Lack of advanced lessons?

RJ, funny you bring this home base/fly away type discussion into this. With your comment, I realize that people do/feel the same thing they do living in some locale as they do with subscribing to Cpod:

At one end of the home spectrum: "I've lived here in Clark County, West Virginia all my life. My friends are here. My family is here. The work is good here. The farthest I was ever from here was 2 hours away in Charleston. Why would I leave Clark County?" At the other end of home spectrum: "I grew up part of the time in Clark County West Virginia. I was happy to leave Clark County, and I never returned, and I don't plan on returning".

And of course, substitute Clark County West Virginia for Boston, Chicago, Nashua NH, Beijing, Shanghai, Hui County Gansu Province, etc.

Fascinating to think that you can substitute Cpod for Clark County West Virginia also.

We're flying. But isn't it fun to go home and visit the fam?

Jenny, in answer to your question, yes the pure Chinese discussion of the topic is the draw I think.

Tell us how those CD go, I'm curious to know what they are like.

The CD set that Tingyun recommended arrived today, I also ordered 《山海经》 which David recommended in the last advanced lesson. Learning how to use amazon.cn was a nice side-benefit of this discussion.

In answer to your question, yes, I have a few Chinese teachers/friends who help me quite a bit.

Floalveraz, thanks for the suggestion.

Mark, I find this website's Flashcard section very useful in helping me to review my Chinese: http://www.mandarintools.com/.

From my experience, Chinese words (they normally come in two's) are mostly a combination of the basic 4,000-5,000 characters. Once you have the foundation, you can most or less figure out the meaning and get an insight in due time.

Got to go!

Thanks for your views, I'm curious to know how I will feel when I get to that point. I definitely agree with the fact that words mean different things in different contexts. A good example was when I was on youtube yesterday and some 吃醋ed a person for being a polyglot, and I mean there is an example of a word which means jealous but only works in particular circumstances. I am the same where I have to see words in different contexts and in different examples in order to fully master them.

Anyway, hopefully there will be more advanced lessons for you in the future. Until then, I guess learner autonomy is a good alternative by looking up some different materials. Do you have any Chinese friends or anything to help you go over those kinds of materials?

There are structures within structures. The format of the news, is one structure. The ways of describing a particular news topic have their own structures depending on the subject area. If the material isn't news, there is another set of structures to learn. It seems to me that its natural that there are more combinations of words than individual words. Over time, I can generalize some of these patterns, but it takes a lot of examples before my mind makes those connections.

As to vocabulary being most important, I have my doubts. Words don't exist in isolation, and they have different meanings in different contexts. It takes a lot of examples before I can really properly use a lot of words. In that regard, some of the most frequently used words are the hardest. They tend to have the most variation in meanings.

Finally different skills have to come together. There are still flaws in what I pay attention to when I listen to Chinese, in my character recognition, grammar and word usage.

It took me twenty some years to learn English to my present level, and that was when I still had a mailable child's brain, and living in an environment where everyone around me was always speaking English. I'm trying to replicate that experience with Chinese, but I am older, my thinking is more calcified, my time on task is less, and I still live in an English speaking environment. I think I need some cheats.

The basic structure of CPod lessons has helped me make a lot of progress. I think it can help me make more progress, but it seems I'm at the fringes of what their business model will support, and will at least have to find some other materials to supplement. I've gotten some good suggestions here which I will try, and have some other vague ideas.

Because I guess you would get to a point where at least you were familiar with most of the structures used in the news and stuff and then maybe specialized words would be your only problem. According to a polyglot ”lingosteve" on Youtube, he says that for him vocabulary is the most important which I thought was interesting.

If I listen to a news story, I can usually get the gist of it, but miss a lot of the details. Roughly, my understanding is 60%. Often even if I know most of the individual words, I often miss them, because I'm not familiar with the usage pattern. If I read a news article, I will have to look up, maybe, 5-10% of the words. If I study a transcript, and listen to the audio a few times, my understanding goes up to maybe 95% while I'm listening to it. If I have a native speaker give me some background on the more difficult words and phrases, that goes up to maybe 99%. As I consume more articles like this, 60% initial understanding becomes 60.01%, 60.02%, and so on. If I lived and worked in a Chinese environment, maybe, I'd have enough input that I could gradually fill in the gaps from what I understand, now, but I don't. So, I feel I still need some additional aids.

Oh right, I'm just curious but how much content can you not understand in a news article online or news report online on average? I guess it's just my ignorance because I am not at that level yet.

Oh? I didn't mean it like that. I mean that if your level is high enough that you can understand Media level lessons, then that's probably a good point to start more autonomous learning where you look for your own material. And if you find anything you don't understand then you can post it on CPod and ask the community of learners and teachers or even use the glossary tool to help.

