Best way to learn Mandarin using ChinesePod?

stempo2000
 March 22, 2008, 08:40 AM posted in General Discussion

Hello,

I am new to chinesepod and need some experienced advice how to learn using this website. I had an intensive semester of mandarin in class so I know many basics but yet consider myself an advanced beginner. So far, I just download some of the dialogues from the Newbie Lessons onto my Ipod and review the vocab there. Most words I know already. Once I review and know ALL the newbie lessons I plan to go on to the next level....

I download the newbie lessons by ascending date, newest lessons to oldest, and learn accordingly. How do you all suggest to go step by step in learning mandarin on chinesepod?

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darcey
 March 22, 2008, 07:30 PM

Don't rely on doing the newbies--push yourself to the Elementary. I'm in the same boat as you (having studied in school) and unless you listen to 2 or 3 (or more!) newbie podcasts a day, you will never "catch up". CPod releases more Newbie podcasts than anything else, so really--push yourself to a higher level. I "theme"--I pick something and go find all the Newbie and Elementary lessons that associate with that (e.g. restaurants, work, Olympics, whatever) and listen to those. It builds your vocabulary, supplements it, and you can get more comfortable with the elementary stuff and only "skim" the Newbies (I'm almost at that point, where I just listen to the dialog at the end and determine if there's words I don't know; if there aren't, I skip it or only listen to the end and 'test' myself. If there are, I'll listen to the whole thing).

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sushan
 March 23, 2008, 10:04 AM

Check out John's comments here: http://www.sinosplice.com/lang/chinesepod/ You definitely will not need all the newbie lessons to get past the newbie level. Look for topics you are really interested in from the higher levels.You can really challenge yourself as much or as little as you like. I find for the more difficult topics it helps to do a vocab pre-review on the topic before listening. This is easiest with the Media lessons. Finally, the site and comments are a big part of the learning experience so I always listen via computer when I can.