I want to catch up on some comments about the difficulties that newbies may find here on CPod. It seems that for absolute beginners, the recent newbie lessons have been a bit difficult. Sorted! Next week we’ll have some lessons for people who may be hearing Chinese for the first time - shorter sentences, simpler patterns, etc.
Another issue has been the fact that newbies cannot enter into some of the discussions that are taking place on the forums here. I’ll take a number of steps to remedy this. After the May holiday we’ll start to use a tagging system. Blog entries will have a tag on them, indicating the level at whom they are directed. Beyond that, I hope we can create a search function that will further help us organize information, comments, and ideas.
In the meantime, if you have any other comments on the subject of newbies and newbiedom, please feel free. This is your chance.
After this I’ll go through the other levels to give each of them their space.
Ken Carroll
Here are some comments from a newbie who is nearing the cusp to elementary.
- I appreciate it when you specifically indicate the tone of each word
- I find the music behind the discussion quite distracting, even if it is soft string music
- I appreciate the native Chinese speakers in the Chinese dialogs. Jenny is easy to understand, but some of the other speakers have been less easy to understand. The gentleman in the “Feeling Uncomfortable” was excellent with regards to his volume, clarity, and speed.
- When you introduce a phrase, I like it when you give the literal meaning of each word in the phrase, even if you end up translating the phrase differently so it is more natural in English. With regards to idioms, they can be a little confusing for a newbie. I feel most comfortable when the words are more of a “what you hear is what you get” variety.
- I lurk on discussions at a non-newbie level and find them useful and in no way alienating. Agree that improved searching would be wonderful
- A suggestion for a lesson : tips on how to pronounce those difficult sounds, like “r”. A Chinese friend told me I should curl the tip of my tongue, and that helped. I also hear a difference in “h”, which sounds raspier than an American “h”. And I wouldn’t mind pointers about the “x” in xie2 xie2. I envision a comic stress-relieving moment when Ken first tries it like a native English speaker would approach it, and then gets gently corrected by Jenny.
Thanks to everyone at CPod for a job well done!
Some additional comments from a ‘Newbie’,
-I agree about specifically indicating tones. It helps with associating the word with tone.
-I think continuing with a variety of speakers would be great. I feel it helps a lot to hear new people speak.
-I also agree about the pronounciation. That would be really helpful.
-I think a dialogue which included more than two people would be great. (This may have been done, but I haven’t heard it in any of the podcasts I’ve downloaded personally) Like a situation at dinner or at the bar etc., in which there is a small group of people conversing.
-How about including more vocabulary (which can be interchanged with the words chosen for the dialogue) after the dialogues. (This does happen, but not always, and it’s really helpful. For example in the University Majors dialogue, the only major we learned was Finance)
-Personally I like the music
Thanks a lot!
Diana/Jason.
Good stuff-the music is something we are constantly looking at; on one hand, I loath “dry reads” (nothing in the background), but also understand the needs for hearing the dialog clearly…so, like we always do here:
I’ll leave it up to you. Keep the music in the dialog or not?
Aric
Aric
Could you at least take the music out of the Dialogue Transcript (Premium)? I use this great feature to listen over and over again to the primary sentences as well as the other sentences. And in doing so I am trying to improve my pronunciation and sometimes even tones. So here for sure the background music is a distraction.
Mike in Jubei
MUSICAL NOISE - What do people think of the music plus voice in this? http://podcast.kijiji.com.cn/ Will mixing up the type of music make a difference? I really think music helps the mind to relax and take in the dialogues more naturally. It in a way prevents too much over analysis on the part of the brain. What if the voice audio level is raised? BTW, this is different than music in the Review section…but Mike, I don’t think I’ve heard music on those little audio clips? Anyway, if there is, I’d agree it’s not necessary there when we’re reviewing.
Lantian
I just checked again. We were both correct. There is music in teh Premium Dialogue on top where it is I assume a copy of the podcast. The additional sentences below there is no music unless Aric has put some subliminal Wang Faye that passes through the ear and goes directly to the brain.
