lower intermediate level

Marchey, I absolutely agree with you! I think there should be a low, medium and advanced level of all levels to provide a transition from one level to another. (Low Intermediate, Intermediate, Upper- Intermediate then Low Advanced, Medium - Advanced and Advanced). I respect Ken and Jenny's concept of free-exploration, and I do often visit the lower levels to brush up on things and get back to basics which is often helpful, but after a little while I'm ready to get back to more advanced lessons. When you break it down, the most current Elementary Lesson introduces only one semi-challenging word 清洁工 qīngjiégōng, while all other words are just plain Newbie; IE: 好吃, 真, etc. Then the transition into the must current Intermediate Lesson, Evading Nosy Questions...哎呀, 我的天啊! The jump from Elementary to Intermediate level is absolutely STAGGERING! Anyone who's been all through the Elementary Level and listened to every podcast and diligently done their homework STILL simply isn't equipped to handle this level. Any and every student who's just studied their Mandarin on Chinesepod just doesn't have the necessary FIREPOWER (so to speak) to handle what comes at you on this level. So you're absolutely right without the proper transition easing a student between the levels, it becomes frustrating and demotivating.

bbjt, Thank you for introducing my youtube video here. I always wonder why CP don't have subtitle or text for explanation of lessons. so I edited it and uploaded to youtube. I expect it help CP listners studying Chinese. (and for my study) And I think CP need video or text like this for othere level.

I don't think intermediate dialogues are that much more difficult than elementary but the lessons themselves are quite a lot harder. I have to learn the dialogue first before you can follow the lesson really.

You don't get as much hand-holding from John as you do from Ken and Jenny gets to let loose a bit but the two levels are not miles apart.

I see three missing links between those two levels: 1) A compact series with an introduction to the Intermediate banter With the relevant function words, grammar terms and connectors. 2) An introduction to the basic features of Chinese grammar in lesson form. Some of the recent Elementry's have started introducing some grammar points and the QWs are right in the center in that "grammar gap". However, in my eyes that is not enough yet. What we need is a series of lessons on the basic mechanics of Chinese sentences - fundamental stuff like where we to put the verb, how to handle basic prepositions or where to include information on time and location. This might be complemented by the Grammar guide one day, but the Grammar guide would not replace those lessons. I have the hope though, that the QWs might grow into that role one day. As long as there are not too many astray QWs e.g. on dialects... 3) An intoduction to writing In my eyes this is a core prerequesite for intermediate learning. Hanzi content has yet to be taken elsewhere. I would love to see some dedicated (premium?) content on that - from a basic introduction to the structure of strokes, radicals and characters up to a discussion of rarer characters and their ethymology for more advanced students (revive the dead CharacterInsanity-group and take it to the heart of the service!).

Henning: I couldn't agree more! While it's true that Grammar is something we pick up in our native language naturally, and Chinesepod doesn't focus on Grammar because they want you to pick it up through the natural ebb and flow of their conversation...I think this is in some ways a very wrong approach. Call me too traditional, but I think a more thorough introduction to grammar and word order, and constant review throughout the lessons would be very welcome. And WRITING? I'm sure you know from one of my previous posts (which I'm sure will live on in INFAMY in the minds of many Poddies) that I think reading and writing are absolutely essential to properly learning this language. If you can read Hanzi and not constantly being babied by Pinyin, you will be so much more well equipped to study on your own, since when you reach a certain level, the magazine, newspaper, or novel will become your teacher. Also this works in well to another one of your (absolutely correct) points, that if you aren't properly taught the basic mechanics of a language, then learning all the vocabulary you want is useless because you can't put that vocabulary to good use. You will constantly be stuck in a rut of only being able to form simple sentences, or incorrectly structured, foreign sounding, and quite often, unintelligible sentences! I know everyone behind the scenes here at Chinesepod are working very hard to make improvements, but I wish some of these things would be addressed.

