User Comments - Cornelia

Posted on: At the Hair Salon

I do completely agree with flyboeing777: the video was cool and entertaining, but from it alone I neither got educational value. I could recognize what I already knew and mixed up all the new stuff, really needing the pdf to complete.

But this does not mean that video is not a suited means of teaching. You can find the answer how to do way better within Praxislanguages: look at "la Clave" from SpanishPod:  http://spanishpod.com/lessons/subject-pronouns/discussion. (sorry, this should have been a hyperlink, but I do not get the icons for it useable in this comment box.)

Please do look at this video, even if you have no interest at all in Spanish - you will be able to comprehensively understand & retain. Now was this SpanishPod video less cool? Certainly not, but the effects were chosen to serve the didactical purpose.

To make video unambiguous: just TALK in it, like JP does. Video does not mean you have to suppress the normal audio teaching channel of explanations. I do not expect youtube-like sequences for native speakers.

Posted on: Changes on ChinesePod

Auntie68's and Frances's comments lead me to an idea:

What if CPod would offer free access for nearly-native-fluent speakers based on a test (online + Skype-check)? Such a passed test could work as subscription payment, with the expectation that those users help in the comments section. Their avatars should bear a special mark as "voluntary proficients" so that learners can distinguish that their comments probably are free of errors. (I had also appreciated the "admin"-mark for Praxis staff which you had in place more than one year ago.)

I would also expect that you may get cross-help among your community: as soon as my native language will be up (Germanpod) I will certainly drop by - because then I would have something to post of which others can clearly benefit. If you keep your Praxis subscription unlimited, i.e. as soon as you want to study 2 languages you have access to all languages this might work.

In any case I will be curiuos to see what topics you will cover, as I have a lot of colleagues from a merger who might take up German if presented in the entertaining style Praxis usually applies. I will certainly advertise for you!

Posted on: Internet is Down

How would you say if it's not the internet as such, but rather the server you try to connect to?

For example I keep having problems with flashcards in "Hanzi & Audio" mode: I rarely ever get the audio - it states it would read and transmit, but it usually does not succeed, I hear nothing.

Anything your techs can fix?

Thanks!

Posted on: Pearl Tea

Hi, I would love a lesson about zhen1zhu1 - how to buy pearls in Chinese. For me this should be "upper elementary" or "lower intermediate" - I consider boran's suggestion very good! Maybe just two i.o. three sub-levels could be sufficient.

Posted on: Knitting a Scarf

Amazing that the transliteration for "Sue" in Auntie Sue is identical to the first character of the city Su1zhou1. And 苏 is also used in the license plate of the cars in Suzhou. Which is a topic I would like for a lesson - the systematic, and why sometimes you cannot really recognize a full character like for the cars of Hangzhou. The 云 for Yunnan or 京 for Beijing or 海 for Shanghai are straight forward. The knitting topic is very entertaining! It would be great to actually see someone Chinese knitting in a small video. I have observed that the exact knitting techniques differ hugely even in Europe: the French and English seem to move the thread more and keep the needles relatively stable, tugged under an arm. Whereas Germans clatter rather noisily with moving needles and a rather fixed thread slung once or twice around the left index finger. Therefore a special type of needle(s) is favoured: a thinner plastic rope with 15cm long baboo ends in the thickness matching to the yarn - less heavy than the stiff disconnected pair. Even if you could knit in rounds you don't need to. This lesson reminds me of my teenage times when I could knit as much as 30 pullovers a year...

Posted on: Lost Cell Phone

Owshawng, "my cell phone is broken" would be „我的手机坏了。wǒ de shǒujī huài le. There is a nice Newbie lesson A0136 in http://chinesepod.com/lessons/its-broken. China use a GSM standard compatible throughout Europe, which is very convenient for travellers. The biggest challenge for a typical non-prepaid German cell phone contract is to get it blocked immediately after loosing your phone: otherwise the finder/thief can use it on your bill. Changing the SIM-card is very easy, so we are advised to enable password protection after inserting a new SIM-card to raise the hurdle...

Posted on: Hold the MSG

Hi CPod, just a suggestion for those of us who don't have English as their first language: could you once spell out such acronyms? MSG=MonoSodium Glutamate. I could not guess from our term "Natriumglutamat" without referring to an acronym finder.

Posted on: Time to Go

Hi! I have a question concernig th expansion sentence 我没干吗。(I didn't do anything.): Why should this be past tense? For past tense I would expect a "le" somewhere, otherwise how would you distinguish between "I don't do anything" (e.g. a child deflecting an accusation of making noise) and "I did not do anything" ? And yes, same as above, why should this be a statement i.o. a question with the interrogative particle "ma"?

Posted on: I can't buy my size

I miss a feature of the earlier podcasts (ok including May 26): the podcast description showing the dialogue in Hanzi+Pinyin+English. I really use this a lot on my iPod and sorely miss it - it was one of my favourite V3-enhancements. Can you detect the problem and remedy it? Thanks!

Posted on: Calling Roll

In the roll-over vocab: is the sequence now generally changed to "first English, then Pinyin"? I find the other way round better as I try to first link the visual Hanzi with the Pinyin.