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The former Australian Immigation Minister, Amanda Vanstone, may be in trouble for spending somewhere between 30,000 and 70,000 (Australian) dollars on Mandarin classes while she was in office.
In ChinesePod terms that higher figure would buy something like 200 years of premium subscriptions. Even if she took the uninterrupted daily practice sessions with the 8 Week Program, that kind of money would buy her years of access for several members of her department. Next time anyone out there bumps into her, please let her know about us.
The ChinesePod premium subscription works out at 65 US cents per day. In the last couple of months it may have seemed as though we were not constantly adding features to the premium service (as we were wont to do for the first year of our existence). The reason was, of course, that we were busy putting them into V3. I can assure you that we want to create as much value as we can possibly pack into 65 cents a day. That will continue.
There are many ways we can do this. It was obviously a major factor in Hank’s thinking when he led the development of V3. I also spoke with John Pasden and David Lancashire the other evening, and we talked about how they plan to continuously ramp up that value ad infinitum. (They have some great ideas.) I am not invovled in the tech side of ChinesePod, but it’s really starting to dawn on me that V3 is going to… how can I put this?.. kick butt and keep getting better.
Once we release the V3 beast it will be up to all of us to maximize what it can do. For months, I’ve immersed myself in everything I could find on the subject of CALL, Informal Learning, Connectivism, Blended Learning, E-Learning and anything pedagogically related. I want to benchmark ChinesePod, put it into some theoretical perspective, and figure out the best possible ways to leverage it as a learning tool. I’ve got tons of ideas. Now my plan is to work with the Big Brain to get it done. If you continue to contribute feeedback and ideas here, this could become be the mother of all Communities of Practice.
[Btw, let me say one thing: If you’re considering a premium subscription, I’m definitely not suggesting that you delay! My point is just the idea of constant improvment. Meawnhile rolling out all these new developments requires, er, cash]
Ken Carroll
Ken,
There is tremendous value in the premium service. The free podcasts are fine but for people who are serious about learning Chinese the premium service is a must. Even if you compare it with other low cost learning materials such as books, books Cd course, computer courses, evening classes, whatever…there is no comparison IMO.
Of course we are used to get everything for free on the internet and from previous discussions on the forum and earlier reactions on this blog, it is clear that a lot of people just take the service that CP offers for granted. And up to a certain extend this is ok, it will continue to broaden the base of potential premium subscribers. If you have a premium subscribtion, it takes a lot of hard work to get everything out of your investment. I have now completely given up on catching up with all the podcast and lessons that I haven’t heard or studied yet. You produce more material than I could ever absorb. But, this is ok I think. It gives me choice. I can just work on the lessons that I want, I don’t have to sweat on dialogues that I find boring, or with content that doesn’t concern me. I think this is how you see things at CP anyway, you know, “Mandarin on your terms”. So if you continue like this, and with all the new stuff in V3 that you have already anounced, I think that the premium service will become even more important. If more is to be expected further down the line it is even better. Keep up the good work!
Marc in Belgium
She (Amanda Vanstone) said she needed help to prepare and deliver speeches in Mandarin because it was a difficult language.
I am told that this was Yao Ming’s response to Shaquille O’Neil’s message of ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.
Chinesepod is definitely a good value.
Your recent poll asked, “how long have you been studying Chinese?” I was thinking you should ask me again in three months, when I’ll be in the 5 years category. Anyways, I tried a lot of things before Chinesepod came along:
Ultimate Mandarin (text book with 40 lessons tapes ) - $80
Correction of a paragraph of written Chinese by a friend once a week - free
Two hours of individual tutoring (conversation practice) once a week - $30 each time (tutor is a native speaker without any formal training in teaching a language)
One to one and a half hours conversation with a friend once a week - free
Rosetta Stone levels I and II - $360
Various textbooks on Chinese grammar - $35 to $150 each
Various books bought in China - $0.50 to $10 each
Trips to China/Taiwan - ~$3000 per week (employer paid, airfare included)
I think Chinesepod has definitely improved the pace of my learning:
No source equals it for contemporary Mandarin lessons ( recorded dialog transcript translation)
The lessons are fun and “edgy”
When I’ve asked questions in the blogs for a lesson, they’ve been answered.
