User Comments - tingyun
tingyun
Posted on: Olympics and more...
July 21, 2008 at 3:56 PM
Well to disagree with ancalagon's breakdown: I understand most people are at the newbie/ele level (as was I a bit ago) - but you really only need that many newbies a week if people have a phobia of old lessons. I mean, with nearly 300 newbies in the archives already...does anyone need more than that to graduate to ele? Assuming they review and study somewhat regularly? I understand that some might prefer a new lesson simply because its all new and shiny, and thats why, even though the nearly 300 out there is way more than enough, I think there should probably be a new newbie each week. Otherwise the message is that newbies are 2nd class and should just go dig in the archives, and I don't think anyone here is suggesting that. But more than 1 newbie a week, at the expense of more advanced lessons that are in shorter supply, seems excessive. And the advanced learners begin to look like 2nd class citizens… (Sorry about the odd font guys - I'm really computer incompetent. Did one cut and paste and couldn't figure out how to make it normal again...)
Posted on: Do you have a menu?
July 18, 2008 at 9:48 PMGlad it worked out,
Posted on: Do you have a menu?
July 18, 2008 at 9:34 PMIf not, I'd say its worth it to upgrade to premium. It is a great help - I subscribe to a bunch of chosen lessons, to the high quality lesson and the dialogue, and print out the transcripts.
After I'm done with 50-100 or so, I delete the lesson files, and move the dialogues into a review folder. Then occasionally sit back and play them one after the other...
Tim
Posted on: Do you have a menu?
July 18, 2008 at 9:15 PMHi Wongtk - Someone might have a much better solution to this problem, but I had the same issue. You can right click on the download key, and then tell it to save as a html file on your computer. Then you can right click on that file, and tell your computer to use a media player to open it, and it should be able to play it, after spitting an error message at you.
I had the same issue with a number of the older newbie lesson dialogues.
Another solution is to subscribe to the lesson, then set up your personal feed options to give you the files you want, and then just use itunes or whatever to download it. Either of those worked for me.
If you're like me and you like to listen to all the dialogues of your past lessons linked together in one playlist as periodic review, I'd suggest you set up your feed to give you the dialogues as well as the lessons, and then move them on your computer to a convenient review folder. I've never been able to get those html files I manually downloaded to work in a nice play list, though I'm somewhat incompetent at using computers.
Posted on: Olympics and more...
July 18, 2008 at 8:56 PMI also wish there were less newbie/ele lessons and more advanced - I'm still intermediate, but for the eventual day when I become skilled enough...
From the advice I've heard ("download the lessons you find interesting, don't try to work in order") I imagine my method is somewhat unusual, but I started working at the older lessons forward. Only needed about 100 newbie lessons before they became boring and I could comfortably move up to Ele, so there seems to be alot more newbies than people need (even if they only find half interesting, there are more than enough). I needed a good 150 of the eles before I was fully ready for lower intermed (though I finished the remaining 50 up anyway by mostly just listening to the remaining dialogues), so I can see adding some more there, in case some people are picky about which ones to use, but there doesn't seem to be a pressing need.
Not sure whether I'll have the same impression of the higher levels, but my impression is each jump might take a bit more work and lessons than the one before, and yet each higher level tends to have progressivly less available.
I'm 99% impressed by ChinesePod, and I barely use my other language learning tools anymore. Just not looking forward to the day when I run out of lessons (admitably far away, but it will come sooner at the current difficulty distribution). I imagine the decision of whether the renew my subscription for next year will be based on whether a good proportion of new levels are in the higher difficulties.
Posted on: Microsoft
July 28, 2008 at 2:47 PMA question for those who have lived in China - I'm wondering how important it is to learn transliterations of important western names? Will Chinese people recognize the english version? Is it hard or easy to figure out from context in a conversation if you don't already know the transliteration?