User Comments - ElijahW

Posted on: Online Shopping 网上购物

Quick clarification: When I refer to “Pasden Lessons,” I’m not referring to his role as teacher, but as Academic Director (lesson format, difficulty adjustment, content production, pedagogical translation, content selection, etc.). That includes everything from Newbie through Media, regardless of who the teachers for the lesson were. 

Posted on: A letter from George H.W. Bush 老布什的一封信

Also, it would be great to include the proper nouns in the Vocabulary tab - those tend to be the hardest words. The day I spent the most time on the Vocabulary tab was while doing a lesson on Paris. I must have hit the button for 艾菲尔铁塔 50 times that day.

Posted on: Online Shopping 网上购物

Hello Taimafan,

I'm in agreement with a lot of what you've said here, and I actually might add: I'm even pickier than you are.

How many of the lessons supervised by John Pasden have you studied? He was ChinesePod's Academic Director for a number of years, and he still uses ChinesePod with his students as a language consultant in Shanghai. I spoke with him recently about these things, and he feels that the best lessons were produced between 2008 and 2010. Those are the ones he uses most to this day.

Have you done many of those? They're terrific. The rules regarding level distinctions were kept crystal-clear; the dialogues were fun, dramatic, and often hilarious; the group of talent working at that time was truly impressive. This was the time when ChinesePod even managed to get Pete Braden, a crazy brilliant translator, to work with them for about a year. Pity they couldn't keep him, but ChinesePod did manage to get over a dozen "Poems with Pete" out of him before he left. You can find those under "Shows" on the Dashboard. If you do leave, you absolutely must listen to some of those before you go.

This was also when Shanghai was at its peak in terms of openness and development, and the excitement and creativity soaks through every lesson. When I wholeheartedly recommend ChinesePod to people learning the language, these are the lessons I point them to. Even though I do tend to listen to and comment on current lessons, I don't ever put them into my personal "study schedule." I find it sad and frustrating that people come to the site wanting to do the new lessons, perhaps thinking that the "old" audio lessons must be stale and moldy or something like that. My opinion is quite the opposite - the 2008-2010 collection is the best spoken Chinese curriculum ever constructed. Ever. I've studied them with 30 to 40 different tutors over the years, and they all agree.

Is there hope for future lessons to improve? Here are a couple of reasons why, in spite of a wasted 2018, I do think it's possible: First, ChinesePod recently re-established contact with ChinesePod co-founder Ken Carroll, and he is currently talking with ChinesePod leadership about improvements. Second, ChinesePod has also hired Elsha as Academic Director. She is working hard at pulling this together, but something as big as ChinesePod doesn't turn on a dime. I talked with her about one of the very lengthy complaints posted on the Forum, and she said something like, "It almost seems like something I would write." She is aware of the problems.

Posted on: A letter from George H.W. Bush 老布什的一封信

赞！Overall I do think this is a step in the right direction.

As to the music level, I think it's right for 牡丹, but Elsha's voice is softer and tends to get muffled by the music.

Posted on: 以房养老

Mark,

I'm just now studying this lesson over 4 years after it came out, and I'm in total agreement. This is the first time I've come across a 2008-2014 lesson where I felt that level-appropriateness was way off.

Posted on: Here she comes

Irene873, I haven't used the iOS app much, but my understanding is that the "Download" function is currently under construction. Instead, I've always downloaded lessons using the podcast feed. I've recorded a video here about how I do that:

http://www.keepingupwiththewangs.com/2018/09/19/cpod-download/

Posted on: Jack Ma’s retirement 功成身退──接任马云：创造者张勇和他所改变的阿里巴巴

HSK Vocabulary:

• 担任（5）
• 卓越（6）
• 沉着（6）
• 充满（5）
• 举（5）
• 奠定（6）
• 变迁（6）

Posted on: The Key to Closing a Deal

That was a new term for me! I think it also works well at this level: Apart from that one term, it's good Elementary language, and then there's one term thrown in that makes it interesting for more advanced students.

Posted on: The Key to Closing a Deal

The lesson itself has a low "hum" through most of it. It's not nearly as noticeable when there's music.

ChinesePod has really been struggling with audio quality this year, and I actually think this lesson is, overall, better than the average. The audio in the Dialogue tab is pretty good. But, the audio in the Vocabulary tab (and therefore in the Vocabulary Review) has some troubles. There's a lot of breathing into the microphone in the Expansion sentences as well.

Posted on: 疯狂富豪和现实生活 Crazy Rich Asians & Real Life

sebastienbrady,

完全同意，我觉得今年ChinesePod最大的问题就在此。今年有很多不同的新来的老师在准备课程，结果level的难度就乱了。我最近跟ChinesePod直接讨论这个问题，他们也同意。最近有Elsha开始作为ChinesePod的Academic Director，她正在考虑怎么解决这个问题，会需要点时间改正。

说实话，我这个很挑剔的人也向ChinesePod抱怨John Pasden监督的课程跟Fiona时代的课程也有很大的区别。从2015年开始，"level drift"越来越严重了，就是今年降到了危机的程度。

选择这节课的level很难：词语比较简单，但是因为基本上都是中文，所以不太适合Intermediate(B1)。