Should I pay?

Frank: I started a new discussion entitled, "Traditional Characters and the Plug-in"

Calkins, cheers. It seems to have worked.

Frank - Good point. Will see how the installation goes first.

OK, everyone. Since C2W3 has conceded (sort of) and will pay for CPod (see 13 post ago) we've done our job of convincing her/him/them of the utter selfish thievery it'd be to use CPod w/out paying : ) Yippee!

My last 兩分錢, the trial period was definitely one month when I signed on in March of '07 because I remember thinking how ridiculously easy it'd be to steal the entire database from CPod for free in thirty days; I suppose one can still do it in 7 days if one were of the unscrupulous, amoral, unethical type...OK, I'll get off my high horse now : )

Is this thread running out of battery or do we all want to continue with the battery!!

Woops, sorry bismarck3005, I don't know why I thought it was a month trial...it must have been the 15-day when I started. I know it was more than 7-days. Personally, I don't think 7 days is enough time for anyone, unless they have absolutely no life! You're also right about the link, it doesn't work anymore. Here's an alternate link that'll take you right to the download. You may get an error message after download, but ignore it...the plugin should still work after you install it. Good luck!

bismarck3005 -- You may actually want to start another thread for the Traditional support options. Others users may find the answers useful and might not think to look here!

I thought it was always one week. Never 15 days.

Bummer...just my luck. I also see there is a problem with the traditional plugin. I went to the link Calkins provided nut eveytime I click on the link for the plugin (from Calkins' link) I don't get the plugin, just a message that says:

Error 404

The page you requested not found.

Anyone else experiencing this problem?

PS - Apologies, I think I'm going off topic here...

They may have increased it at one point. I seem to remember it only being 7 days when I started (almost two years ago).

The help page says the free trial is 7 days now. I know when I originally signed up back in October it was 15 days. Not sure when they changed it.

Yes, I checked the ad. (look under help) and the free trial is now advertised as 7 days. It was 15 when I started about 6 months ago. I think seven days should be long enough to decide if it is something you want to do or not.

should be 15 days. If its only one week its new. What does the home page ad say now? Maybe the fact that there are people adding "wangs" and multiple spellings of chitttty to their usernames to get extra free trials has caused them to tighten up and shorten it.

I also see that I registered on February 18 and my trial period expires on February 24. So it seems my trial period is only one week, not one month. Is that usual, or just a new thing?

HI Calkins,

Thanks for the info regarding traditional characters. That will definitely make it worth my while to pony up and pay.

CWB,

and as soon you get your old avatar back, we drag our pitchfork out of your skull again

:P

I plan to bite the bullet and pay up for services.

Even if its just to not be outcasted.

But not before I get my battery back!

haha

I love Cpod. As a newbie, there is NO WAY I could ever have gotten to the point of recognizing characters, pinyin, and spoken language to the level I am at in the relatively short amount of time I have been studying Mandarin. I even take a night class but almost as a supplement to Cpod.

I say pony up and pay for what you get! It's worth every penny.

Oh I believe her, Frank, (or him) but why play along?

ratatouille -- I wasn't trying to crush any healthy discussion on the benefits of upgrading. I just didn't want to see 300 people pile on one user for an off-handed comment which may not have had any basis in fact. That was going to get ugly REAL fast. :-)

bismarck3005, I believe the trial is an entire month! I also use traditional characters, and there are some ways to access trad. characters on the site. If you upgrade your account, you'll have access to lesson dialogue PDF's. To get the PDF in traditional characters, just add "trad" at the end of the link. Example: chinesepod_B0798.pdf chinesepod_B0798trad.pdf There is also a Firefox plugin that you can install for better traditional support on the website: Trad. Character Plugin More reasons to upgrade!

I thought Frank put this thread to bed.

Honestly, I applaud the folks at Cpod. I'm still on my trial week (it's a week, right?) and thinking about the membership deal. However, my main concern is the characters. I use traditional, and seeing as everything is in simplified it doesn't seem much use to me to use the features other than the audio lessons.