>"can you not just go on Baidu[...] I just mean if there isn't enough on CPod."

wow, way to sound catty, dude.

More to the point, I believe most issues raised here are specifically from people who want to STAY here on CPod while continuing learning at the advanced level. Granted, there are a lot of other resources out there, but I get the feeling CPod could leverage their content team much better to serve advanced users along with the novices. We do, however, need to shape this content a bit, and that's the crux of this discussion, no? Talking about off-site materials is a useful topic, but perhaps for a different day...

Ordinary news articles/reports are what I would call "wide-open, free-range Chinese". Usually, it is just one of audio or text, and there isn't any discussion of key vocabulary; you're just expected to know all the words and phrases that are used.

If that's the case, can you not just go on Baidu and look up news either in video form or text form? I just mean if there isn't enough on CPod.

For me the advanced lessons wouldn't have the same value without a transcript of some kind. I also use the expansion sentences and exercises. What I don't quite understand, though, is why these lessons would take more production time. For the media lessons, the transcript already exists, otherwise its a bit longer than other lessons, but it seems it would be easier in some ways. You just have a native speaker write out a dialog naturally.

Perhaps, the work is in the translation, for the rollovers on the dialog, etc. If that's the case, for what its worth, I don't really care about that. I get all most as good rollover translation of individual words from MDBG. For the media lessons, I have to go that way anyway. My goal in these lessons is to understand them in Chinese. I try not to translate, even in my head. I only look up individual words to learn there pronunciation, and for meaning, if I can't figure out from context, or from the lesson banter.

Some of the really old media lessons are untranslated. Originally, even the vocabulary definitions were in Chinese. There seems to have been some effort to retrofit them, but I'm actually fine with them in their original form.

I know I am speaking entirely for myself, but I hope my comments are a helpful perspective.

Podies often complain about gaps between levels. Personally, I think the biggest gap is between CPod and wide-open, free-range Chinese. I've long thought that the production pyramid is kind of reversed. What I find is that as I improve, I need more and more material to continue to improve.

"Perhaps there is a way to release some advanced content without having to go through the process of making a dialogue, exercises, transcripts ect. " I suggested this a while ago, I thought it would be good for an experiment just to get two or more people talking casually in the studio. Of course they would be kind of stiff to start off with but hopefully they would eventually forget about the recording and talk normally. And from those extracts we should get more natural language.

>>For one thing, they have never really got the ‘testing’ thing working.

Very true, and at intermediate level, this is actually a much bigger concern for me than lack of advanced lessons. 'goal-oriented' process has to be supported with rigorous testing to keep motivation up, and test function hasn't made any progress in years I've been a subscriber. Advanced lessons at least do continue to increase in numbers, so, yay.

Hi Jenny,

You asked about the main draw of Advanced and Media lessons. For me they are a bit more difficult than UI, but still have some training wheels. There is a transcript that I can study, and the lesson banter explains some of the harder vocabulary.

These lessons often don't focus on casual conversational Chinese, and often discuss things from Chinese peoples' points of view. The UI and below lessons focus on a Westerner coming to China's point of view, and very much focus on casual spoken Chinese, which is all well and good, but not as enlightening for me.

Mark

I more or less agree with this post. The further you get through your studies, the more native material you can use. But that doesn't mean I'm not greedy for more chinesepod. I've been listening for years and I basically like hearing these people talk. It's more than vocabulary building too. I can find new vocab from a variety of sources, but anything made for native speakers isn't going to break things down for me or give me examples. I also enjoy the personal stories and cultural insights that can be taken from so many lessons.

Will my Chinese suffer now that the advanced lessons have been cut in half? Probably not. I don't truly need more frequent content, but I sure miss it.

Signed,

babyeggplant

glutton for ChinesePod

I do think English in the podcast is what attracts me less to upper intermediate. Like you, I think the content level is about the same. Only having one Native speaker also makes it difficult to pick up on the natural exchange that goes on between native speakers, which I find can be even more helpful than studying the dialogue itself. John does a fantastic job and the way that UI is formatted right now seems perfect for people at that level. I certainly had no complaints while I was moving through UI. Now I will still normally listen through each upper mediate lesson, but at this stage I would definitely prefer to have something in all (or mostly) Chinese and with native speakers.

It's easy to see that the content of one advanced lesson is much more than the newbies, so I don't think it's fair to demand the same amount of lessons at every level. I don't know how other poddies feel, but I would be happy just to listen to two or three of you chat about different topics. Perhaps there is a way to release some advanced content without having to go through the process of making a dialogue, exercises, transcripts ect.

‘there is no way to go from inter to UI (and beyond) using cpod.’