Mike in Jubei
If I had the power of the “sublime”, I would actually be using it on Faye herself-not that I don’t hold you both close.
I want this to run a bit longer as to get a feel for everyone’s opinion about the music, and then will make a change (or not).
You all comin’ to town for “Golden Week”? Plenty of room-ha ha.
Aric
The music get in the way a little of remixing.
If you view the entire set of podcasts as a huge audio archive (a awareness that is slowly but surely growing in the community) then the ‘dry’ material is easier and cleaner to recombine.
The music destroys my focus…. I use the pause after something to make sure i can understand it and the music really isn’t helping. I don’t find the earlier “dry” lessons even remotely dry.. perhaps during the final repeat it’s starting to get that way but even then only if I find the lesson very easy.
Hey Aric
During Golden Week, my daughter who is in Law School in Tokyo this semester will go to Shanghai but no way will I suggest she meet up with you. You wouldn’t survive and we need you to do what ever it is you do there at Chinesepod.
BTW I looked at the photos on the Wiki of photos of CPod staff and I zoomed up to see if there were any great surprises on the wet board. Alas none! ( BTW Jenny you looked great as usual. Where is Aggie’s photo ? ) I think we will ask Bazza to add a title in their forum on future stuff and we expect you (Aric) to be our mole.
Mike in Jubei
Mike/David/Chris/Charles,
Are we talking during the dialog? The entire show? Give me some more specifics-I really like the ambience it creates (as well as the drilled-into-my-radio-host-head being a massive no-no), but can also understand how it can be a distraction…again, it’s what is best for you all.
Mike, she should at least swing by the new studio’s and pick up our gifts we have of you…I will get some photos of Aggie and Karen up on the photo site, a few have been added recently at:
www.flickr.com/photos/chinesepod
…and no one’s really quite sure what I do here, I’m sure as word of that gets out, I’ll have loads of time to visit you in Jubei and Lantian in Hainan-18 holes here we come!
Since Aric is wanting feedback on the “background music” question.
I do medical transcription and in the background I usually have music playing as I work. It was annoying and distracting to begin with but now I can’t stand NOT having it. But if I really need to concentrate or have difficulty understanding a certain doctor or am trying to get loads of work done, OFF goes the music. I would imagine that for someone really needing to concentrate on tones, vocab etc. (which would be the majority of newbies?) music would be a major distraction.
Recently I’ve read that playing classical Western music in the background (in restaurants, stores etc.) makes consumers feel more affluent and tend to spend more. With that in mind, maybe you should play Mozart in the background on chinesepod, and then more people will find themselves deciding they can afford the premium service after all. Ha! (Actually I did just sign up for a month of premium and the learning center seems much improved or expanded since my free one-week trial??)
Catherine
Sorry Aric for the delay.
I don’t find the music a distraction as such, it is just that I tend to cut and paste the podscasts once I have got used to them so the music get out of sync somewhat. I also speed up the newbie podcasts by 40% (the music gets a little frenetic) and have started speeding up a couple of the elementary podcasts by 15%.
So I guess my request for a music free podcast is a little selfish. When I first listen to one I enjoy the music etc. and the ken / jenny banter.
Once I get used to it then only the dialogue is important, distilled down to the bare essentials and speeded up if that helps.
I suppose I will just sit on the fence and ride off in both directions on this one, I can see everybodies point of view.
Quick comment - I like the music. It adds a polished feel to the podcasts, and also serves as segues from one section to another.
However, I’d have no objection to dropping the string music during the dialogues themselves. I like it, but I don’t think I’d miss it much.
It is important that a classroom be well laid out, comfortable and suitably decorated. It has been shown to make a big difference to the learning that happens in there.
In an audio lesson, music is our room and furnishings. To some extent the same principles apply. You don’t want it to be so garish or beautiful that it distracts the students’ attention, nor do you want the curtains to flap across the whiteboard or the teacher’s face, ever. You do need something to create an atmosphere, to put the students in the desired mood for learning, and to keep everyone’s spirits up, and to leave them feeling good about what they’ve just done. That’s very important.
