Older learners

psychologist 心理学家 xīnlǐxuéjiā

Hi svik,

Thanks for the tip. Although I didn't find psychologist per se, I did find another appropriate descriptor: 吉他手 - guitarist. Although recently I've been playing less and studying Mandarin more...

Hi alleghenyj,

You should see this QW lesson to figure out what to call yourself:

http://chinesepod.com/lessons/suffixes-for-describing-people

Hi sue3, I know Changye's account here ran out, I guess at the end of August. I don't know if he might ever return. Last I heard from him he was really getting into his German studies.

Actually I haven't received a reply to my last PM to him nearly a month ago. Don't know if that means he isn't reading those or he simply had nothing to say ... so I could try to pass on your regards of course, but he might enjoy hearing from you directly, in German!

zhenlijiang: has Changye "left" for good or is he just having a break? do give him my regards. Not having been in for a bit apart from downloading lessons, I thought this week that I didn't see him around. Do give him my regards and tell him we miss his valuable comments. He is sooooo knowledgeable. Shame he's left if that is the case.

I miss Changye too - always good value. I assumed that was what you were referring to. I have a number of 'off-ChinesePod' projects going but I still keep coming here for lesson material & sample sentences, it's great. And for the community of course (hey, I do too much of that, gotta cut down.) There's a few of us oldies still here Zhenijiang, and new people arriving all the time .. :)

Hi Trevorb, that's exactly what I meant, by "dearth of knowledge". I miss Changye's contributions.

Could you ask your teacher to assign only the latest lessons?

Bodawei I'm not anywhere near scraping ceilings here! You were discussing models for your Chinese recently. There's been a dearth of that too lately. I hope I haven't run Xiaohu off the site with my 'interrogation' on the Introduction to Chengyu QW, haven't seen him around since ...

Changye has told me he learned and found it beneficial to come and participate in the community. Yeah it wasn't really like he needed to come to study the lessons here.

I'm with boawei, and probably also going to be intermediate for ever! But I do miss Changye's comments. Truth is I find the new chinese pod focuses me much more on my lessons but gives me less opportunity to interact with the community as a whole as the lessons are usually older ones so the feedback feels.....old.

I miss the days of the Activity pages when I could jump on every day and just type a few lines of chinese a la twitter.

Well, the ChinesePod business model is for beginners to intermediate learners I guess (I will stay around intermediate for life!), the more advanced learners tend to move on. There have been the odd exception such as Changye. A few more advanced learners get a kick out of continued involvement. We have to rely on teachers to visit to get any authoritative guidance. I think that it was always thus. But you might be nudging against the ceiling Zhenlijiang if you feel 'a general dearth of knowledge'.?? Me, I'm like the goldfish swimming round and round, hoping to pick up something new on each circuit.

Also I think that the site really helps you develop writing but I have to go elsewhere to get meaningful progress on listening, reading and speaking. Paradoxically I hardly use the site for writing, I tend to use the materials to develop my skills elsewhere. I find that it really needs to be supplemented by real-life instruction, modelling, listening, and reading using real-life resources. That's just me.

I think that reading is one area where ChinesePod could develop web-based services to help learners - for learners at Intermediate and above - I wrote an IM to John about this recently but I didn't hear back. (Perhaps it was one of those IM that disappear into the abyss.)

"... didn't join, mostly because I couldn't understand how things worked"

That actually sumed up my feeling about CHINA for past 20 years! But after a while I came to realise 它是个博大精深, 神妙无方的秘密箱, impossible to understand - better to explore, take part and just have fun.

But of course like xiao_liang, we have to make sure we get permission from our mummies and get home by night fall! :-)

I think ChinesePod is much less "clique-y" now than it felt when I first found it about 3 yrs ago (and didn't join, mostly because I couldn't understand how things worked).

I'm feeling a general dearth of knowledge around here though, recently ...

Your mum lets you out? but its so dangerous out there!

I hope you are not letting people give you sweets...

Awesome, but my mum says I have to be home before it gets dark.

Don't worry Xiao_liang, we can form a club of two and intimidate people by hanging around the local shops after school.

XL is conflicted, what do you think? He wants in, he wants out.

Actually this whole thing reminds me of those discussions about cliques - I think we proved that the only clique is ChinesePod? No sub-groups have proved viable as far as I know. (Does anyone remember the ChinesePod 'inner circle' or anything about it?)

I get it. I don't to be a member of any club that would have me as a member? You'll be back, tail between your legs. At your age two years just flies by. Actually by my reckoning (30 - 70) you already meet the age requirements. You're even cranky (another requirements.) :)

But we already are ... and if XL wants out he has to stop posting, 对不对！

Sorry, I don't hang with old dudes. I'm off to ride my skateboard and listen to angry music about how life is so completely unfair.

xiao_liang, can't you see the adults are talking!! :)

Actually, I think I have no problem with age - I just don't want to be lumped in with the oldies. Where I belong. Psych research indicates that people dislike being lumped in with the majority (here = middle aged); neither do they want to go out on a limb as a hermit. They like to be a member of the significant minority.

I would like to start a 'significant minority' group - but there is a maximum membership.

xiao_liang - you are invited to join. You too Zhenlijiang.

Yes! I'm not middle aged by 2 years! :-)

Ah Bodawei, I've been older than 35 for quite a while now, and have always called myself middle-aged here. Well I did fudge once, but quickly realized it was both useless and silly.

I even contemplated aloud creating a 中年吧 group once, Changye said he would join, but I hadn't thought much about a point to it beyond us being a bunch of middle-aged poddies, and there is nothing special about that. So I haven't.

Ha ha. Zhenlijiang, I'm not sure if this means that you are trying to avoid the dreaded tag 'middle aged'.

But I do know that these tags seem to move around, I don't think that they can be definitive. I'm nearly out the far side of the 'middle aged' label so I won't have to worry too much longer. I'll just be 'old'.

35-65.

Says who? Says me.

I haven't seen the article but I had assumed that the largest group of learners here would be middle aged (a nice ambiguous term - what is that, say 30 - 70 range?) So the need for a 'group' hasn't occurred to me; most of us seem to be in the same boat.

太棒了， a group I'm too young for. I can't think how many years its been since that last happened :-)

I still get offended that they don't ask me for my age at the tills when I buy Alcohol.

没有事，我都觉得我的中文老说地不好！:)

我都差不多五十岁了！is correct.

sorry i am a teacher so i always to correct the others,sorry.................

I thought you are six ;-)

(I am 60 and passionate about everything Chinese - culture, language, cuisine...)

I have memory challenges and I'm only 33! :-)