Iaing, your comment is interesting to me in at least two ways: (1) should anyone try to achieve an ‘UI’ or ‘Advanced’ level relying on CP only? I can’t imagine trying to restrict myself to a single resource – you have to look to several platforms or sources to keep climbing, or even just to stay interested. And I have always believed that I have to be ‘immersed’ in China to make the kind of progress I aim for, so it just isn’t practical for me to think of a ‘CP only’ method. (2) Does CP have a position on this? I don’t know that they have ever stated their philosophy except in ‘Chinese on your terms’; I could be corrected on this point. It would help if CP gave some guidelines on how best to use their product to maximise learning opportunities for more advanced learners.

Most of us have a linear idea (learned in school) of starting at grade 1 and progressing through to grade 12 and we take this with us into learning Chinese. This is reinforced in most formal language learning environments. I guess we all need a bit of structure … :) This framework marries with the ‘goals-oriented’ approach that helps some people (& John Pasden has often referred to the importance of goals.)

I think goals and plans are well and good so long as you break them regularly. My personal philosophy is that there is significantly more benefit in making a plan than following it through. (It’s bound to be deficient in some way so following it through is bound to be counter-productive.) So I’m all for plans as long as they are frequently re-made.

Despite the CP categories Newbie through Advanced & Media it does not really conform to the formal progression we have in schools and universities. For one thing, they have never really got the ‘testing’ thing working. For another, it makes sense for more advanced learners to plug into the elementary lessons as well – they are always coming up with new material.

Actually, I think we need a new set of terms to replace Newbie through Advanced (Media is ok) – but it is not a big concern. I suspect there is a more useful way to refer to them but, not being a linguist, I don’t have the terminology. I know at higher levels that it is not just a matter of learning vocabulary, most of which will be quickly forgotten. I need to learn things like the rhythm of the language, subtle variations in meaning, written expression, and different tones, including humour. You can learn those things at all levels, Newbie to Advanced, children do.

My ‘approach’ to Chinese is incremental, even at times a shambles, but it is how I do most things. I would like to progress my Chinese and I would like ChinesePod to be a part of my plan.

"I have gone from Newbie to Upper Intermediate from basically just using ChinesePod." Me too. But that wasn't the substance of the point.

I have gone from Newbie to Upper Intermediate from basically just using ChinesePod. The biggest gap I found was Elementary and Intermediate. Looking back at both these lesson types I actually think the gap isn't that big. What made the gap between Intermediate and Upper Intermediate easy for me was taking on ones that related the most to my life, it also helped that I got a free consultation from ChinesePod in which the teacher told me I could take on Upper Intermediate lessons. I think it just depends on what your attitude and dedication is like.

The broader issue is that there is no way to go from inter to UI (and beyond) using cpod. Many people have gone from newbie to being very comfortable at inter by using cpod only (ie living overseas, no Chinese partner, no other significant study materials etc). But to make the jump to UI and advanced the content at cpod does not (alone) allow for a very easy progression. You have to supplement and most people that stick with it just bumble through this process. Doing the UI main podcasts in mandarin only and providing transcripts for the full podcast at this level (as well as for advanced) was a previous suggestion. Also I'd love to see more dialogues like D0561, E0429, and E0841.

Perhaps I am wrong, because I am nowhere near the Advanced level. But I would think that by the time you reach that level you are at the stage where you are interested only in vocabulary building. And there are any number of sources on the web which will allow you to build vocabulary. The actual teaching goes on at the lower levels, and Chinese Pod is right to be placing their focus here.

Right, this is what I am observing as well -- at CPod content is key, and there is just not enough of it at Advanced level, driving people off-site.

That is exactly why I am concerned I will have low motivation to renew my subscription by the time I reach that level. Of course half-year ahead may be kind of early to plan, but still. The community is great and all, but with only 270 (+24 new lessons at once per month) not sure will be enough to justify a two-year renewal.

The Newbie numbers are somewhat inflated by the practice of re-recording old lessons perhaps? (There was an announcement about this say around a year ago?) I am not sure actually whether the original lessons are retired, but it is a thought. Apart from that, there are a lot of similar lessons at the lower levels, so again the numbers you quote may not give a reliable picture of the learning platform.

Clearly there are commercial reasons behind the spread - Advanced lessons are less profitable. They require more resources to produce and fewer people use them.

Too my mind the lower levels are more valuable because quality resources are in short supply, particularly if you are immersed in the Chinese culture. Once you reach the higher levels, you have access to lots of options: some learning options referred to in posts above, as well as real-life learning (again assuming you are immersed in the culture).

All that said, it would always be good to have more, so long as quality is maintained, because the ChinesePod product is so good.

Yes, amazon.cn takes foreign credit cards. I think that because my shipping address and credit card billing address are the same, all went smoothly.

