2011 introspection on Chinesepod

I have made it my habit to publicly introspect about Chinesepod on the anniverssary of my first subscription. I'm afraid this year's introspection will be a little terse, because I have become a bit busier in other aspects of my life.  I am starting my sixth year as a podie.

I have still managed to keep up with Chinesepod's lessons.  So, I can still claim that I have studied every single last one.  While I do supplement Chinesepod with other materials, it is still my primary study program.  So, the rest of you might be curious how my progress has been.

Good points:  Last fall I passed the level 4 new HSK with relative ease.  There are a lot of movies I can watch without subtitles, and I have had lots of conversations with Chinese people in Chinese.  Except for media lessons without a written transcript, no level of Chinesepod lessons is particularly difficult for me.

Not so good points: There are still lots of advanced level dialogs, in real life as well as Cpod, that I don't understand on the first listening.  My memory is imperfect.  So, there is always lots of stuff from old lessons that I can't recall.  I could read a newspaper, if I had to, but it is still an awful lot of work to look up the words and characters I don't recognize.   I still struggle with tones.

Interesting notes: Cpod often includes some low frequency vocabulary even in elementary lessons.  So, sometimes I still learn a tidbit from the lower level lessons.  It used to be Jenny who was in danger of being the most over-used person at Cpod.  Now, I think that it might be David or John.  Don't burn out, guys.

Well, I'll keep plugging away.  I still want to become completely fluent in Chinese before I leave this life, but I have to admit, it is a real horse race.  I should have started when I was much younger, but I didn't have the interest then.