The ChinesePod slogan is “Mandarin on your terms.” We give you the tools; you use them in whatever fashion best suits your personal learning style. What better Chinese learning opportunity could there be for the enthusiastic, intrepid students of Chinese out there?
This is all well and good, but what about the slightly more timid users? Some of them would prefer that ChinesePod provide some advice on how to make the most of the services we offer.
In response to such requests, Ken and I have worked out the ChinesePod 6 Step Method. This method is by no means the only way to use ChinesePod, but it’s a solid foundation with which to get started. You might apply it during your free trial.
The 6 Step Method makes use of premium content. If your free trial has already expired, you may want to just take a look at the page; we have included functional “snippets” of premium content in order to illustrate how the different parts of the site work together.
Naturally, this 6 Step Method is not set in stone, and it’s not the only way to use ChinesePod. We have some excellent new features in production which, when finished, will greatly enhance the effectiveness of learning with ChinesePod. Until then, we invite you to give the 6 Step Method a try, and you’re certainly welcome to let us know what you do differently or what other methods work for you. In future posts I will be exploring some specific ways to use ChinesePod content in your learning experience.
Happy learning!
-John
That’s pretty much what I do on Newbie and Elementary.
However I think if the level is a little difficult for you though, like intermediate is for me, you can do the steps in reverse order and it makes it easier to grasp.
Exercise 1 first to familiarise yourself with the key words, then go through the expansion sentences to see them used in sentences, then go work through the dialogue, referring to the PDF transcript at the same time to ensure if you have a correct sentence meaning, then finally listen to the podcast lesson.
S’s - since you’ll probably have lots of people reading this text, there’s a small typo:
and play each sentences as many times as you like.
and play each sentence as many times as you like.
I do step 3 before step 2: I read the expansion dialog before the pdf-transcript. So I don’t see the whole translation and pinyin at once but can play around with some chunks. The tooltips are great in case of doubt.
Bazza, in higher levels I also like the reverse order.
Hey John,
Very useful - even though I’ve been on the site for awhile it’s a reminder that I can do more after listening to the podcast
Lantian,
Thanks for pointing out the typo; we’re fixing it now…
Anne,
That makes a lot of sense too. I guess pretty much every learner will have at least some slight variation on the method, whether it be the order, the time spent, the number of repetitions, or the depth of study on any given step.
-John
IN THE HOPPER - after the BigBrain’s pi-ping’ing (criticism) of your tech upgrades, here’s a new feature/bug to consider! How about one of those progressive you’re at this step banners, maybe something we could each configure. I’m notoriously lazy and undesciplined in my studies, so maybe this would help me step-thru the program. Kinda like a nagging (but pretty) teacher reminding me to stop looking at the comics and finish my lessons.
It would have a cookie that takes me to where I last left and wandered into internet land exploring. I keep forgetting/not remembering to look at the expansion sentences, especially after looking and responding in the comments area.
Good idea putting up the sampler page, as I’d never otherwise know what was there.
Questions:
1 – Does step 3 & 4 have a “switch to pinyin” from character feature?
If yes, then …
2 – Can the step 3 & 4 feature be offered as a stand-alone subscription?
If yes, then …
3 – Duōshǎo Qián ?
I have just renewed my subscription for a full year. Before doing so I looked back on the past year evaluating the service offered, the community and the progress that I have made.
I would like to say that in the year since I have discovered this website there have been a lot of changes. The basics are still the same: free podcasts + a website with premium content. But the quality and quantity of the goods have increased enormously and -hey- have have to pay less than last year (especially with the euro being so strong
). Just listen to one of the older podcasts and compare it with what is produced today. Amazing! Look at the website today and try to remember how it was a year ago. Especially the soundclips are of an enormous value to me. The forum is a great place to be and to learn a few things. The blogs have increased in depth and they are still great fun to read. It makes this website alive.
I am also very happy with my own progress. I have given up my evening classes and since I did this it is even going better, because I can really focus on the usefull vocabulary and idions offered in the lessons, rather than spending time digesting grammar and translating silly sentences or sitting in a classroom where I felt more and more out of place. Since a few months I have a couple of penpals in China. I write about 20% of my mails in Chinese and about 80% in English, they answer in Chinese and sometimes in English. Nowadays I can understand most of what they write with the help of a dictionary of course, but I only have to look up perhaps 1 character in 10. Last year I wouldn’t have dreamt of being able to do this…
Marc in Belgium
Listening to Ken wail about rote memorization in another thread, my ears perked up when I (just now) listened to a German language series from Deutsche-Welle called “Warum Nicht?”. You guys might want to check it out. Interesting approach. DW has always been superlative and innovative in their language endeavors. This podcast was done as a normal conversation in a given setting (eg: ordering a meal at a restaurant), but the kicker is this: Instead of translating every word and conjugating every verb — they have someone acting like a play-by-play announcer briefly telling you what’s going on:
Announcer: Peter suddenly discovers he has no money.
