MY SUBSCRIPTION'S ENDING THIS MONTH

I recall a Poddie who recently moved to China recommended that the first priority is to learn and be able to speak Chinese to taxi drivers. This would mean gathering all the Cpod lessons, old and new pertaining to transportation and directions, and studying them. Doing so will make your life in China easier right from the start.

Many here have commented that the approach to take is to continue on the threadmill and keep up with the new lessons. Or that new lessons are more interesting (less boring) than old lessons. This is perhaps true provided you have studied all the old lessons on the topics that are relevant to you. Then you can keep up with the new lessons.

However, if I haven't been able to keep up with the old lessons, adding new lessons to the pile of lessons that I have (and not able to give enough attention to) is to simply add more files to my existing inventory of files. It is basically collecting more and more lessons and not necessarily collecting more and more knowledge of the language. If I have 200 Intermediate lessons on my computer now and have not studied them, when can I find the time to do so?

What is the use of even one more new lesson if you haven't reviewed all the existing lessons on transportation to communicate to taxi drivers, and you'll soon be leaving for China?

To me Chinese is a sound language similar to a song. Radio stations may give repeated air time to a specific song. You may hum or roughly sing the song after hearing it many times. But it is only by knowing the words of the song, the music, and the tonality, will you be able to perform the song sufficiently well.

Actually, I was wondering how many lessons people have studied (during their subscription). Cpod must have some nice stats on that? How do people start, how do they progress, when do they stop?

Might be interesting data to analyze, same for the studied content. The *rating system might not be the sole indicator of popular lessons. Any thoughts on that?

It would be intersting to get the thoughts of Bazza on this topic.  He was a long term user of ChinesePod who we haven't heard of for awhile.

Good advice rjberki.  When I used to use ChinesePod more, I did find it like real life immersion, especially as one said earlier, it is like you are having a real-live discussion in the lesson's discussion page. 

Also in this long list of responses, one question/issue that was raised was how to get people talking about past lessons, or at least make it so newbies didn't feel like they were posting questions in a lesson that was put out years ago.  My only thought on how that could be handled is that ChinesePod really should try to more closely link more than one lesson and maybe even have the discussioin page not for a particular lesson, but a suite of lessons...kind of like having a "classroom" discussion area for a bunch of lessons.  Now with message threading, this could be easily managed.  I also think message order should be flipped, with newest messages on top, kind of like Facebook does it with its news feed (except keep the replies to a message in chronological order, and have them collapsable).  This would make the lesson feel "fresher" and let someone's post not be lost at the end of the shuffle...just my thoughts.

Having new lessons is like real life immersion. Every day new material with some of the same vocab and patterns used in new context. This is the natural way to learn. Mastering each lesson is an artifact left over from text book learning. Pick an occaisional favorite and master it. Along with expansion sentences. The rest, hit as hard as you have time for. This way is so not boring.

I hear that type of remark around here from time to time, from different people.

Different people? Hmm... different 'guises' maybe.

Mike

I am glad you said this:

Instead of spending money on new lessons all the time, why not sponsor/ nominate old lessons for new scrutiny and debate and thus revitilise the whole database?

I said something like this a few times, so I think I will stop bringing it up after this. But just one more time, right on!

Yeah sorry Paul, it's definitely not only you. I hear that type of remark around here from time to time, from different people.

@zhen

I hear you! I was simply knocking the person who had prior been knocking me various times.  

Hey Mike, nice to hear from you again! I didn't know that after lapsing subscription, one still has access to certain areas in the community.

That's what I'm trying to figure out now. Whether  I'd be further ahead in the study of the Chinese language by coming off the threadmill and reviewing more closely the 200 or so of Intermediate lessons I've archived, or continue on with the threadmill approach. The current Cpod hearing test informs me I have not progressed at all, or much. I tested myself last year and it said "low intermediate" and current test still has me on "high elementary" or "low intermediate".

As for recycling old lessons (or remaking them) didn't Cpod tried this at the beginning of 2009? If I recall correctly, they had mentioned that some old lessons will be deleted or revamped. It had me thinking then they might be running out of topics that have not been written up as a lesson.

Can they go on producing new lessons infinitely? Maybe, but quite likely not. The time will come when the data base could be too large for practical purposes for people to figure out "learning on your own terms", and they could simply mine the data base without producing new lessons by organizing existing lessons into various subscription plans.

