From LearningOnYourTerms.com: Practicing characters with your iPhone.

I'm glad the "honey, I'll use it to learn and improve myself" line I used to convince my wife to let me buy the iPhone wasn't totally bogus. :)

Can anybody reccomend a Chinese dictionary application for the iPhone? At best one that is seamlessly interacting with the Safari browser?

Hey everyone,

Am I glad I just upgraded for a 12 month Premium account!

Have to say, the mobile site is great on my i-Phone.

One request - can you make the PDF dialogues for each lesson available on the mobile service so I can read them on my i-phone too.

Thanks for an excellent, friendly learning environment.

Managed to find ChinesePod on my iPhone. I had to find it visually in satellite view as there's no street detail in China yet.

I am looking for a nice set of beginner flash cards that is compatible with the iPhone. Anybody use any programs they would recommend. I know of a program that you can make your own but that is time consuming, however I might try it if I can't find something premade. If I do make something myself does anyone know of a list of the most popular Chinese Characters listed in order of frequency that I could copy into a text file. I was hoping for maybe 250-500 words to start with. 

Has anyone else found an practical way of update podcasts on your iphone without having to physically plug it in your pc?

There is an app called 'Podcaster' that you can get, but Apple have banned it from the app store because duplicates part of itunes functionality. So you can only install it if your phone is 'jailbroken'.

Hi! I'm looking for advice on finding a good dictionary for my Mac and my iPod Touch. Anyone have any thoughts?

More than two years ago, I began connecting to Chinesepod daily from both my desktop at home and laptop in the office.  Fast-forward to 2008.... web 2.0 and the smartphone revolution has shaken our traditional ideas of how and where to study.  Tangible, on-demand, educational experiences are now pocket-sized, yet more potent than a full library of textbooks.

I have enthuasiticaly cut the wires and burned my desk to the ground. Thrusting into a purely mobile means of interaction with this site and never looking back. I want to learn from any location, at any hour, from the palm of my hand.  And you should too.

I have been using an iPod touch to study and connect during my daily bus commute for nearly five months.  Even in that short amount of time, it has become obvious that the Chinesepod team continually make steps to improve the user experience on mobile devices such as the iPhone or iPod touch.  Although, perhaps not comprehensive, I wanted to point out some of the great functions that make using Chinesepod on the go both practical and useful.  Then we can discuss some areas where growth is needed, and work-arounds for current deficiencies.

DIALOGUE TRANSCRIPTS & VOCABULARY TEXT

My mobile experience with Chinesepod previously consisted of audio-only MP3 files loaded into my small iPod shuffle.  While great for listening at the gym, the shuffle has no display or user interface to speak of, other than basic playback control buttons.  In the past, I downloaded and printed the PDF transcripts, but had no access to sample sentences away from the "expansion" area of the actual website.  On the iPod/iPhone I am now able to read the dialogue while simultaneously listening the the podcast.  The vocab and sample sentences are also embedded into the audio review files (formerly known as "the Fix").  Chinesepod creatively uses the designated "lyrics" section of MP3 file metadata to embedded the dialogue or vocab text.  Having this text in my iPod has become one of the most important and useful benefits of having a premium subscription.  

On a side note, I'm still not sure why CPOD has yet to utilize enhanced podcasts with chapter markers and slides that could help to improve the user experience.  Chapter markers would help listeners skip to specific points in longer lessons.  This is a featured used by many other podcasts, and has been lacking from CPODs approach for a long time.

WHAT'S THE STORY

Having a screen and the ability to watch and listen has opened the doors for video possibilities.   The beta attempt "Vocab Tour", and current weekly video podcast "What's the Story" have been decent 1.0 attempts at video integration.  I think we can expect to see some changes and growth in this area for sure. 

COMMUNITY

Here is an area that still is not up to par with the desktop experience when going mobile.  Although I can read the message boards, I cannot contribute or leave comments from my mobile device.  Frankly, I find this terribly frustrating.  Having to wait until I am back at home or in the office to remember a question or comment is just not realistic.  This has translated into a severe drop in my participation in the Chinesepod community. If I am in a position of not being able to contribute I am also not motivated to even read the boards.  I hope we see this change in the future, so anyone can comment and contribute to the community section regardless of their portal into the site.

STUDY TOOLS

There are no flashcards or exercises that work on mobile devices. Even if this were a feature that worked on the iPhone when logging into the site, there still would be no offline support for the iPod touch unless in a wi-fi hotspot.  However, there are work-arounds.  I've been using the free gFLASH+ application to create my own flashcards.  This application allows you to create a Google Document with two columns, each row translating the column information in the respected sides of a digital flashcard.  The problem with this method so-far is that it still takes quite a bit of manual entry to create each individual flashcard. The advantage, however, is having an unlimited stack of cards stored inside your iPod or iPhone which can be organized and categorized to your personal study needs.   Perhaps there is a better way to create flashcards from the lesson vocab, but ultimately it would be nice to see a flashcard and study application developed and offered by the folks here a CPOD.

DOWNLOADS ON THE GO

Apple updated the iPhone and iPod OS last week with v 2.2.  Now you can update podcasts without tethering to your computer, but not CPOD or other subscription-based podcasts.  If I am travelling for a few days or weeks I currently not able keep up to date with new lessons via my mobile device.  The NY Times has a great free application for the iPod Touch which will update each time you launch from a wi-fi hotspot. Again, a CPOD app which allows me the choice to update on the go would be a fantastic and sometimes necessary future additon.

