Improving Chinesepod
zhoudage
June 27, 2011 at 02:05 AM posted in General DiscussionI think most users will attest that Chinesepod is already a fantastic tool for learning Chinese. But as with all things there is room for improvement. Here are a few suggestions of mine. I hope others will throw in their own as well.
- Chinesepod searchable dictionary that tells you what lesson the word or phrase appears in so you can go back and look at that particular lesson.
- A vocab tracking system that tells you if you've already added a word to your vocab list from a previous lesson.
watyamacallit
July 13, 2011 at 01:58 AM
Tidy up the Lesson-Set section.
The list for the Lao Wang series is completely out of order, and I have had difficulty in following the series. Also, there are two separate lists of the Lao Wang series, each with a different number of lessons. One list needs to be removed.
The lists do not seem to have been updated for a while:
There is no mention of the Renting an Apartment, Outdoor Survivors, or the Detective Li series.
The City series is missing Lhasa and A Trip to Nanjing, the Love Tangle list is missing the last lesson, as is the Designing the New Apartment series.
The Zhang Liang and Lili list is in order for the first 12 episodes, then suddenly goes into random mode. The Beauty Pageant list in in order, except that the 4th and 5th lessons have been switched. And the Designing an Apartment series is out of order despite the lessons being numbered!
Finally these pages look untidy, with Series sets randomly mixed up with other 'Theme' sets. These two set types should be separated.
jennyzhu
July 06, 2011 at 10:05 AM
Thank you for all your input! We will see what we can implement step by step.
bodawei
July 06, 2011 at 10:36 AM
Hi Jenny
It would be nice to have a permanent site for improvements - like a viewable suggestion box, viewable to other poddies that is. This thread will be soon lost to us .. unless, and here's another idea .. what chance a customisable bookmark feature, so we can keep track of things initiated by others; things that we have a continuing interest in.
zhoudage
July 06, 2011 at 02:50 AM
It might be fun to have a translation section. CPod throws out a passage every day or week and us poddies discuss and translate.
waiguoren
July 04, 2011 at 03:33 AM
Is it possible to delete your own posts you've made? I think that would be a handy function...
Also a 'pie-in-the-sky' feature would be an IM system where you could see who else is online and have a 'chat' with them if you so desire...
zhoudage
July 04, 2011 at 10:42 AM
You can delete posts you've made. Take a look at the dialogue box after you you post.
An IM feature would be AMAZING. Really good idea!
darkstar94
July 03, 2011 at 05:57 AM
I think the automatic function on the flashcards could be improved, as in like it just keeps on rolling through them instead of waiting for a tick or cross. It would be cool (but also I imagine quite hard) if there was a system for your vocabulary list like Skritter where it tells you which ones need to be reviewed.
babyeggplant
July 03, 2011 at 03:46 AM
I really wish I didn't have to bring this up on this type of forum, but I wish there was an option to block certain users' posts. I find the vast majority of the users here on Chinesepod friendly, welcoming, and helpful, but there are certain users who make rude, and even sexually inappropriate, comments that I would rather avoid seeing altogether. If that's not possible, perhaps a reporting system might work. I know some forums temporarily hide a user's post after a certain number of people have reported it until a mod has time to verify the post. This would also bring the negative post to your attention. Again, I find participating in the forum to be extremely positive and helpful most of the time, but I still feel the forums should be moderated a little more closely.
zhenlijiang
July 03, 2011 at 08:49 PM
Filtering in other words obviously. Because most of us really don't like having to complain about other users' conduct at all.
However I do appreciate the way you choose to do things at CPod, that is to keep the environment here respectful and nice rather than rude and filterable. It's too bad we still have to be watched like kids in preschool.
zhenlijiang
July 03, 2011 at 04:05 PM
You shouldn't have to apologize Jenny. It's good that the user will be dealt with. I assume you mean when you say "block" that his commenting privileges are to be revoked for however long. Just wanted to point out that what Babyeggplant was referring to is an option for us to block out certain users' comments so that we simply never see them, not that anyone be barred from commenting. I think that's usually what "block" means.
jennyzhu
July 03, 2011 at 03:08 PM
Yes, it's a shame that some users chose to behave in very disrespectful ways. I have warned the person in question and got a personal reply that he would refrain from such behavior. Unfortunately, it is not the case. We block people who continuously violate the commenting policies and destroy the healthy learning environment. This time will be no exception. I apologize for the negative experience.
jamestheron
July 03, 2011 at 04:17 AM
I will second this...
There is a commenting policy link on the bottom of the page, and seems some recent posts would indeed be in violation.
iaing
July 01, 2011 at 01:06 PM
"Expansion" tab audio download as mp3 file.
