6 top Learning Chinese websites: There is more out there than just Chinesepod!
magnus1977
February 10, 2009 at 06:00 PM posted in General Discussion6 Top Learning Chinese Websites...
Check out what websites are on the list. Have you heard of them all???
Brought to you by www.MandMX.com
silentnoise
February 11, 2009 at 09:33 AM
henning
I forgot to exclude popup from my rant above as I quite like that site because of the HSK and the different accents in the podcasts. I think it compliments CPod quite well.
henning
February 11, 2009 at 07:16 AM
silentnoice,
I agree that there is absolute no alternative to the CPod high quality and vocab heavy podcasts - and certainly not to the body of available podcasts.
However, David's "popup" is a perfect complement to this - especially for Intermediate and Advanced learners. The shows are actually pretty entertaining and funny (rather "snacks" compared to a CPod full meal, though). And I really like the test-heavy approach and the HSK material.
silentnoise
February 10, 2009 at 09:16 PM
These websites don't even come close to the quality that CPod offers.
CPod has variety and the podcasts not only teach you the language you want/need to learn, but they are also really entertaining.
Listen to the drab and dull voices, lousey sound effects and lack of personality offered by competitor websites and it's not hard to see why CPod comes out the best each time.
dunderklumpen
February 10, 2009 at 09:00 PM
Popupchinese may become a nice complement to cPod for students who want to listen to different pu3tong1hua4 accents. The popupchinese actors use a lot more 儿's than the cPod actors. E.g. yi1 ping2r pi2jiu3 instead of yi1 ping2 pi2jiu3.
However, I think popupchinese started recently (?) so there is not too much material on the site yet.
cPod rules ^_^
I was a bit surprised to hear Echo of popupchinese saying xie4xie in, what I thought was, the southern sie4sie way. I thought the standard mandarin sound x (as in xie4xie) was supposed to be pronounced as the sh in sheep (羊) or ch in cheap (不贵).
Is that "sh" an old-school way of saying "x" or is it only used in some accents of pu3tong1hua4? Any ideas?
RJ
February 10, 2009 at 08:08 PM
There is only one Chinesepod. If I could use only one, Cpod would be the one.
RJ
February 11, 2009 at 10:58 AMHenning,
I too enjoy the "popup" snack at times, but view it almost as a cpod spin off since its David's site. It wouldnt stand alone, but definitely number two on the list.