Review of Praxis' competition: FrenchPod101, ArabicPod101 etc

First off, just to give you an idea where I stand, I consider KoreanClass101 to be fully on par with CPOD (perhaps even being better, in terms of certain features eg. the "grammar notes" with every PDF etc), and JPOD101 is not far behind CPOD and KCLASS101. Since there has been so much excitement amongst CPOD users over the impending launch of FrenchPod.com, I'd like to share that I was pretty impressed by FrenchPod101 (don't mix them up!). They only have a few lessons in at this point, but so far this is my verdict: The French is very clear and neutral (a bit "BCBG", even, to my surprise), but always natural-sounding. And clear, too. One weakness that I detect is the French hosts' -- unobtrusive -- lack of comfort with the English "banter", which will probably clear up after they have done more lessons. Of course this Auntie's dream FrenchPod101 would have had the male host sounding more like Thierry Lhermitte, but life isn't perfect, and not everybody has the tastes of a middle-aged Singaporean Auntie. Btw, in case you are curious, French was my minor at University, many many years ago. Entry to that programme required at least a B-grade pass in "A"-level (= US 12th grade) French, and we had to do a "year abroad" studying our core subject (= law, for me) in a university where this was taught and examined in French. But I have been learning and using the language ever since, for professional and personal reasons, and have close French friends who only speak French. My written French is hideous; a French person would say, "ca peine!". Okay, on to ArabicPod101 in the next comment...

changye: You're learning 한국어 (韓國語)? I can teach you! I know elementary Korean, thanks to the Korean population here whom I could practice on.:) There should be Koreanpod after launching Italianpod. I've heard that it has the same grammar and particles as Japanese. So, I think you should have no problem with grammar, 한글-wise, take note of the compound word pronunciation changes.내한국어는ok다.파이팅!(我的韓國語馬馬虎虎！ 加油！） Guys, if you want to learn Filipino..pls. visit Kalyespeak (operated by our own chillosk!) here's the site:http://kalyespeak.mypodcast.com/

Re: ArabicPod101.com -- This one is very, very new. I have been longing to learn Arabic for a long while, but never really gave it a go because the materials (esp. podcasts) were simply not available. So all I've "done" is a slim, 166-page pocketbook-format book by John Mace entitled "Beginner's Arabic Script" (2003; under the "Teach Yourself" imprint"). This little book does an outstanding job of teaching the reading and hand-writing of Arabic characters, and it does a good job building a foundation vocab of about 300 distinct words. Over the past year, I have been downloading -- but not listening to! -- the podcasts and PDFs from ArabicPod.Net, which is pretty impressive considering that it is done by earnest amateurs. Listening to my first two ArabicPod101.com podcasts (1. Survival Phrases; and 2. Romanization), I was struck by the incredible difference made by truly gifted and articulate hosts who are also very good teachers. The hosts were ALL brought up in more than one country (eg. Jordan, Syria, Saudi, Kuwait, Morocco, the US), and this sensitivity/ world view shines through. But in a good way. Although I know next to nothing about Arabic, I fell in love with the hosts. Those ArabicPod101 girls all seem to be living in North- or South Carolina, and their English is so lovely and lilting and refined and lovable and "Southern" (though not intrusively so) that it made me think of mint juleps, gentle afternoons on the porch, and flower shows. Guess I'm an Auntie through and through... but I liked it, I really did. For me, the sheer quality of the English "banter" was what raised the ArabicPod101 team well above the standard of the parent company's other new launches (eg. ItalianPod101.com, GermanPod101.com, FrenchPod101.com). Something in those girls' voices when they were explaining a point in English reminded me strongly of our very own Jenny Zhu, and that is a VERY high bar by my standards. I hope this info is useful, on some level, to somebody out there, and I apologize (but accept no liability whatsoever therefor) if anybody's "language podcast budget" gets busted as a result. In conclusion, I would wait to see how FrenchPod.com (by Praxis) turns out before rushing to sign up for FrenchPod101.com, but I wouldn't hesitate to sign up for ArabicPod101.com.

P/s: The ArabicPod101.com PDFs are very impressive, the transcriptions are in: 1. Arabic script WITHOUT vowel marks; 2. In Arabic script WITH vowel marks (as one cute female host said, so endearingly, "...like in children's books and the Qu'ran"); 3. In their own (but still fairly standard) Romanization, which made a lot of sense to me, because it preserves the Arabic orthography, but is more logical and user-friendly than all the scary stuff out there without being too "nouveau". As far as I can tell, it's actually based on a well-known Arabic romanization system which is like Hanyu Pinyin or Wade-Giles. Besides, they explain it efficiently and in a friendly way in a "News" podcast entitled "Romanization"; and 4. In English (good, clear, appropriate, English). Plenty of attention paid to "levels" and "politeness", without being overwhelming or intrusive. Not surprisingly, considering what a great job these people do with the levels/ politeness thing in Japanese and Korean.

Hi auntie68, THANK YOU for info about KoreanClass101. I didn’t know that at all. I’ve just visited the site and downloaded a lesson file. My impression is that it is pretty good. I will learn Korean mainly by listening KoreanClass101 from now on.

Hi auntie68, By the way, do you happen to know a good podcast to learn German? I’m planning to relearn the language with the hope that I will talk about Star Trek with henning in German. I listened to some lessons of Japanesepod before, and I think that they are very good. But I must say that the more I listen to other podcasts, the more I feel that our Jenny is really great!!