Well said Henning;completely agree with all that except I'm not personally at a stage where I can say:

The really old ones? 听腻了。

..and can't envisage that for a long time,if ever,but cool that you're at that stage.Also,I personally don't think the site would become stale or dead if there were no new lessons,but I do think the community would be at risk of going that way.So I think new lessons are extremely important to keep that community spirit alive.

Many topics do benefit from a revisit,seeing them from a second angle.Absolutely.This is patently obvious from lower level lessons that have only touched on a topic and not introduced higher level vocab.But even at higher level lessons that have longer dialogues and more advanced vocab,they have still only just touched on a subject.Case in point..the recent lesson on Confucius.A roughly 2 or so minute dialogue only touches on this huge topic.Already there have been calls for a series there.And we only have to look at the thread "Lesson topic suggestions" to see just how many topics Poddies are requesting,not to mention the probably countless more in the minds of lurkers,and countless more that could be discussed that haven't been suggested.So yeah,I think it's important to keep 'em coming.It is amazing though how they can keep pumping out such high quality stuff and keeping it both educational and entertaining [that combination being such a winning formula].Jiayou.

Mike，

Good to see you around again mate.Was this just a timely visit that had you stumble on a topic of much relevance to yourself,or have you been keeping your eye on the boards all along?

Some of you may remember that I used to contibute often to the boards.

..absolutely.Particularly helpful with picking up dialogue from the lessons.Thanks for that.

 The one thing that you need to keep going with this language is a sense of progress and achievement

..absolutely.There are many ways to achieve this of course though.I think it is very easy to fall into the mindset that you have to keep up with every new lesson that comes out or you are somehow failing,and I for one certainly do like to keep up with the latest[but haven't for some time kept up with them all] so I know where you're coming from.But I think it's probably better to think of this ever expanding number of lessons as more of a resource [almost in the way we think of a dictionary] that we can go to the lessons most relevant for us,and don't need to study every last one.Progress is still being made [sometimes fast and sometimes just baby steps,but I think even baby steps are great ..heading in the right direction...just like the old saying about the journey of a thousand li beginning with just one step...ya just gotta hang in there].But yeah,it's nice to see that progress sometimes and I'm personally really looking forward to the upcoming testing tools that are being developed and soon to be released.I remember about a year ago thinking that this would be a good thing to have and writing about it on a how to help newbies thread.Can't wait.

Mike,

I  personally do need new lessons - they keep me going. A treadmill is exactly what I need.

Without a continous flow of new lessons the site would become first stale and then dead. And  besides,  CPod is already sending out old lessons in the "channels" - people nevertheless seem to prefer the new stuff.

Today's lesson on "electronic dogs and radar detectors" is a perfect example of an unexplored relevant, culturally and linguistically rich topic that was still "new". Many subjects are also related to current events. Perfect for the treadmill. And there are more than enough subjects left - just take a look into Wikipedia.

Besides, many topics indeed benefit if they are repeated or deepened from a different angle (example: the 2 Yoga lessons). I rather like an old topic adressed in a new lesson than repeating an old one over and over.

I am on the "Guided" plan - and deliberately asked Shenyajin to preferably add newer lessons to the schedule.

The really old ones? 听腻了。

P.S: We all miss you here - come back to the cozy mill!  :)

Well I let my subscription lapse 4 months ago after spending several years and a great deal of time studying with Chinesepod. Some of you may remember that I used to contibute often to the boards. 

I haven't given up on trying to master this language though, so why did I stop subscribing?

Well I think the treadmill is one of the reasons.  Because of the continual focus on the new lessons, and the drying up of interest, as shown by the comments drying up, on earlier lessons, it is true that you seem compelled to try to keep up with the new lessons - and this becomes at some point impossible.  I think it also means that you never have time to consolidate anything but continually are running behind in a race you cannot win.

This is very demotivating which is the worst thing that can happen.  The one thing that you need to keep going with this language is a sense of progress and achievement - the treadmill gives you the opposite sense of being overwhelmed.

It is psychological - Unless you can attend to the continual stream of new lessons, you also drop out of the community, because that community is in the main only commenting on the new ones.

Many of you seem to believe that unless new lessons keep coming out then Chinespod is dead.  I don't follow that reasoning, but Chinespod seems to feel that too.  Indeed sometimes lessons come out that seem virtually repeats of earlier lessons, which seems a waste of time, money and effort.

