User Comments - ElijahW
ElijahW
Posted on: Living in two cities 披星戴月──双城生活
January 16, 2019 at 9:55 PMHi xiaopaul,
The ChinesePod staff is taking seriously some of the negative comments they've been receiving, and are taking a hard look at their approach. Instead of putting their effort into cranking out more lessons that generate complaints, they're putting more effort into the planning stage. There is most definitely more coming, but my impression is that lessons might be a bit slow for a while, until there's a greater confidence that the lessons are being done well. I think this is a good thing.
Posted on: 2018 Google Most Searched News
January 16, 2019 at 4:40 PMHi riceeater!
I've been looking back through older lessons (and remembering how they worked - I've thoroughly studied nearly a thousand of them), and my rather non-scientific observations on English/Chinese is something like this:
Newbie (A1): 90/10
Elementary (A2): 75/25
Intermediate (B1): 50/50
Upper Intermediate (B2): 75/25
Advanced (C1): 100/0 (two native-speakers)
Media (C2): 100/0 (two native-speakers)
That pattern was held with remarkable consistency between 2008 and 2014 and I found it to be both realistic and effective. Vocabulary in both the text and in teacher "banter" was carefully controlled.
Things got muddled a few years ago when Fiona's team eliminated the C2 level (Media), then shifted Advanced up to C2, and then some of the levels below all drifted upward. Then the poor A2 Elementary students trying to "graduate" from "In a Moment" into Intermediate got completely slaughtered. Instead of re-adjusting Intermediate back down to B1, they added a new level: Pre-Intermediate. What a mess...
While it may sound good in theory, I think it's completely unrealistic for a new B1 learner, sitting alone in his living room in, say, Northern Europe, to have enough vocabulary to "learn Chinese with Chinese." If it were a real classroom setting where there is real interaction between teacher and student, then I think immersion can happen pretty early. But through a podcast? Not really. Upper Intermediate (B2) is where vocabulary starts being large enough to explain new words through words already known.
Posted on: Online Shopping 网上购物
January 16, 2019 at 4:31 PMVocab in order: I definitely vote for that!
Posted on: Mild Swearing
January 15, 2019 at 9:07 PMThe common lack of a subject often leaves me confused when listening to Chinese people. They find it odd that I have a hard time with that. They seem to just somehow "know" who is being discussed, and I have to stop and ask, "Wait... Do you want ME to do that, or are you saying that YOU are going to do that?"
I'd imagine that if the situation were clear (such as you constantly missing the ball, while the other person isn't), that it would be obvious who you're talking about. But, if in doubt, it never hurts to add 我 or 我的.
Posted on: 66 Enjoyable Characters with Joy #4
January 11, 2019 at 1:40 PMMe too! And had you noticed that one of the hosts in a recent lesson is Ash Henson? He's one of the founders of the Outlier Dictionary, one of the best tools for foreigners learning Chinese characters. Had it been around when I was first learning characters, I would have done much better. ChinesePod building a relationship with Outlier has great potential.
Posted on: Are You A Night Cat?
January 8, 2019 at 4:28 PMThis seems to be a common problem right now. I’ve heard that there are some server issues being worked on. Hopefully everything will be normal soon.
Posted on: Ridiculously Small Clothing!
January 7, 2019 at 3:00 PMActually, I consider anything made from January 2015 to be "new"! I stick pretty closely with lessons produced between 2008 through 2014. I find the dialogues from that era much more engaging, and the level-appropriateness far more consistent.
Posted on: How to Say Hello
January 5, 2019 at 10:13 PMIt does change, but it's often not reflected in the written pinyin.
Posted on: Months
January 4, 2019 at 1:59 PMIt's common to exclude the "de" when talking about personal relationships. Example:
我弟弟, rather than 我的弟弟.
Posted on: Living in two cities 披星戴月──双城生活
January 17, 2019 at 5:36 PMPersonally, I have over 400 lessons bookmarked, and I always do them in the order I bookmark them. So I'm guessing it will be at least two years before I really care that much about new lessons.