important and the whole journey becomes part of the work. "So, of course there's the sound work itself, which is the main thing, but then how people move through the venue and through the change rooms and all of that, I also consider a very big part of the work." To refine her compositions, she jumps in a pool herself, to test scaled-down versions of the sound. She's even found an "Airbnb for pools" so she can use a private pool for a few hours at a time to listen as her audiences would. "A lot of my compositional process uses sound and digital processing to create quite unique sounds and I've really thought about — listening under water myself and getting a sense of what sounds work quite well and what sounds don't work as well and what frequencies respond well under water." The process of making the work has presented plenty of things to think about that she wouldn't have had to consider if she'd presented her composition in a concert venue or other "normal music venue". "So there's all of these considerations that come into play." Saturate runs for 24 minutes and 37 seconds, which is a very purposeful duration: it's the same duration as the longest breath held under water. And, for Retallick, seeing bathers-wearing audience members experience it in a state of deep, focused listening is a joy. "[It's] incredible for me as a sound artist because that's what I was hoping to get out of this work; to present something that would encourage audiences to really tune in. "And I guess the gesture of inviting people to actually fully submerge their bodies in water in order to access the sound means that they're committing a lot to the work, to being able to experience that listening." Retallick has discovered, over years of practice, that something very particular occurs in audiences' bodies during her underwater shows. "I came across this realisation that we listen really differently under water. So, when we're submerged in water, in a pool or in the ocean, we listen through bone conduction hearing. [That] means that the sound vibrates through the skull and the bones in our skull, and the jawbone, rather than passing through the ear canal as it would if you're listening above water or through air. "So that gives the sound this very close quality. It almost sounds like it's inside your head and we sort of lose the directionality of the sound, so it's like the sound composition is coming from all directions at once." Saturate is on as part of Rising festival, running June 14-15.