*doesn't bother to hold breath*
chris
July 03, 2011 at 07:31 AM
Ah, sorry, I see what you were asking for now, a Chinese-only version. I also hadn't realised that the current audio review files did not include 100% of the Expansion sentences.
iaing
July 03, 2011 at 07:26 AM
To be clear - ALL of the expansion tab audio as one downloadable mp3 file for each lesson, please. It's been almost a year since I first asked for this.
(please, no English audio). (please, not just a few of the expansion sentences interspersed with English).
chris
July 03, 2011 at 04:05 AM
Hi iain, my understanding is that this is exactly what the "audio review mp3" download is, i.e. an audio version of the Expansion sentences.
bababardwan
July 01, 2011 at 06:23 AM
I've been thinking about this for some time. Namely, the problems in getting adequate speaking practice when you live outside of China. By speaking practice, I'm here referring just to the act of saying the words, or preferably sentences, not conversational practice which is also important but requires another person such as skype calls from your guided teacher. I listen to the lessons way more than I ever speak and a natural consequence of this is that speaking lags way behind. This is a big ask, but I often think how great it would be with the dialogue file you can download if there was a long pause between each line of the dialogue so you can practice repeating it. Actually, the dialogue files are fine as is, what I mean is another file to download with such gaps for speaking practice. The review files from memory just go a word at a time or ask you to construct some new sentence. I just want straight repetition practice. I know you could probably put this through an audio edit programme like audacity, but I don't know if I'd ever get around to doing that and wondered if CPod would consider it.
zhoudage
July 01, 2011 at 04:20 AM
Another thing that might be nice would be to have word classes next to vocabulary words in the pdfs or on the vocab list online. It's helpful to know, for instance, when a word is an adjective or verb or both and even further if it is a transative or instransative verb.
watyamacallit
June 27, 2011 at 08:13 AM
How about a useful Grammar Guide.
The current one mentions only verbs and adverbs, and the information available on these is very sparse. The examples give only sample sentences, without definitions.
xiao_liang
July 01, 2011 at 11:39 AM
That sounds brilliant Jenny! My grasp grammar is shocking (even in english!), so I'm doubly keen to use the grammar guide, but I always found it a little hard to get to grips with. A grammar tab sounds perfect.
hamshank
July 01, 2011 at 06:48 AM
Just wondering...Will the new grammar guide be basic or premium? The current grammar guide is part of the basic package.
jennyzhu
July 01, 2011 at 05:59 AM
We will overhaul how we are presenting grammar now. The current Grammar Guide will be taken down because the top down structure is not user friendly. Instead we are going to add "grammar" tab to each lesson and tag the grammar points within that lesson. Each grammar point will have a few sample sentences to illustrate the usage, working in a way quite similar to expansion sentences. The changes are planned for around August. New lessons coming out after we launch the change will have a grammar section.
zhoudage
June 27, 2011 at 03:11 AM
ha, guess I should invesitage the site more thouroughly before I make any further suggestions ;) Thanks baba!
zhoudage
June 27, 2011 at 04:01 AM
Awesome! I can't wait to see what you guys come up with. As always, thank you Jenny for the quick feedback. I'll try to do my part and think of more things to complain about, but it's getting kind of hard. I'm running out...
jennyzhu
June 27, 2011 at 03:28 AM
Suggestions are very welcomed since we definitely have a lot of room for improvement. Baba has answered your first question. With the second question, we are working on an intelligent lesson recommendation engine which will be able to recommend lessons to you based on your previous knowledge, i.e. vocab and sentences you have studied. I am not 100% sure of the specific features, but I can tell you that to reduce search cost for users is what we are trying to achieve.
bababardwan
June 27, 2011 at 02:40 AM
"Chinesepod searchable dictionary that tells you what lesson the word or phrase appears in so you can go back and look at that particular lesson"
...have you tried the glossary?...it does this
zhoudage
July 06, 2011 at 03:08 AM
If you look at the top-right hand corner of any page on the website there is search box. Next to the box is a drop-down menu with three options, one of which is "Glossary".
bababardwan
July 01, 2011 at 12:14 PM
"up would come the expansion sentences for that word"
Mark, not sure if you've checked it out or not but that's what the glossary has...a list of all the expansion sentences for that word with a link to the lesson it came from. But I agree that your suggestion of being able to click on it directly would be more fangbian.
mark
July 01, 2011 at 04:50 AM
My dream along the lines of this request is that I could click on a word and up would come the expansion sentences for that word.
When I want to dig into a word, I usually don't want a whole lesson that contains it somewhere, but some examples of its usage.
I also usually don't want to be bothered with going to a glossary section. It would be more convenient to just click on it in the lesson dialog, and then get all the related sentences written out and with their recordings.
zhoudage
July 25, 2011 at 07:13 PMSo I just got back to the States and got an iPhone. Would be cool to be able to flashcards on my phone.