Hello uncle changye. If I may ask you one (one! quite big!) favour: Could you please help this Auntie by listening to one or two "Audio Blog" and "Upper-Intermediate" podcasts by JapanesePod101, and tell me -- frankly, please! -- whether you think they are (i) lovingly teaching; or else (ii) destroying your beautiful mother tongue? Thanks so much for indulging this silly Auntie.

Hi auntie68, I got it. Let me advise you later.

Hi again, uncle changye, It seems that our posts overlapped. I don't know of any really, really good site where somebody can learn German via podcasts. So sorry! The Evil Praxis Competitor Site-- ie GermanPod101.com -- is not bad, but the English "banter" is far from fluent, to my silly ears, and the German itself doesn't sound... erm,,, "elegant". I know that in 21st Century Germany, a "standard" German accent is not so important, but the language is a bit less than 100% neutral in my (silly Auntie) opinion, even though my German is really, REALLY bad because I had German boyfriends -- back-to-back -- during the few years when I had to pass German exams. They did my homework for me! For the exam, I only had C+ because of that!

Internet speed is unbelievably slow here at this time of day. Please give me some time. Furthermore, my chubby dog is starving to death now....... Wow, Germanpod101, you can get everything on the net now! Thanks again.

Very interesting. Can't wait to read your insights!

For God's sake, uncle changye, please FEED PATRICIA!! Now!!!! For my nephew, the Stunt Toddler (aged 2 years and 10/12), letting four hours pass between meals is a violation of human rights. This little boy doesn't have a sweet tooth, and he doesn't snack, but he really suffers if we don't feed him a solid meal every four hours. Please feed Patricia!

Hi tallchinesefrog, I think I only fit in all these languages by having very low standards. I'm not joking. My "best" foreign language ability, for anything but French (my only real second language) is: Receptive Ability only. Horrrible at writing. Sounds ridiculous (or even insulting) when speaking". That's the honest truth...

just registered to FrenchPod101.com, only listened to Beginner Lesson #2 - Weird Jobs. As a native speaker I can testify that both French speakers are 真正的 (genuine). Topic is rather entertaining albeit of limited use, the woman is lively. Not entirely conviced by some of their repetition patterns but I can't really judge from one lesson, much less compare with the upcoming FPod.

Hi goulniky, Thanks for your post. As a non-native French student, I was a bit struck by the "les escapades de petitrenaud" feel to some of the phrases, eg. "Je suis traducteur de braille!", including the accent/ delivery, which felt very correct but still a bit strange as a choice for a "sample sentence"... Just curious to know what you, a real Frenchman, think...

not sure how real I am, also considering that I am a little on the excentric side myself. 'Il en faut pour tous les goûts' I suppose, 萝卜青菜，各有所爱 (luóbo qīngcài, gèyǒu suǒ'ài). I hadn't heard of 点字/盲字翻译员 (diǎnzì/mángzì fānyìyuán) before, I'm sure they exist, but hey, the lesson title was 'Weird jobs' so they're not trying to 骗人(piànrén) ! They must have made a conscious decision to be entertaining, and rightly so, it's true that Braille isn't heard all that often but it's still a potential lead into explaining grammar patterns etc.

True... I have to agree with your (native and REAL) logic, goulniky. I can't lose anything listening to the next few podcasts for FrenchPod101.com, and -- basically -- anything in nice French is worth listening to. I bet it does more good for me than my usual "French caloric intake" via TV: viz., re-runs of "La 'Crim", "P.J. St Martin", "Avocats et associes" and -- in the Canadian food group -- the pretty uniquely Canadian humour of "Catherine". No French TV for me tonight, because the only thing on this evening is "La Bete du Gevaudan", and Sagamore Stevening doesn't take off his shirt in any scenes! Sorry if any of this horrifies real French people out there!

Hi auntie68, My chubby dog is full up and playing on the bed now. I’ve just finished listening to two audio blogs, two intermediate lessons, and one beginner lesson of Japanesepod101. My impression is that Japanese spoken there is, in general, a little more strange or funny than I remembered. I understand now why you asked me to listen to them. Firstly, Japanese spoken by Miki and Yoko in audio blogs are kind of disastrous. Of course, both of them speak grammatically correct Japanese, but they always talk in an unnaturally nasal and childish voice. Middle-aged people, like me, usually don’t like such a way of speaking. But actually there is a lot of Japanese women, especially under thirty years old, who speak like that, which means, like it or not, you have to familiarize your ears with that kind of voice. In that sense, Japanesepod101’s policy might be right. But you must NOT imitate their way of speaking. Secondly, Natsuko and Naomi in intermediate lessons are not so bad. They speak beautiful Japanese, although none of them reach the standard of professional announcers. The dialogues are good, but a male voice actor sometimes speaks very unnaturally, probably it is intentional. Lastly, I didn’t find problems in the beginner lesson. Yuichi speaks Japanese the way young guys usually speak, e.g. on the radio. In a sense, Japanesepod offers very “real” Japanese. Conversely, you don’t find any professional (or good) voice actor or “announcer” there, which is not necessarily a bad thing. Auntie, your hunch is right.

Hi auntie68, By the way, what do you think about the picture in the lesson pages of Japanesepod101? I can’t understand why they chose such an unsophisticated and poor-tasted one. A white-faced “strange” geisha and “ようこそ” in the photo. Can you believe that sense? I can’t stand it. http://www.japanesepod101.com/index.php

I have enough trouble finding time and brain space to learn one language at a time, how do you cope learning so many.