User Comments - xiaohu

Posted on: February Update

Tom,

How many Psychologists does it take to change a light-bulb?

One.

BUT...the light-bulb has to REALLY WANT to change!

哈哈！我知道这个笑话你听过好多次吧！

Maybe I should be posting this on another forum, but the Guided Subscription has one fatal flaw, which is that a WEEKLY ten minute conversation in Chinese simply isn't enough.  To really make strides in spoken Chinese the conversation has to be DAILY or almost daily.

Ten minutes per day would be enough, but I like to liken it to working out, at least twenty minutes is preferable because the first ten minutes are a warming up period while the brain is adjusting to the environment of hearing a speaking Chinese, jittery nerves are calming down enough to focus on the task at hand, the muscles in the mouth are adjusting to make foreign sounds, etc.

Imagine going to work out with a personal trainer, you start your warm up run, the trainer goes over what you need to do during the rest of your training, and just when you're blood is beginning to circulate, you're out of the painful start-up portion of the workout...you're feeling good and ready to go for a nice long workout, and just a few minutes into the workout suddenly the trainer stops the workout, saying "You can just go to the gym yourself and workout the way I told you, I'll see you next week!"

Certainly doing that ten minutes is better than nothing, and the good advice of the trainer can be applied to working out alone, but I guarantee that, unless you have a real WIZKID on your hands, a veritable top 2% genius, that the trainee is going to be stuck in the mire of mediocre results for the rest of his life.

Olympic hopefuls don't become Olympic Gold Medallists entirely on their own, they work with Coaches on a daily basis.  小飞侠 and 飞人乔丹 may be Basketball legends, who trained very hard on their own, but they still need to work closely with athletic trainers and coaches if they are to achieve greatness.

Of course, the daily calls of the Executive plan can help us with this goal, but what about those out there who want to take their Chinese to the next level, but don't have the money to invest in the Executive subscription?

The difference in price between the Guided and Executive subscriptions is rather monumental, and since paying by the month drives the price up from $125 per month to around $200 per month, is there any way a middle of the road package could be created?  One around $50 - $60 per month that includes one-on-one conversation about 3-4 times per week?  One where you can actually pay PER MONTH at $50 - $60 instead of *starting at $50 per month, but if you pay monthly it goes up to $100 per month?

I strongly believe a lot of Chinesepod users would love to have the professional guidance, feedback and speaking practice of the Executive subscription but don't have the bucks to shell out, especially in today's economy, 现在的经济不景气吧 and feel that one time per week speaking practice isn't going to get them anywhere, so the extra expense just wouldn't be worth it so they stick to the Premium subscription.

I know there are those out there who agree with me.

Posted on: The Person Component

frank

I would love to see you be the man to head up video production at Chinesepod, too bad it looks like it wasn't meant to be.

By the way, I'm a Producer and Director as well.  I'm working on editing an independent film I self produced and directed.  Though I'm not very good in the way of special effects or sound, if you have a free moment, maybe you could give me a few pointers on how to remove 60 cycle hum from audio via Final Cut and how to do color correction that looks natural?

Posted on: The Person Component

xsw234rfv

I like the mnemonic of "the 月 flesh has grown by one 半 half of the original size", and it makes more sense than "half moon", but you have to remember that Frank's video was just a demo he put together to pitch the idea of teaching Chinese characters through video to the good people here at Chinesepod.  I don't think Frank was ever claiming to be an authority on the subject of teaching Chinese Characters. The main point of the demo video was just to show how easy and inexpensive it is to bring high quality video content to Chinesepod and that the perfect application of that would be to teach Characters.

Posted on: The Person Component

canalbar Yeah, that's the perfect way to increase the educational value of the C-pod videocasts...T&A! That's exactly what we need.

Posted on: Chinese Hospitality and Finding Vegetarian Food

Amber

Judging from what I've seen of your personality and desire to ever be a rolling stone (you've lived in 4 different countries now?) I figured it was only a matter of time before you got the itch to start something new...so I can't say I'm exactly shocked to hear the news.

When you announced that you were taking a trip to New York, I saw that as a subtle signal that the end was drawing near. 

I have to say that I'll truly miss what you bring to C-pod, but I recognize that you will need to be surrounded by new things, and a new environment, new people and new experiences. 

I hope you'll be truly happy and fulfilled in your next endeavor!