On the other hand, I would feel guilty leeching off the site for the audio and not paying...

Getting back to the original point: determing the value of a paid membership. While on a 2 week winter break from teaching, I employed the premium membership on average 2-3 hours per day, allowing me to work through my flashcards, the dialogues, and expansions. It had great benefit, and I felt proud having plunked down the cash for the 6 month membership. However, now that work (and other commitments) are back in full swing, I've rarely had more than 15-20 minutes/week to log onto the site and that time is primarily spent downloading the latest podcasts, and just seeing what is on the collective minds in the conversation forum... I'm way behind on updating my vocab list and previous dialogues, now I'm frustrated knowing I would have been better buying just a single month membership back when I could afford the time. I guess what I'm in intending to suggest is: if you take your Chinese studies seriously, and can consistently commit enough time each day/week to rival the work that would be put into a traditional language class, then pay for it. I don't think time (or effort) will materialize just by throwing your money down (as I also once hoped Chittywangwang),

Even though I can't afford a premium membership, I purchased the basic membership because 1) I don't feel right not rewarding them, even in a small monetary way, for their work here, and 2) having the dialogue sheets really is helpful for me.

Hey, gang, before we all get out the pitchforks and torches... take a second. I'd be genuinely surprised if CWWW was actually going to such lengths. But even if she was, having this thread degenerate into a pile-on-the-rabbit game of finger-pointing does no one any good. Obviously no one who is a fan of this site and these people would support those kind of actions. Let's say it's been said and get back to our studies, huh?

And seriously, if nothing else it gives the folks over at ChinesePod a challenge to fix that hole in their system. (Track IP addresses, maybe?)

Now move along, move along. Nothing to see here. :-)

hey CWWW. What your doing doesn't seem right. The trial membership is not meant to be used that way. That is not something to be proud of and bragging about. Yes you should definetly be paying by now! C-pod is a business just like any other. They need our financial support to remain open. If you truly respect and value the service that C-pod provides, then you will pay for it just like the rest of us. Also, like the others have mentioned you will get a lot more learning opportunites out of it that way.

遵守纪律

true, I bike everywhere in China, even tried to bike across the river to Pudong...didn't happen (couldn't find the ferry, bridge not for bikes, was May Labor Day, craziness)

I bike, so you should too. (and will have more time to listen to ChinesePod)

Rich,

Cpod is not for lazy people.

So why combine Cpod with some accessories for lazy cyclists.

Wangwang,

If you don't stop bragging about your way to apply for a free try account every week, JohnP will ask some crude 外星人 to put weight on you before next summer. :)

(but you'll have to wait until John is done with it for that offer)

Here's what you should do:

Wait until ChinesePod has a promo for free bike batteries with premium membership, then go all out!!

@CWWW

I hope you are just just joking.

Yes of course. Stealing is stealing.

Stealing from honest people who give a lot, is worse.

Thanks for the support, everyone! I often wonder what crap job I'd be stuck with if not for people supporting ChinesePod (and now SpanishPod).

As for chitty [...] wang: I am having a blast with this bike battery!

> Someone took my bike battery yesterday. B*stards.

Karma?

Following on from Henning, the service, in my opinion, is worth paying for. I spend more in the pub a month than I do on Cpod.

Well, working with changing fake-email-addresses is not only really cheap, it is actually fraud.

It would in general never come to my mind to pursue such a strategy and in particular not here, given the fairness of the service.

Then you just have to keep getting free email addresses, which is far too much effort. I pay for convenience, plus the dollar has tanked, which is even better.

Thank you all for your advice.

Its been nice to talk about ME. my favourite topic.

Im just not getting the major differences between a months free subscription, which you can just update with about three clicks and a fake email address, over a paid one. I still can get all the fix, transcripts, vocab cards etc for a sum total of 0 RMB.