What should happen is that all the lessons should be continually revisited.  Instead of spending money on new lessons all the time, why not sponsor/ nominate old lessons for new scrutiny and debate and thus revitilise the whole database?

Right, that's what I was doing during those few days I had only a free account recently. I was practicing in AS and continuing to post comments in a non-lesson thread. You have to be a paying user to comment in lesson discussions.

We all just have to prioritize for ourselves Paul, manage our own time. Just because a user is seen very frequently commenting on the boards, what do we know about how they conduct their life outside of CPod? We should never presume that anyone "has too much time on their hands" (well, not unless they're going out of their way to spread unpleasantness or making all kinds of trouble). Some people are very good at managing their time, just have more energy than many of us.

I think a free account still lets you take part in the community.

Thanks everyone for your feedback... appreciate it! Here's a summary of the comments:

• Absorb 50% of each, than study 50 lessons until I know them 100%

• And I find that if I go through them 3 to 5 times without being too obsessive about remembering every word, I do retain most of it and the learning kind of builds up.

• It is a completely psychological need rather than a concrete need.

• A small investment gives you good incentive to keep you motivated

• About the original question: I'm as well on the "lets study the new content" but I wanna change my habits to make the vocab stick better

• You can take a break and see how you feel after a week or two without CPod

• Focused on studying the lesson topics that I thought were fun and relevant to me (learning on my own terms).

• Most people who leave lots of comments having gotten really far in their Mandarin studies.

• It's quite depressing seeing so many lessons arrive and not having the time to even listen to them.

• I never study a lesson 'properly'. I like to think that there is always something else to learn if I go back to it.

• At this rate ChinesePod has already produced enough lessons to keep me busy for 20 or 30 years. But please don't stop.

• I too have a massive backlog of lessons, to keep me pretty much busy indefinitely, and have often wondered, would I renew mysubscriptionif it ran outtomorrow?
• Well, in any case, I'm not sure, but I definitely would miss the community (andthefeeling from studying 'new' lessons), which I think is one of CPod's greatestassets!

• Call it a dependency problem, that's probably what it is. So why not try going without a while, and see how that feels.

• I consider it(Cpod) to be like acable tv subscription, you can use it asmuch or as little as you like.

• I could get by with the existing downloads, but I realized that in practice, I wasn't focusing the time learning Chinese theway I thought I would without subscribing.

• Come off the treadmill then! :) I've recently come to that conclusion too. I've unsubscribed from receiving new lessons while I work on the lessons built up in "my lessons" and review older, completed lessons.

Prior to joining Cpod last year, I had taken a beginner's Chinese course (Integrated Chinese) then spent about a year at Livemocha submitting each week either a writing or speaking exercise. With this, at Cpod I found I could easily handle the Elementary lessons and had set a goal to tackle the Upper Intermediate lessons after a year of Intermediate lessons. Well, a year is almost up and I don't know how much progress I've made but certainly not enough to tackle the UI lessons.

Basically, I've done what most of you have described here... listening to selected podcasts 2 or 3 times, read each transcript probably once, and reading stuff on the discussion boards. Out of the 200 or so Intermediate lessons, I've only ‘properly' studied a dozen or so lessons (including the Expansion sentences).

I feel I've ‘properly' studied a lesson if I've (a) looked at the vocabulary words and try and associate with words I already know so that they are easier to remember e.g. 火鸡fire chicken = turkey, (b) looked at how Chinese sentences are structured (c) listened to the lesson and the Expansion audio at least about a dozen times while driving to work and back. The Chinese words and sentences stick better after I've studied them. For example, one of my favorite Intermediate lesson is Fortune Cookies, so it was easy to handle   幸运神  in the New Year's Wishes lesson.

As for taking part on the discussion boards.... well, it is quite addictive and can be very time consuming.  I try not to participate in the community, but it's hard especially when you care for the community, or when things happen in Cpod operations that would jangle my nerves. Also, participation can be great fun. So one benefit of lapsing my subscription is that it forces me not to participate in the community and free up more time for learning Chinese.

Paulinurus,

Come off the treadmill then! :) I've recently come to that conclusion too. I've unsubscribed from receiving new lessons while I work on the lessons built up in "my lessons" and review older, completed lessons. It did seem a bit overwhelming to me when new lessons would appear and I couldn't get to them for weeks. I'm now working on whittling down the lessons in "my lessons" to zero before adding more.