I think people are talking about recordings that I don’t have access to, so no direct comment on that, but yes music is an essential thing to have! Just not in those places where you’re trying to distinguish unfamiliar sounds, and certainly not behind any words that you haven’t heard before this week. That probably cuts out even very faint music behind important dialogues.
If we’re aware that the music is being used on us it’s not exercising its power. I say don’t abandon music entirely, but treat it like pheromones.
I’d be happy with music while Jenny and Ken are talking but not when the dialog is being read out or broken down it sometime seems to “peak” either when there is silence or right over the top of a word.
I’m (gasp) so far behind (wheeze) on my lessons (puff puff) that I don’t think I’ll ever catch up to the current podcasts. Are there any hints on wading through massive amounts of past podcasts/transcripts/vocabulary?? I’m trying to do 3 at a time, but I can only sit down 2-3 times a week for these mega-sessions, so it’s ultimately the same as if I did only 1 podcast a day. And then I’m always wanting to go back and review the past week’s work and make sure I actually remember it, which puts me further behind.
I’ve given on my (literally) bright idea to use colored popsicle sticks as cute little flashcards. Too much fuss and bulk. White flashcards are now it. However my ESL tutoree (tutee?) will now begin seeing colored popsicle sticks incorporated into *her* lessons, ha! (not with Chinese vocab though)
One thing I find gratifying is that recognition of characters is gradually becoming easier. It’s easier to see the separate elements in each character. At the beginning, 没 and 设 and 投 looked the same to me; because I was honing in on the shapes of 几 and 又 stacked atop each other. Or I might look at 找 or even 钱 and think it was 我. 要 looked like 票 and 有 looked like 看, to say nothing of 并and 开.
But as my art teacher used to say, “Your eye has to be trained.” Eventually you can see the subtle differences between characters. Eventually they become in-your-face differences and you would never mistake 要 for 票.
Well I don’t know why I decided to ramble on that, it’s probably obvious to anyone who’s been learning Chinese any amount of time… just that I find it encouraging and maybe some other newbie(s) will too!
Okay, from now on (keep in mind, we edit/master shows a week before publishing them) I’ll drop the music during the dialogs, but keep them in the rest of the show.
Thanks for letting me know!
Aric
I am a semi-newbie and I study Chinese in my car most days. The lessons are excellent, but I would like to be albe to tell which lesson I am about to hear in terms of level and sequence number so I can go through them in order. I notice in the file name you provide this information, but it doesn’t make it into the title that the iPod displays. If the title were like “C40 Being pissed off” for example then I would know that this is the 40th installment in the intermediate set.
I really like the more thorough review of vocabulary at the end of the last newbie (Downloading Music) lesson. I think it really helps after reviewing the dialog. One other note about the volume level (this has been mentioned in the comments in one of the intermediate lessons as well)–lately the last few newbie lessons have had really uneven volume between Ken and Jenny. I listen in my car so I have car/traffic noise that I have to cut through to listen. Not that big of a deal–I tinker with the files anyway (editing the mp3 ID tag), but lately I’ve had to process the podcast files through a compressor/brick wall limiter so I can get sufficient volume in my car.
This is something ONLY a newbie would get excited about, but when listening to the way-back-when podcast “How YOU doin?” last night, I learned the word 帅 shuai4, handsome. The character is the same as 师 shi1 as in 老师 laoshi, teacher! Except without the top stroke!
So I was wondering, would 老帅 be “old handsome”? Would 老师 Ken be 老帅 Ken? What would you call that– a “visual pun” or just– nothing at all, just two similar characters, no more remarkable than the similarity between “win” and “twin”? or “lean” and “loan”… Oh well, it’s the little things like that, that keep me going… Chinese is full of possibilities! I’m already looking forward to all the mistakes I can make in writing or in speaking, with a totally straight face– as a foreigner, you could get away with saying the most ridiculous or outrageous things, and not be held accountable for it!! (and always pass off your mistakes as deliberate)
Catherine