I agree again. There is a certain shyness about grammar and writing here. I have the feeling that both are somehow being associated with "the old fashioned way" of learning Chinese, as opposed to how it is taught on CPod. I love the emphasis on the spoken everyday language, but I think that at some point, systematic grammar and hanzi can really help you. John does some excellent grammar teaching, but it is spread out over many lessons. Henning's grammar index could in principle help here, but if you are interested in understanding a certain construction, it is not so convenient to first find it in the grammar index, find the relevant podcast, and finally figure out exactly where in the podcast it is discussed. For quick reference, nothing can beat a written source. Except maybe an searchable grammar file, but we don't have that yet. The relation between the written and spoken language is extremely complex in Chinese, but I think that a "sound is everything" attitude makes learning harder, not easier. When you study the spoken language, it really helps to understand the meaning of the parts of a word.

In my classes people with poor reading skills seem to also do worse speaking. Whether that represents a lack of effort in general or a causal link, I can't say. The differentiation between people who can only read (and use a computer to write) versus those who read and write by hand seems to be less strong. I don't know if I agree with having levels within levels. Cpod's strength and weakness is that its learning is non-linear, versus a textbook approach in which lessons build upon each other. Thus, the difficulty of a lesson often becomes topical: if you're familiar with the topic, it's a breeze; if not, you struggle. The strength of the Cpod approach is that it doesn't give you the false sense of competence you get when reading carefully parsed text, but it can be frustrating. I'm not sure that subdividing Intermediate into 2, 5, or 10 sub-levels will solve that.

I've seen a real effort on the part of CPod to bring those Intermediate lessons a bit closer to the Elementary level. I do agree that the Elemetary levels seems far too easy now. But one could hope that's because MY level has advanced past it, and not through any fault of the lesson itself. My problem at this point is one of time. I study every day, but I don't have the time to devote the two or three (or more) hours to really get through an Intermediate level lesson. On Newbies, I barely listen anymore. I just check the dialogue tab for new vocab. Elementary lessons seem too easy, but again, I don't have the time to really dig in my heels on anything harder. I'm at an impasse.

I like the ChinesePod approach to grammar - hearing patterns with the occasional explanation. Like many English teachers in China I always see students who have spent years learning rules of grammar and whose spoken grammar is terrible - they have head knowledge of something but no practical skill in using it. As for the original post, I also think there is not that much gap between Elementary and Intermediate, but I am not using ChinesePod to learn reading and writing. I am sure if you used the site as a one stop shop for learning Chinese and were trying to learn writing as well then Intermediate would be much more of a jump.

Yep, I totally agree. There's a big gap between elementary and intermediate. There are also gaps between the other levels, but they feel much smaller. I doubt that anyone can reach intermediate only by listening to CPod. I assume that most of the people here are learning from several sources. CPod is fantastic, but it is not (yet) a complete road to the Chinese language. A lower intermediate level would get the site a little closer to being one.

xiaohu -- I think you've got an excellent point here! I don't, however, think that ChinesePod is trying to be all things to all people. Obviously, I don't work in their offices, but I very clearly see this as just *one* way to learn. (Not that you were suggesting otherwise, by the way.) I took a night class last year in an adult ed format that was just a waste of my time. The biggest problem for me with traditional teacher-led instruction is that you can only go as fast as the slowest student. It's a bit frustrating when you're already "get it" and want to move on. In this case, ChinesePod works very well for me as I can linger or skim as I please. Of course, I don't assign myself much homework and there's not the constant loom of a pop quiz, either. :-)

A grammar show would be a nice addition. Rather than create an entire new level or levels for it you could have different grammar shows within each level. For example--each monthly cycle you could include a grammar episode or two instead of the dialogue lessons.

Franks' point of "not the contant loom of a pop quiz" is key to why I like the Intermediate lessons exactly as they are right now. Yes, they're much longer and many more new words are introduced than at the Elementary level. But not only do we have transcripts and audio that we can re-read and re-listen to as many times as we wish, but also we don't need to be "completists" about each lesson. I used to not want to walk away from an Intermediate lesson unless I knew the character and definition of every single word in the dialogue and expansions down pat. But now, I give myself 2 hours per lesson and try to learn as much as I can. I listen to the full Jenny-John lesson once, identify 15 or so words to focus on, listen to the dialogue-only MP3 about 10-15 times at various times in various ways (listening, listening with Chinese characters only, listening with pinyin only, listening with English only, listening only, repeat), spend time on the Dialogue and Vocabulary pages, add another 3-5 new words that pop out at me in the Expansions. To save time, I often skip the fill-in-the-blank and multiple choice parts of the exercises and get my grammar training elsewhere, but do the character-definition matching exercise. Then boom, on to the next lesson. Even if there's 5 words or so that I leave on the floor and that I won't add into my Vocabulary Manger because I don't consider them fully mastered yet. The beauty of ChinesePod is that the Expansion sentences are very well-done, in my view, and I'll end up encountering those "un-mastered" words down the road in Expansion sentences to other lessons or in other sources of Mandarin studies that I utilize, and eventually the words finally click in. Having said all that, my Mandarin is still lousy, lol, so the idea of me giving "advice" on how to study is laughable. But thought I'd at least share my own experience of how I approach Intermediate lessons.