Peter: Ach! Vere ist mein vallet! It vas in mein suit zwei minuten ago!
(Okay, okay … I’ve simplified the German here for the sake of illustration, but you get the idea.)
Except for the occassional idiom or complex construction, the lesson is conducted without direct translation, but still in a way that the subject matter is comprehensible. Though I don’t want you to change your formula, you guys might want to consider giving that approach a whirl to break things up a bit occasionally.
Okay, but I still don’t understand how you guys learned how to conjugate the irregular German verbs without memorizing them
Bob … generally speaking, irregular verbs are the most common verbs in ANY inflected language. It’s almost always — “to be”, verbs of motion, utility verbs, modals and auxillaries. One would assume that these would be constant and fixed since they are used so heavily, but the opposite is true. More exposure means more chances to mutate their form. Conveniently, the mere fact that they are so common means you hear them all the time — and THAT is what ultimately fixes them in your mind.
Thankfully, Chinese doesn’t have this quirk.
Fu Da-Wei,
Then how come so many foreigners wander around in Mexico claiming they speak Spanish but only use the infinitive form of the verbs? It’s because they never bothered to memorize the conjugations and for that reason they sound stupid
I once read an Italian text where the author suggested that students stick to the infinitive forms for easy communication. And the text was supposedly for intermediate learners! Criminal!
I learned my Spanish conjugations by doing hundreds of hours of aural/oral substitution drills until the forms were totally reflexive, burned into my brain forever.
If someone provided as much easy auditory input in Spanish as we have here for Mandarin, I’d jump in and pick up my verbs that way, spending a few months just soaking up the sounds. That would be exciting, and a breakthrough for the teaching of languages that have complex grammar in their high frequency speech. That method doesn’t seem to be available for Spanish yet, but it will happen, and I can wait. Once it comes down to remembering lists of verbs for the sake of some abstract notion of progress, sorry, I’d rather knit.
I’ve met a lot of people, all Asian or German it turns out, who are extremely frustrated when there is nothing for them to learn by rote and find it difficult to cope with typical Australian courses. I’ve also worked with some of the people from this kind of learning background, who have stunningly high academic results in their field, but stuff up everything they touch and can’t perform as well as a keen kid out of high school. Some education systems don’t distinguish between those who really know and those who are biological hard drives, or worse, accredit the latter. Quite sad for all.
Look, if people want to “learn” a language by those methods, they should be able to and I’ll fight for their right to do so. But not in my course, thanks, and never in my workplace, please.
Very interesting Auntie.
Actually I would not have survived in an educational system that is based on rote learning. I never managed to memorize anything by rote in my life. And unlike many classmates everything I learned by rote I soon forget. This is also why RedViolin’s suggestions could never ever work for me.
Fortunately and contrary to your assumptions German schools and Universities focus very heavyly on in-class discussions, independent learning, and self-organizing (I will not comment on what I saw of the Anglo-Saxon approach to education…). Of course the teacher always plays a major role as well.
But despite that I also saw quite a few classmates / fellow-students / collegues who pursued “rote-learning-approaches”. Some even very effectively - with a neatly-wired brain it obviously works. I think this set of “methods” is neither taught nor promoted in German schools but rather handed over from parents to children.
But as you said: Let them pursue their way if it makes them happy.
I thought the ChinesePod 6 Step Method was interesting, because it is almost the *exact opposite* of how I use ChinesePod. Different people learn in different ways: I am much more visual and have much difficulty learning by listening. So here’s Jeff’s 6-step method. [For the intermediate level lessons.]
1) Generate a set of flashcards containing the vocab list in the transcript and Connie’s extra words. Get some basic familiarity with them. [I use declean’s flashcard program, but there are others.] [That takes about 45 minutes.]
2) Listen to the podcast start to finish. [20 min]
3) Review the transcript. Add more words I don’t know to my flashcards. Review the words again. [30 min]
4) Listen to it again a couple days later start to finish. [20 min]
5) Listen to it a *third* time (yes, really), while reading the MOST EXCELLENT transcripts at http://goulnik.com/chinese/ChinesePod/ [Thanks!] Add a couple more words I don’t know to my flashcards. [30 min]
6) Bask in the glory of how much I learned. In about 2 hours I learned about 30-40 words and can now follow a conversation that I couldn’t follow at first.
Jeff
The listening part of the following Taiwanese test is really interesting and much more difficult than the Chinesepod listening test.
A good lesson of humility for “Poddies”…specially if you think you’re an intermediate.
http://cpt.mtc.ntnu.edu.tw/tma2/