Popupchinese.com has some good advanced materials as well. They also have short stories and did a wonderful job with the first chapter of 红楼梦 which is fully annotated.

' I had to navigate their menus for setting up a new account. I, also, had to find a small link on the page asking for my address to enter a foreign address'

Hi Mark - just noticed this comment; I've wondered about buying from amazon.cn and following your comment just wondered how payment is made? Can you use a foreign credit card? (I haven't yet explored - thought I would ask you first!)

Glad you decided to look into it, and great suggestions on other sites. I'd also add 静雅思听, which basically reads articles and short stories into recordings, and has some pretty good voice actors, and adds many new articles a day, meaning basically an unlimited supply of material

often if you search the name of the article or short story you can pull up its 'transcript', as one would expect...

Has lots of different catagories, health, life, history, art, etc...you can browse or subscribe to different ones as you like.

You can find it by searching in itunes and such, they slso have an app. But here is the website

http://www.justing.com.cn/

Below link for rss feed subscriptions for itunes and such, different options based on which catagories you want to subscribe to, probably best to go for everything in chinese option (doesnt include their english lessons) until you get a feel for what you like, its the second option. Though im not sure whether some links may be outdated, maybe better to search in itunes for their podcasts? Its been awhile

http://www.justing.com.cn/stage/rss.html

Note: I probably won't see any replies, as I'm going into heavy japanese study in final prep for a language placement test for the next couple of weeks (and the leftover time i'll be using to maintain chinese, so internet time is a nessecary sacrifice), but can be reached by pm if needed. I look forward to talking more with everyone afterwards!

Yes, thanks for that link. Agree with Mark, the only trick is looking out for the overseas shipping link.

For other advanced lessons with full transcripts there are other options: Clavis Sinica and Slow Chinese (free resources) and Chineseclass101 and CSLPod (paid resources but with free trials). Between these 4 sites there are many hundreds of additional advanced lessons with transcripts, which compliment Cpod.

Clavis Sinica and Slow Chinese are more at a UI level, whereas the advanced lessons at the other two can be very challenging.

Clavis Sinica has interesting topics put up by Beijing students. Slow Chinese had a negative review by John P a while ago, but is quite good, in my opinion. CSLPod has an advantage (in my view) in that the dialogue discussion/explanations are also transcripted (and contain no English).

Any other good sites?

Hope you enjoy it, I really love that set! You'll discover there are three very different voice actors, I persnally really like the male who does most of the chinese focussed half (and a few of the world ones, kant's biography, hegel's too, the various classical musicians...im curious how they divided up the lessons). The other male who does most of the world focussed half speaks more slowly and clearly, but doesnt have as much energy to him. The female voice actor appears infrequently, but does a good job when she appears (for example, there are several lessons on various french novelists and playwrights, and she does a fun job of telling their stories).

Thanks for the compliment. I'm really glad you bought the set, i think you'll get a lot of use out of it. I remember benefiting from your comments when working through the lesson archive, so its nice to be able to make a useful suggestion in return!

Tingyun, I ordered the CD set you suggested. amazon.cn didn't recognize my amazon.com account. So, I had to navigate their menus for setting up a new account. I, also, had to find a small link on the page asking for my address to enter a foreign address. Overall, there were no twists and turns that a CPod advanced user shouldn't be able to follow. Thanks for the suggestion.

BTW, you responded to one of my comments on the zhangliang and lili series that I seemed to have encountered the lesson at a higher ability level than you. I suspect you have since surpassed me. I'll plead the decrepitude of middle age, or the fact that I still have a day job. 很佩服你啦。

Oh, congrats on completing the 1l year then!

Work...After law school I went to a traditional big law firm and practiced commercial litigation, but after a year decided to return to school (masters program in east asian studies - and I started started learning chinese). After graduation I again went to work (business managment consulting with Mckinsey), but quickly started applying to schools, and in a month I head back to begin a phd program (researching late imperial chinese social and legal history at Harvard). I really enjoyed being a lawyer, but I love reading and research, so its probably life in a university from here on out....

If you are considering consulting vs law firm for 2l summer recruiting, I'd be happy to offer up my thoughts on the differences between the two paths, feel free to pm me. Though I imagine your question is getting at the question of securing jobs in chinese offices? Sadly i've got no experience, although my firm had an office in China, I didn't start studying the language until the end of my law firm career. Though i'd think you'd be very well qualified with your advanced chinese language skills and time spent living in China – i know of some heritage speakers with very limitied to non-existent reading skills who had little trouble getting offers from the chinese offices of top US firms.

Tingyun, thank you very much for the suggestion. I will definitely look into it. My profile is apparently outdated. I just completed my first year of law school at Washington & Lee. If you don't mind my asking what are you currently doing for work?