再见！我们永远会想你的！ 

Posted on: The Person Component

frank

我看好了你的网站，你为什么从来没直接告诉我们你是制片人和导演呢？ 说实在的你的短小电影我觉得它们很有意思不过我能更胜一筹！（开玩笑）。

我也导演过电影，其实我正在剪辑我自己拍的电影因此我根本就不能常常挂在 C-Pod 上聊天。

因为我只去过北京而没去过上海所以我不能来判断北京和上海这两个城市相比之下那个地方更适合你这个波希米亚人，但我觉得北京的生活节奏和气氛都很有意思的。

我认为对于你这个很有才能的人，找到一份高薪水的工作一定没问题！我希望你在中国出名儿啊！

保持联系！

小虎

Posted on: The Person Component

frank

If you're open to finding a place in Beijing instead of Shanghai, there's always going to work with Dave (AKA Peter the Canadian Hammer Importer) at Popup Chinese.

BTW: great show! 

Posted on: The Person Component

Our 好朋友 a Mr. Peter Galante Sama from Japanesepod101 produced and directed quite an impressive series, a soap of sorts just utilizing the teachers and podcast voice actors he already had at his disposal. 

The story was about a beautiful girl who for some reason has trouble finding a date, so she goes to an Internet dating company that will help her shoot, edit and upload her video personal ad.  However the owner of the company falls for her at first site, wanting her all to himself. 

They produce the video and she gets quite a few responses back.  The two view the responses together and decide who she'd like to contact back, shooting a video response to be mailed to the lucky recipient.  However, because of his feelings for her, he only pretends to send the response.

The dating company owner keeps trying to put the moves on the girl, but she continually tells him she's just not interested.  However the two become friends and he often visits her at her apartment.

Weeks pass and the girl checks in with him wondering if he'd sent the video, he assures her he did and suggests that she contact her second choice.  She shoots another video response, which he promptly throws in the trash.

Weeks more pass.  We pick up the action from the point of view of the second choice, a good looking young American who just happens to speak perfect Japanese, though some magical "connection" he manages to get the girls personal cell phone number, attempting to contact her. However our deceptive dating company owner happens to be at her apartment and intercepts the call.  He knows who the boy is by having previously viewed his video response, and knows instantly why he's trying to contact the girl.  He tells the boy she's already found someone else through the dating service and has already gotten engaged, and suggests he'd better concentrate on finding another girl.

What I liked about the series was that it put into play a lot of the language that they teach on Japanesepod101.com.  They covered the formal, informal, masculine and feminine forms of language, introductions, often used vocabulary and grammer points, while putting it together into an enjoyable story.

When Chinesepod announced they were going to concentrate on video, I had hoped this is the direction they were planning to go in.  When Video Vocab and What's The Story debuted, I was still excited, but still had wished that Chinesepod would at least attempt to try their hand at drama.

Since Praxis now has Marco, and if Marco is as talented as John says, then this would be a wonderful opportunity for an artist to put his ideas to celluloid.

I guess we shall wait and see what's in store for us when the next series debuts.

Posted on: The Person Component

So often a concept seems so great on paper, but in execution find that there's no way to make it work the way it was originally visualized. Such is the nature of art. That having been said, I'm extremely excited about the prospect of C-Pod presenting more visual learning aid's. So much more can be expressed through the visual medium than with sound alone. I sincerely hope the next go-aroud will utilize the potential of the visual learning aid to the fullest. My suggestion would be through some form of dramatic or comedic story format. It seems to me that Praxis has so many good actors at their disposal, Connie, Joy and David jump to mind immediately. Heh heh, maybe a C-Pod language instruction soap opera？ Anyway, I'm looking forward to the next one! 我期待着看下一次的视频。 小虎

Posted on: The Person Component

snater

Sometimes Sports Chinese can be as stale as a day spent sitting in Geometry class, but Sports Chinese is full of educational content.  I think from an educational perspective, it's far more important to have valuable content for the viewer, rather than concentrate solely on "experimenting with different visual approaches applied to language learning....different personality exploring different formats, styles" etc., leaving out the most important part of the equation in the process.

As far as a show that has personality, try taking a look at a show on 北京卫视 hosted by 姜华 called 学汉语到北京.

Each show consists of a 小品 concerning a group of friends with names taken from both Chinese and Western classical literature and current pop culture like, "卓别林"，"乌比", "武松" and "孙悟空".  In each 小品 they focus on one 成语 or 俗语, like 一根筋, 泼冷水.

The content of the dialogue explains and expounds upon the meaning of the central word to be studied, while at the same time raising many new useful words and phrases.  All the repetition and support of one advanced word really helps to drill it into your memory.

The writing is clever in a lot of ways, the acting is very good, and there is always a story going on.  The characters have back-story and their relationships to one another and the back-story is explored in each episode, so the show serves the purpose of being educational and entertaining, with characters that you care about.

It seems to me that the high concept of "The Radical Show" traded one brand of dull for another.  John explaining a 部件 with two guys next to him posing, surrounded by slow, clunky editing, amateurish lighting and camerawork and cheesy cutaways can hardly be taken as brimming with personality.  What's worse, is that the overall presentation is more detracting from the educational process than in support of it.