I'm also trying to place more emphasis on review, which I believe is one of the most important as well as most neglected components of language learning. I have all the dialogs and lesson reviews listed in playlists in order of "least recently played" on my iPod. 

Remember though, you still need your subscription to be able to access all the features to study expansion sentences, exercises and the dictionary. I suggest you just unsubscribe yourself from lesson feeds, take a sigh of relief, and go at your own pace.

As for a language exchange, there's QQ International, as well as some other community sites, which I've listed on this links page.

I let my 1 year premium subscription lapse back in March 2009.  Initially, I thought that I could get by with the ~1000 lessons I downloaded.  I could get by with the existing downloads, but I realized that in practice, I wasn't focusing the time learning Chinese the way I thought I would without subscribing.  When I started learning seriously after spending more time in China later in 2009, I was also hoping to get help with the sentences I was creating by myself.  I thought that the guided subscription would be helpful for that (It is), plus I saw new lessons available that I thought would be really helpful that were different from the 00s of lessons I already downloaded.  And cpod added scritter as well, which I thought was a significant improvement. 

I think if cpod stopped creating new lessons altogether, i'd probably stop subscribing, possibly even with a guided subscription.

In theory I could just subscribe for a month, download everything and be set for the next 5 years. However, I subscribe to Chinesepod to support the quality content they produce. And I want them to stay in business so that they can continue producing top-notch study materials. (Plus the fact that the price of a two-year basic subscription is an extreme bargain, the same price as I'd pay for one 3-month course at a local community college).

I can't keep up with the release schedule, and I'll probably never clear the backlog, but that's okay. I consider it to be like a cable tv subscription, you can use it as much or as little as you like.

(oh no I'm embarrassed ...  （●＾o＾●）
But thanks for the warm welcome-backs 朋友们!)

Bodawei 呵呵，我没有疯！总是认真。And now you're only fueling my appetite to hear this dialogue played out! And not only that but see this scene; I think it's very feasible to write to be pitched successfully as a TV or short-film ad (there's got to be a great choice of very good 华人 commercial directors well-versed in these language and culture nuances to direct it. I almost said "we could get Ang Lee to do it" but on second thought, he probably wouldn't be the first choice. haha hope neither he nor his people are reading this very rude remark of mine).
No I'm not mad, always only serious!

Anyway so for mere bus fare, and for the "price" paid elsewhere, of living as a laowai in China I guess, you get rich luscious opportunities like this. Makes me quite jealous I have to say.

This goes for all of you. Please do keep sharing your stories with us!

Zhen, I also have a dependency problem. :-) 

The Government should do something about it.  

I am also glad to see you back.  Actually I never doubted it, I thought you'd just gone quiet.  

Question: what's to stop you just posting anew (like this) and ignoring the threads?  That way, you appear on Community, and your correspondents see your post.  If I threaded it, how would you know that I had sent you a message?  Or to put it another way, what is the advantage to the poster and postee of threading? It seems that the advantages are only for third parties wanting to avoid the blather.  Have I missed the point?  I think I'll make this a general post.   

Zhen, I also am glad you are around here!

Chinesepod without zhenlijiang? It just wouldn't be right!

Welcome home 妹！

@zhen, welcome back ;-)

@Zhenlijiang

ha ha.  At first glance I thought .. is she mad!? (Excuse my French as they say in the movies.)  Then I thought, wouldn't that be a good learning exercise, to WRITE a dialogue in Chinese.  (And get Jason to translate it!)  Seriously challenging, on several levels. Apart from the fact that we pay ChinesePod to do that for us.. but I see your point.  All those lessons on my wish-list that remain to be made!  I think I'd have a go at Elementary level first.  I'll try and decide on a funny scenario ..

That guy on the bus BTW spent ages trying to convince me to learn 'lexical chunks' - talk about preaching to the converted.  He said ignore all that single word vocabulary stuff in the back: '..waste of time, you'll never remember it.' He is right about that. We spent our time together on the real meaning of the sentence, the nuances, the grammatical structure, and the SOUND of the language, the rhythm.  He had me say it to him about fifty times, getting the rhythm right! And then a couple of other sentences using the same structure (while other people crowded round, just looking and listening, as Chinese people do.)    

