User Comments - ElijahW
ElijahW
Posted on: HSK
July 4, 2018 at 11:11 AM谢谢Grace！但是...... 没有HSK6?
Posted on: Buying pants 买裤子
June 29, 2018 at 7:39 PM我的裤子本来很松，但慢慢地变成紧身裤了，我需要减肥！
Posted on: The New Coworker
June 29, 2018 at 1:08 PMHi marcojane,
I've been wondering about the one-on-one lessons too. It seems to have disappeared at just the time I was about to take advantage of it. In the meantime, I've been going to www.italki.com. I've worked with lots of different teachers, and for studying ChinesePod, Jane is pretty good. She's fairly familiar with ChinesePod materials.
Posted on: Characters - The New Co-Worker
June 26, 2018 at 7:59 PMMultiple choice on radicals (or, as John Renfroe might prefer, "Functional Components") would be great! There could be different exercises for matching up form, meaning, and sound.
Or, depending on how realistic it would be to put it together, there could even be something like "Choose the missing component" multiple choice. Something like the picture below. I think that kind of exercise would challenge my comprehension of Chinese characters, since similar-looking components could potentially get me confused on a character I thought I already knew. ("Shoot... What IS in the lower right-hand corner of that character anyway?")
I think when ChinesePod first started, it filled a major void in Chinese language education with quality audio dialogues. Perhaps the next void that needs to be filled is pioneering helpful tools for us 老外 to make sense of characters, matched up with those good dialogues. The Outlier Dictionary is making great strides, but it's a dictionary, not a curriculum. Maybe a ChinesePod/Outlier Linguistics partnership? Sounds like a match made in heaven to me!
And, by the way, a teacher should move on camera. We don't like our teachers to be too 刻板！But unfortunately, ever since the proliferation of shooting video with DSLRs, this problem has been popping up everywhere. The shallow depth of field looks great - until the subject moves an inch. It's just not reasonable to expect anyone to both be animated, and be perfectly still at the same time. Oh well. No quick solution here.
Posted on: Characters - The New Co-Worker
June 25, 2018 at 5:40 PMMaybe it's just me, but... The "Exercises" tab for this lesson has me a bit confused. There are lots of short sentences that need to be put in order? What does it have to do with this lesson?
As a side note from a picky cinema major: The depth of field is the video is super shallow (shot with digital SLR?), so poor Grace goes out of focus any time she leans forward or backward.
Posted on: Characters - The New Co-Worker
June 23, 2018 at 2:28 PMI agree with much of the above sentiments. I believe this is the first ChinesePod video I've seen that was actually useful, and the first sign over these last few weeks that I'll continue my subscription once I've worn out the Advanced exercises.
I typically view video as a major obstacle to what's really important: producing excellent audio, like we had during the ChinesePod Golden Age (2008-2014 A.D.). But in this case, it's actually indispensable to the lesson.
Sorry Grace, but learning Chinese IS hard, and I'm sticking by my story! 
Posted on: Making the Ordinary Life Seem Romantic Part 1
June 15, 2018 at 8:21 PMGreat, an article!
Is there a quick and easy way to get the text (without pinyin or English) into Pleco? I had to do a bit of editing to get it looking reasonable.
Posted on: Donald Trump Declares U.S. Exit from the JCPOA (Iran Deal)
June 1, 2018 at 8:10 PMI would definitely second that. Honestly, I rarely listen to lessons done after 2014 for that very reason - the quality of the dialogues drives me crazy. Once David and the rest of the team were gone, the dialogues no longer stood out that much from sleep-inducing CDs that come with textbooks. This lesson's "dialogue" steps down even further, but since I realize this is just a news piece (and therefore still necessary for any student of Chinese) and isn't meant to be a dramatic "小太监进宫," I kind of overlooked it. But it would be fair to say that a string of lessons like this wouldn't hold my attention.
Posted on: Donald Trump Declares U.S. Exit from the JCPOA (Iran Deal)
May 29, 2018 at 3:46 PM听过John Pasden的第一节课吗？他紧张地不敢说话！
总的来说，我觉得这节课很好，很期待将来的课。
恭喜ChinesePod发布了新的第一节课！
Posted on: HSK
July 5, 2018 at 5:40 PM不着急，反正HSK6什么都需要学会！