lordstanley> That sounds like a very reasonable method of using the lessons. In addition to your various ways, there is another thing you can do with them, which I find helpful : Try to read the entire lessons (or at løast a chunk of several sentences from it) out loud, while only looking at the character text. No pinyin allowed. With my very lousy pronounciation this feels awkward, but I find that after doing it, you get much more out of the audio. You understand the audio better, and by comparing, it also helps you to correct the mistakes you make.

It is always interesting for me to hear how others approach their learning. The intermediate lessons are quite challenging for me. I can spend days on one and still not master it. But lordstanley is right, the vocabulary keeps reappearing and I say to myself, "I should know this word by now". One day I will master it, but for me, it won't be mine until I actually use it in speech many times. But I have noticed Chinesepod's changes in their approach to the intermediate lessons over the years. In the early days they were only in Mandarin. Then John stepped in and provided the English to Jenny's Mandarin, which really helped. I've noticed in the more recent lessons, the dialog section seems to have slowed down a bit, while you can still hear the natural speed of speech in the podcast. This is a huge help. Also, the newer lessons seem a little more trimmed down and manageable to me. So my recommendation for bridging the intermediate gap is to select the newer intermediate podcasts and work your way back in time, because some are too good to miss. I do wish there was a way to take Henning's hard work and make it easier to find the desired intermediate dialog or grammar point. I like to buzz through that and double check to see what I may have overlooked. Sometimes it takes a while to look up. You did a great service for all of us. I lot of time was spent on putting that together. Thanks, Henning.

Here is a useful video made with one of the Cpod advanced lessons. If Cpod could make one video (mp4) like that with a low intermediate lesson I'm sure that will fill the gap between the elementary and the intermediate level. It's possible to add more that the subtitles on the screen : - word in english - picture - cartoon But in multimedia, Japanesepod101 is more advanced that Cpod.

But what about my other idea to provide some form of grading for all of the lessons. I suspect this is already being done internally, even if it is only informally by using the terms 'easy', 'normal' aand 'difficult' or 'challenging'. So maybe we could get a system were the current levels are maintained but an additional level of difficulty within the level is added. As for me, I am scientifically orientated. I am currently working on a program that will help me 'conquer' new texts. It will have a stats part to. I am thinking of ways to make some sort of objective grading system based in vocab and grammar constructs used, length of sentences, number of new words introduced, etc.

marcey, very interesting. I am looking forward to your statistics. But they are tricky, because difficulty is indeed relative as tvan pointed out above. What words are introduced? Only the ones discussed in the banter? The ones in the Vocab tab? Often the new words for me are not listed in the vocab tab. With a base of nearly 800 lessons you might capture the relativity to some degree, however, by weighting words by their relative frequency in the CPod text corpus (it would also be interesting to contrast that with Google hits...). Another obstacle on the way lies in the distinction of words or even grammar structures. No blanks in Chinese. You would need to analyze the JavaScript in the Dialogues to get an indicator for vocab. Then you also had characters/word... Sentence length would work though.

sushan: Having a "head knowledge" of something but an inability to practically apply thay knowledge has been an educational misnomer throughout time. There have been many methods created to make the learning process more organic and recreate the way we learn our mother tongue, but in some ways I really believe in some of these old fashioned teaching methods like learning through recitation and repetition. I think too often when a new method is created there is always this attitude of completely doing away with the old and embracing the new. In many ways I believe this to be a falacy because everything builds on everything else, to throw off the old is to voluntarily start from scratch again. I believe the beter way is to constantly refine, find what worked about the old method, keep that and blend it with the new and continue to refine. In many ways I like Chinesepod's non-linear approach, but I feel that in some ways blending it with the traditional building blocks method of learning would be a good thing.