I started off with basic for a little while, because I was skint. Then I upgraded because I was impatient.

chittttywangwangwang:

Being that you live in Shanghai and regardless of the fact that so many people in Shanghai who would rather speak English with you than Chinese, still you are living in China and you are in an environment that is perfect for improving your Mandarin.

You've said yourself that you are in an environment where you speak Chinese on a daily basis, however, I think given light of the fact that you are consistently here using Chinesepod that shows you are looking for improvement.

I've said many times before that things really start to come together when you listen to the podcasts in tandem with the expansion materials. Just listening to the podcasts alone is not enough. Using The Fix, the Transcripts, Flashcards, etc. are all very valuable to help improve quickly. Without these things, of course there is improvement but it's marginal as compared with using the full system. It's like working out just doing the treadmill for 30 minutes, sure you do experience results, however once that is combined with other forms of cardio, weight training, swimming, Ab work, etc. that's when you really start seeing the results you're looking for.

It's like you are saying, "I have a treadmill at home, what do I need a Health Club membership for?" Well if you compare the body of someone who just works treadmill, and someone who does a complete workout on a consistent basis, the answer is perfectly clear.

I think, above all you should look at it this way, the Basic subscription is $60 dollars per year and the Premium subscription is $240 dollars per year, BOTH of those options are extremely affordable, once you upgrade, the wealth of resources available to you that can help you very rapidly improve are more than worth the cost of one dinner out at a restaurant once a month.

I bought a premium subscription 3 days after I discovered Cpod, I was too excited to even use up my free trial.

I'm afraid you'll have to wait for the live version when I come back to Shanghai, dear. :-)

using my name in that context!

thats hurts so much!

(thats what she said)

...enter a new "wang" two times a week. That's also what she said.

Frank: no thats not enough. But if youd record it for me and post it I would be happy to watch.

shiwuqingren: sorry about your unfortunate user name. Also, I can get the dialgues on my ipod with the free membership already.

Henning: I understand where you are coming from. I really just listen to the ipod lessons on my ride to and from work (although now on the bus, b*stards), I just wonder whether I'll study more if ive paid for it.

chittywangwangbangwangwang,

depends on

- your current level: if you are already pretty fluent and just pick up one word every other Media lesson, it is probably not needed --> cf. Changye

- your other ressources: In my view, CPod becomes valuable if you are *not* already embedded in a rich Chinese environment where everybody is eager to teach you and where you have Chinese classes all day long

- the time you have at hand: If your learning slot is already over after listening to the podcasts once and you know you will not have the time to listen to the Fix and the Qing Wens later during the day, well,...

- the frequency you forget your user name and PW; could become either expensive or service intensive to enter a new "t" or "w" or "wang" two times a week

;)

Hi chitty wang wang wang

Even if you can only afford the Basic membership--its really nice to have the entire dialogue in front of you when you listen--helps especially if your listening is poor. Sometimes I'm not sure about a tone or spelling.

Besides that you are helping to keep a great service up and running. Every little bit helps!!

There's another button that will make me break out into a tearful rendition of "Danny Boy," but I don't think that's quite the convincing you need. :-)

Bark like a dog?

Thats (also) what she said

Im still not convinced.

What tools? Well, for one, there's a little known area on the site, accessible by premium subscribers only, that makes Ken bark like a dog every time you press a button.

As for the Johns, there are two of them, and I'm sorry to say that you have to pay for them both by the pound. Much cheaper to just upgrade your membership!

Dave: wha?

Frank: what are these tools?

Also, how much is "a John" on the market these days? Im pretty sure he took my 1000 yuan bike battery anyway, so he is doing ok financially.

Darcey: Thats what she said

I enjoyed my free trial enough to upgrade, and I think it's entirely worth it!

You should DEFINITELY upgrade your membership! Better tools, more access, and ChinesePod doesn't have to start pimping out John and Dave on the weekends for extra cash. It's good all around!

Honestly, I think you would be penalizing their hard work.