This past week, ChinesePod’s been keeping busy improving the website to better serve your needs!
Flashcard audio: We have finally resolved the audio problem in our flashcard program - much thanks goes out to the tech team and to the people who have written in! The audio now syncs cooperatively with your ChinesePod flashcards and you can listen to over 4,000 words (as spoken by a true local) for your studying pleasure.
Upcoming game: John and the academic team are in the process of putting the finishing touches to a new game that will further help you recognize Chinese characters by matching them to their pinyin counterpart in an adventure setting. Some screenshots (click for the full size):
Very cool, watch out for that next week!
Lesson Plans: Part of the joy of being an innovative company is that there are a constant stream of new ideas (coming from the ChinesePod staff and the community at large) but sometimes this also means cutting loose older projects that weren’t quite as popular in order to make way for more innovation. (Only about 1 percent of those with access to them were using the lesson plans, and unfortunately, each one took a disproportionate amount of time to make.) So, in order to pour our resources into developing other worthwhile projects that will benefit you in the long term, we have decided to stop producing the lesson plans, and today’s the first day you won’t see them up there for a while. If you truly love the lesson plans though, we have a few hundred for you to work through in the lesson archive and they will not go away anytime soon.
Welcoming other CPodder into the fold: I’m proud to announce that another Cpodder has joined our ever expanding blog community. Anna Matthies from Berlin (Anna M. in the forums and the blogs) have started co-blogging with Joachim, our resident German blogger! If you already haven’t headed on there to say Hallo, you should do so now!
Bittorrent files: We’ve heard your cry and are now in the process of uploading new torrent files that reflects the latest mp3 tags so that you can easily organize them onto your individual mp3 players.
Have a happy ChinesePod weekend!
Eileen
Cool, looking forward to the game.
Very good idea. Computer games are real TPR. Much better than having a prerecorded podcast with requests like “Now jump from the bridge and slowly repeat the words 从桥上跳下去 three times”.
I also could imagine an interactive menu to learn names of famous dishes with - you click on the words and see the picture of the dish along with some explanations. I was in a real Chinese restaurant in Stuttgart (there actually is one in Germany!) two days ago and found that I need some additional training regarding the names of Chinese dishes, despite all the hard efforts of my wife to teach me. Some fancy Hanzi characters, too.
*Sigh*…back to work….
These are awesome developments! I can’t wait to get my hands on that/those game/s!
That game looks sweet. Great idea!
Great idea.
I’m struggling wit char recognition.
Thanks chinesepod.
“a good teacher, better than a barrow full of books”
I found the lesson plans to be very useful as a basis of a lesson with my Chinese tutor. I upgraded my subscription due to this feature. Is there any way new lesson plans might be available for intermediate and advanced intermediate lessons? Also what happened to the Chinesepod listing of teachers who would teach over the internet (eg. using Skype or another VOIP program )
KIDS - You know it’s almost Christmas, so there are presents to be bought. A couple weeks ago I was in the Hong Kong library and you know what the kids there were doing, watching cartoons and shows via YouTube on the public PCs. So then I see this ‘game’ thing Cpod is putting together. It’s making me think. Cpod–For kids.
I think it would need a separate login or URL though. Nothing on Cpod is really something to avert the eyes, but it’s not kiddie focused either. Anyway, if Cpod develops such a site/area — I’d buy a few gift subscriptions.
Hi Johnson,
The lesson plans and the teacher’s network were ChinesePod projects that we hoped would catch on with many of our users but unfortunately it only caught on with a few. We are still committed though to developing future projects that aim to help students to improve their Chinese speaking ability; we are regrouping and exchanging ideas here at the office as to how to address this important issue. If you actually have any suggestions, we would love to hear it as well.
When does the game go online?
ChinesePod for kids is a very interesting idea. It wouldn’t require too much difference in lesson planning, but the interface would ahve to be quite different, I think, something that keeps the eyes without being too much of a try-hard and not looking like school.
GAMES PEOPLE PLAY - Yah, if Cpod made a multi-user game, where teachers, Chinese natives could somehow interact with us. You know, that’s like addicting …and I could still say it’s for ‘academic’ purposes.
How about Cpod hosts one of those off-the-shelf support applications where you can instantly message a support person, except that the support persons are Chinese natives and tutors? If you build the backend scheduling, payment system, Cpod could take a percentage cut.
I think a big problem with the previous tutor network was that there was simply no way to pay. International bank transfers is just too much of a hassle and Chinese residents have no way to accept Paypal payments. (Only domestic China Paypal to Paypal.) So after a few initial free lessons, everything petters out.
I love the idea of Chinesepod for Kids, I already know a few parents willing to subscribe for their kids. Most of expats kids go to American international school, Chinesepod could bring a great help to their Chinese studies.
Besides there are a lot of Chinese courses in Europe for Chinese kids. Very often the teachers are volunteers and do not have any teaching experience, they would love it.