Recently I had an email from a learner in the US who wants to come to study in Shanghai and use the ChinesePod method in a classroom setting. That certainly could be done. (I’ve run a language school here for 10 years. Arranging arrival/accommodation isn’t difficult.)
This prompts something I’ve been thinking about for some […]
Archive for November, 2006
Visit Shanghai and learn Chinese?
Published by November 21st, 2006 in Learning Chinese and About ChinesePod. 45 CommentsChinese cliches
Published by November 19th, 2006 in Learning Chinese and About the Chinese language. 18 Comments The visual cli-Che
I missed a very important event recently, National Cliche Day in the US. As we all know, English has enough cliches to choke a horse, but at the end of the day (ok, enough of that) how about Chinese?
The term ‘cliche’ is not a grammatical one. It simply refers to an overused […]
For some time I’ve felt that the ChinesePod logo should go. To be honest, it’s not very clear. Does it say ‘pod‘? or ‘Dod‘? Meanwhile, the character for ‘zhong‘ is not much use if you don’t know Chinese. Imagine if you came across the log for the first time - I’ll bet you wouldn’t be […]
Going out for dinner with your boss tonight? And she only speaks Chinese?? Then you need a series of lessons on Dining in China, all in one place. Thats the theory of our lessons sets, and we have just added four new ones today. Lesson sets are for when you want all the […]
It’s Jenny’s birthday tomorrow (as if you didn’t know). I don’t know how old she is (honestly).
A lot of people ask me what shes’ really like. Well, as we all know she’s very smart.You also probably know that she has a real Shanghainese elegance about her, etc.
But I guess you’re probably more interested […]
The Chicago Trib on learning Chinese in the US
Published by November 14th, 2006 in Learning Chinese. 23 CommentsEvan Osnos at the Chicago Tribune describes how ‘China Tries to Grab the World by the Tongue’. The article is good on the historical backdrop and political complexities behind the growth of Mandarin as a lingua franca. Never in history has a languiage been spread around the world this fast. And, hey, I guess we’re […]
A while back we decided to add a Sunday lesson, giving our listeners 6 days of new lessons every week, plus the Saturday show. This move was greeted with moderate rejoicing, then it was back to business as usual.
Over the past few months, we’ve looked carefully at how this has impacted things. The advantage is […]
The communicative approach to learning Chinese
Published by November 11th, 2006 in Learning Chinese and About ChinesePod. 14 CommentsWe’ve had some discussion this week on the communicative approach (CA) to teaching and learning Chinese. One question that arose in that discussion was how and where ChinesePod leverages this approach. It does, but let me be clear about something: The ChinesePod ‘platform’ is not supposed to be a complete solution to learning Chinese. Podcasting, […]
The momentum of TCSL
Published by November 10th, 2006 in Learning Chinese and Teaching Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL). 11 CommentsCui Xiliang, the president of BLCU, pens an article in the China Daily today, ‘Chinese language learning booms as world enters new era’. It doesn’t actually say that much new, but it’s revealing of the attitudes amongst the leaders in the field.
My take: the infrastructure that is supposed to enable the global rise of […]
What exactly is Business Chinese?
Published by November 9th, 2006 in Uncategorized, About ChinesePod and Doing Business in China. 21 CommentsWe have been increasing the number of business related lessons we publish in response to popular demand. In fact, we have found that “doing business” is one of the primary reasons people decide to learn Chinese. This makes sense when you think about the amount of economic activity that involves China these days. Hardly […]
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