Bodawei I wish you would re-produce that exchange on the bus for us! Would make a great (UI? Advanced?) lesson. As would some other poddies' real-life-in-China experiences--"hospital" series, "driver license & bureaucracy" series etc. And even better if you could play yourselves in the dialogue. Please please please!

Paul I did actually recently let my subscription run out to see how I felt without it. I thought the things that I was doing with CPod (much of my time here recently has been spent practicing writing on AS and 中文吧 + sometimes getting involved in "discussions"), which I apparently can continue to do as a non-paying user, meant it might be fine to remain that way.
After only a few days I found myself just too intrigued by the questions being asked on the new lesson discussions. It was driving me crazy not to have access to the new lessons. So I re-subscribed.
Call it a dependency problem, that's probably what it is.
I also have a big backlog of lessons yet unstudied and know what you mean about the textbook getting bigger so fast that you can't keep up. But so why not try going without a while, and see how that feels, like xiaophil suggested, and I did?

Tal_

Centre is  Aussie.

I too have a massive backlog of lessons, to keep me pretty much busy indefinitely, and have often wondered, would I renew my subscription if it ran out tomorrow?

Well, in any case, I'm not sure, but I definitely would miss the community (and the feeling from studying 'new' lessons), which I think is one of CPod's greatest assets! 

I'm currently trying to break through to the UI level, but find myself dropping down to Intermediate and sometimes to Elementary when the going gets too tough - it always renews my confidence that I am progressing, abet slowly!

Why am I (we) studying Chinese? I found this article linked from John's blog interesting.

http://pinyin.info/readings/texts/moser.html

Those who merely say "I've come this far -- I can't stop now" will have some chance of succeeding, since they have the kind of mindless doggedness and lack of sensible overall perspective that it takes.

I never study a lesson 'properly'.  I like to think that there is always something else to learn if I go back to it.  

On the bus the other day and I pulled out a ChinesePod script.  I was going to listen to 王菲 but the iPod battery was flat.  The guy in the seat next to me (who turns out to have been a Chinese teacher for 30 years) grabs my script and I start to regret doing ChinesePod (it is about murder of a lover and Chinese police investigations.)  He isn't going to like the subject matter I think.  I try and grab it back but this makes him more interested.  We spend the next 40 minutes talking around and about just one sentence!  Reminds me of what we used to call the 'Cambridge' style of teaching/learning.  At this rate ChinesePod has already produced enough lessons to keep me busy for 20 or 30 years.  But please don't stop.  

I haven't studied a new lesson since the Manicure one, and prior to that, it was the Hot Pot lesson and Finding a Street Number. I keep seeing this massive build-up of lessons in my RSS, but because I'm learning vocabulary from my back-catalogue of studied lessons, I've hardly had any time to do anything new. I wish I could pause my subscription for six weeks! It's quite depressing seeing so many lessons arrive and not having the time to even listen to them. The number of vocabulary reviews I have to do takes up a lot of time if I miss it one evening (and it being Christmas, there have been many missed evenings).

I also think there's something to be said about most people who leave lots of comments having gotten really far in their Mandarin studies. Obviously there's some sort of correlation between hanging around discussing Mandarin on a message board and being motivated enough to reach a high level of competence.

I love to get trolled, hehe.

Just don't feed him.  Leave him alone.

@xiaophil
Dude, I am still green!

Hi centrefield

I can't agree with you more. Please don't waste your precious time posting a comment in a "useless" thread like this.

Tal

Oh man, I just realize it is over 4.5 hours.  I'm studying Chinese and not maths, haha!  (I added the s to math just for you.)  3 hours class and 1.5 hours 阅读. Nap time now and then back at it.

@centrefield
Physician, heal thyself!

@xiaophil
5 hours? I am green.

PS. Hmm... center or centre? Which is USA? Which is Aussie?

centrefield

I have studied Chinese for over 5 hours today.  Sorry if I took time out to leave some comments.  As far as I know, there is a difference between complaining and offering insight and advice.  I don't see how anyone  above falls into the category of complaining.  At any rate, we are being civil.

... and the fruitless discussion continues. It seems some people here spend more time talking about learning Mandarin than actually learning. I see one dude has made 3000 "contributions" in 16 months. That really is scary. Instead, he could have had at least 300 more hours of learning Mandarin (and that is ultra-conservative)

Xiao Phil talks of everybody discussing a lesson at the same time. If the number of people I see entering into discussions is everybody, this site is in trouble. Either that, or the vast majority of users have no problem with "feeling like a loner hanging out in a classroom by themselves". I've noticed this  on other sites: The people who waste time chatting, talk as though they are representative of the typical (silent) user.