There are some drawbacks:
It is too passive (just listen, no speaking).
The eight week program sounds intriguing, but on the telephone is not as good as in person and larger blocks of time at less than daily intervals are easier to schedule.
I tried to upgrade to premium from basic once, but got a message saying I should email Cpod and gave up. It seems like I should just be able to click a button and send a credit card number, but I’ll try again when my basic membership expires in a few weeks.
For me, personally, I’d really like it if the advanced lessons had English language transcripts.
Overall, I think if I had access to Chinesepod for the entire time I have been learning, I would be further along now.
马克
The story doesn’t tell what level of fluency she managed to get in the end for that not-so-small amount of money.
I would recommend that CPod sends her a free trial offer as quickly as possible now that she has obviously lost her private premium service !
That story’s hilarious. I love it when people think they “need” to spend an insane amount of money on something that just requires time, dedication, and interest in the topic.
Anyway, I think the premium subscription is worth it too. Before I found out about CPod 2 years ago I spent $40 for a beginner Pimsleur set that was the equivalent of maybe 20 or 30 Newbie lessons. Add that to about $80 of random language books, CDs, and DVDs at a local Taiwanese bookstore, and that’s almost half the cost of a yearly premium CPod subscription.
I like being constantly inundated with new material. Always getting new vocab and seeing old vocab in new situations is a must for learning a language. That’s why so many kids are able to develop their language skills by watching cartoons or shows like Sesame Street everyday.
A couple of bilingual Chinese friends are now salivating and considering career changes
“The story doesn’t tell what level of fluency she managed to get in the end for that not-so-small amount of money.”
Her Mandarin must have been pretty bad if the businessman “described her effort as excruciating.” The Chinese tend to be pretty generous when it comes to evaluating a waiguoren’s Mandarin.
I guess that I’m the closest, living in the heart of the Great Australian Bureaucracy. My ex-Chinese lecturer is a good friend or hers, and writes her Mandarin speeches, records them, and she learns them on the plane to China, reading along with the pinyin. I don’t know how and where the costs came in, but even though I disagree with her policy, it’s good to see a politician who makes a linguistic effort.
Incidentally, the leader of the federal opposition (Kevin Rudd) has a degree in Asian Studies (Chinese) from my university as well. I heard him speak Chinese on the radio the other day, and it was very crisp and clear.
So, Will, as someone who worked for places like Trade and Resources, and the Dep’t of Defence and at the Wool Sheds at Business and Consumer Affairs, where are you located? DFAT was a poor acronym, though
I’m a PhD student. But everyone knows someone who is APS (pub. service) - my father (federal) and my sister (local) are two of them.
DFAT (foreign affairs and trade) was pretty poor, but we also had DIMIA (immigration multicultural and indigenous affairs - Vanstone’s previous portfolio) and some other shockers…
Although in that Australian case the price was of course ridicilously over the top, a good face-to-face-teacher can easily cost a couple thousand Euros a year. It is a simple calculation, count with 20-50 EUR per hour. And as posted before I do believe that “good teacher” and “CPod” are by no means contradictory.
I would definately pay a high price for a teacher, if
a) I had the time to take scheduled lessons and
b) if was convinced the teacher is indeed worth the money.
So in some distant parallel dimension there might be a slight chance that I actually do that
Regarding the price: I often thought the Basic subscription is too cheap; many Poddies seem to be 100% satisfied with it. On the other hand I have to admit that I myself took the classic path Free–>Basic–>Premium, being sucked in deeper and deeper into CPod, Without the painless “Basic” I might have never become a Premium subscriber later. Now Dialogue and Expansion have become insepearable parts of each lesson. And the 200 Eur for a yearly subscription are actually more than reasonable.
I love the idea of increasing the value without symmetrically building up recurring costs that entail higher prices. As stated before cross-linking the content might even lead to over-linear value growth.