too small characters

georglefkidis
 May 19, 2013, 07:13 AM posted in General Discussion

I have been using chinesepod for some time now and really enjoy it a lot.

I have three comments that in my opinion would improve them even more.

1) At the elementary level, I find some dialogs hard to follow because they are too fast. Some are better.

2) Since about a month ago the buttons "translate" and "drill down" do not appear correctly on my smartphone (HTC one S). They are positioned lower than the rest, in fact exactly where the names of the buttons are.

3) Since the last version (updated May 18) the characters in the drill down section have become too small to clearly read them.

Thanks a lot and keep on the good work.

George

 

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Justin.O
 May 20, 2013, 08:51 AM

Hi George,

Thank you for the helpful feedback.

I will pass these display issues on to Rich, our Android developer, for him to take a look at.

Regarding the dialog speed, our academic team has taken note of this. I might also suggest checking out our Newbie-Elementary Bridge course for a smoother transition into the Elementary level. It has helped quite a few users in the past.

If you have any other questions feel free to let us know! :)

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iaing
 May 21, 2013, 12:01 AM

-1 for changing dialogue speed. Just stick to normal conversation speed dialogues, please Justin?

If users want slower dialogues, let them:

-play the dialogue files in audacity at slower speeds

-do more newbie courses

-try slow-chinese.com 

-study harder

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podster
 May 21, 2013, 03:25 AM

Don't know if there is an Android app, but on iOS there is an app callled Audio Wheel that you can use to rewind or slow down audio files.  

Within Chinese Pod, on the web site you can go through the dialog line by line on the dialog tab and repeat each line as many times as necessary.

re iang's comment "study harder", if you have been using Chinese Pod "for some time now" as you say, if you do all the exercises for the lesson and practice listening via the method I suggested above I don't think you will find the elementary lesson too fast by the time you finish. 

Good luck, and please keep us updated on your progress.

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iaing

heh, agree, and just to clarify - "study harder" was meant as "don't worry about inefficient tools such as the cpod app, and focus on listening to the dialogue (mandarin only) files and reading transcripts" - this is the quickest way to progress quickly.

Worrying about how the app displays on a phone is a complete waste of time (and focus), on so many levels.

As an aside, if users have been on cpod for longer than 2 or 3 months, they should be well past elementary level. I would contend that features, such as the app, actually hold users back.

http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/11401#comment-208745