For gods sake people, why don't you stop trying to show each other who is the best debater, cut the BS and the complaining about what is on offer here, and get on with your learning.

Henning,

I run on the treadmill sometimes and I run outside in the cold (more often). Just like language learning, there is more than one path to success.

People ask me "Why do you force yourself run?" I answer the same way when someone asks me why I study Chinese. I do it, not because I'm forced to, rather, it is because I like to do it.

pcheney,

I know. But isn't running on a wheel also a perfect cardiovascular exercise? And you don't  have to get out into the cold. ;)

Henning,

Yes, that's right. But I think "treadmill" in this discussion is being used more symbolically as "stuck in a rut".  Or perhaps imagine a hamster in a cage endlessly running on the wheel, trying to keep up.

Just a thought: Aren't "treadmills" (踏车) those popular exercise machines that can be found in every gym?

Sometimes I have actually fallen into the "treadmill" trap, thinking that there was no way I could possibly keep up with all the new lessons. But then I realized this was counter-productive (for my learning style anyway).

Ieventually gave up on trying to perfect every lesson and thenjust focused on studying the lesson topics that I thought were fun and relevant to me (learning on my own terms).

If I ever got to the point where learning Chinese was a "treadmill", I would certainly quit it forever, since it would cease to become an enjoyable experience.

Paul

I forgot to say, I think that if you really have doubts, you can take a break and see how you feel after a week or two without CPod.

somewhere else, I mentioned that maybe a "class-of-2010" could have a positive result, especially for the newbie lessons.

Instead of stopping the itunes feed and leaving the field unharvested, it might be good to have a yearly or half-yearly repeat of the introduction lessons + 20 to 40 newbie lessons for free out there in the loop and mask/hide the old comments for those lessons. In this sence, newbies would come freshly together, share their thoughts and jump up the ladder. It would also avoid newbies from studying the whole archive, feeling lost with all those lessons.

About the original question: I'm as well on the "lets study the new content" but I wanna change my habbits to make the vocab stick better. Looking forward to the SRS flashcards ;)

John

What you said is exactly true.  New lessons feel exciting.  Old ones feel the opposite.  I think part of the reason is that feeling of everybody looking at the same lesson at the same time and being able to have a real time discussion about it.  In general, we don't want to feel like a loner hanging out in a classroom by ourselves.  It is a completely psychological need rather than a concrete need.  I still think there are ways to let some of those old lessons to get the attention they deserve, but probably not with the current system.

This "treadmill" concept is interesting.  I wonder how many ChinesePod users see their subscription this way.

Before, we used to think of ChinesePod as an ever-expanding library of lessons, kind of like an encyclopedia that keeps updating.  You use what you need, and content is plentiful.

Later, we realized that the new content is a huge part of the subscription for many users, making it something closer to a magazine subscription, where the emphasis is on the new.

Clearly, it's different for every learner. We're definitely paying close attention to these comments, though.

Haha, I had the opposite experience. One new lesson a week at my level wasn't enough. Rather I constantly searched the archives for more. That said, I often didn't study the new lessons when they arrived. With a huge archive, there's no reason to keep studying the new ones if there are more interesting old lessons out there.

A small investment gives you good incentive to keep you motivated.

I've been pretty busy myself the last few weeks (it's a time of year thing) and haven't had time to study the latest lessons properly. But ordinarily I like to study (most of) the new lessons pitched at my level as and when they come out. And I find that if I go through them 3 to 5 times without being too obsessive about remembering every word, I do retain most of it and the learning kind of builds up.

It seems to me the lesson authors find a way to repeat and review so many words and 'lexical chunks' in other contexts and situations, and I think that's an important part of learning a language.

The day may well come when I feel CPod is no further help to me, but that day isn't here just yet.

Paul

I have certainly had the same thoughts but, If I stick with a lesson until I know it 100% I get pretty sick of it. I would rather hit 100 fresh lessons keeping up with new releases and absorb 50% of each, than study 50 lessons until I know them 100%. The new lessons offer new contexts and some vocab repeats so I find the end result is the same but the road there is more plesant. Periodic review of favorites also bears fruit. Does this make any sense?

Oops!

And the text book keeps getting bigger and bigger each week.