SUMMARY:
Our society’s relationship with the computer is changing rapidly.  We are staying connected with smaller devices, and sitting at ours desks only when we must.  Education teleported out of antiquity and beyond textbook studies when CPOD launched three years ago, and have been marching forward into an age of digital curriculum and education on-demand. The more I'm required to sit at my desk to participate, the quicker I'm going to look for more user friendly alternatives. The desktop computer is a boat anchor, and can no longer function as the intended venue for product development. If it works on the iPhone or iPod, it will translate back to the desktop or laptop. Chinesepod is obviously a forward-thinking group, and will continue to push the envelop for user-driven language education. However, it seems CPOD is still working to develop their website and user experience for the computer and mobile learning is an after-though or beta at best.

My methods are certainly not the best, and maybe I'm accidentally ignoring other important features that CPOD offers to iPod and iPhone users. We can help ourselves by sharing solutions and ideas for future development. How are you using CPOD from your mobile device? What apps are you using to enhance your experience? What work-arounds do the trick for you? 

Hi guys,

I have by now purchased - and extensively used 3 iPhone apps:

1) Flashcards (by ChinesePod competitor - ChineseLearnOnline.com)

Nice and simple - flashcards and a count of how many you have learned. Good start - but I hope to see new versions wth more functionality (e.gg. characters by category)

2) MyWords-CN

Each day it gives you 10 new characters with pinyin and sound. I am disappointed with this. Slow, clunky interface, rudimentary capabilities

3) iChinese

I love this one. Basically you learn characters by writing them and  this app checks them using recognition algorithm and takes you through multiple memorization stages. It uses characters and phrases from Practical Chinese Reader - but only first 12 lessons :-( (app comes with 4 lessons and you can buy 8 more separately). There is also a speech module.

What other iPhone apps have you used and can recommend?

I'm currently in the US, but heading to rural China for 4-5 months in a few weeks, where there are no internet cafes or anything (I was there last year).  I'd really like to be able to email people in the US.  Can you get the internet on a cell phone?  I'll happily buy a new phone and pay for a data plan.  Thanks!

[disclaimer: I am the author of China Menu, and am try to get the word out, please delete the post if it's considered inappropriate for this forum]

I spent the past couple of months putting together an iPhone application to help newcomers order a great meal in almost any restaurant in China, without having to speak a word of Chinese.  You can check out a video of China Menu in action here:

http://chinabites.com/iphone/

I'd love any feedback from the community on China Menu, it's the product of about two years of independent research and photography, as well as seven years experience of living in China.

I use the mobile site a lot. But it still has two major deficiencies. If they were addressed, the usability would profit significantly for me .

1. Lessons are not accessable

...because you are only allowed to see the lessons that are "bookmarked" - a restriction that I can't quite understand.

Aggravated by the fact that lessons are regularly not automatically bookmarked despite the level being subsribed. This is bothering for new lessons because in that case you can only hope to find a recent comment on the lesson to bookmark it. That point is important for me as I listen to the new lesson on my way to work (streaming).

2. Frequent Re-Login

Unlike the regular site you have to log in every several minutes (or meters?) on the mobile site - and that in a mobile environment and with a rather slow server. Even if I simply want to read the comments I have to wait forever for the login page and than re-navigate through that incomplete lesson page.

I sometimes got the suscpiscion that a relogin occurs whenever I switch cells (quite often when in the train or subway). As my appartment here in Stuttgart (where I have no fixed line internet) lies right on the border of two cells even switching the room leads to a re-login.

I am absolutely content with a simple no-frills mobile site - but those points would make the user experience much, much smoother.

谢谢

Good news for those who have been waiting for the iPhone version of Pleco.  The following is from Michael Love, the owner of Pleco:
 
Greetings,
 
I'm delighted to announce that after almost a year in development, the
iPhone (and iPod Touch) version of our Chinese dictionary software is
finally available.
 
Flashcards aren't included yet (those will be coming in early 2010), nor
are user-created dictionaries (should be coming soon too), but pretty
much every other major feature from our Palm and Windows Mobile software
is now on iPhone, and there are some great new ones like a fullscreen /
multitouch handwriting recognizer interface, a much simpler registration
/ unlocking system, a heavily souped-up document reader, and easier
lookups of Chinese words in dictionary entries.
 
And better still, most of your purchased Pleco dictionaries / add-ons
can actually be transferred over to iPhone / iPod Touch for FREE; the
only exceptions are stroke order diagrams (which we licensed from a
different company for our iPhone version; you can repurchase them on
your iPhone) and the Oxford dictionary (which we haven't yet licensed
for iPhone at all). And the Pleco iPhone app itself is a free download
(taking advantage of Apple's new policy of letting free apps sell paid
add-ons and upgrades), so you may literally end up paying nothing at all
to switch to the iPhone / iPod version.
 
For product information and a download link, see:
 
http://www.pleco.com/pleco2ip.html

Don't know if everyone is already aware of this and I'm just late to the party ...

Here's the blog post from a few days ago. Note that it's only an English-Chinese dictionary as of yet (no Chinese-English), but they're working on it.

Hooray!