How do you use Chinesepod?
mandarinboy
August 31, 2008, 08:11 AM posted in General DiscussionI just come back to Tokyo after a long flight from Sweden where I have been listening to Chinesepod most of the time. After reading some of the posts about the new changes for non subscribes where some people seems to think that there is not enough stuff in the premium package for them to be willing to pay I asked my self, how does other people use Chinesepod? Please add your experiences and thoughts. I can’t be the only one that feel that there is actually very good stuff in the premium content.
This is what I do with it.
- I download the whole package to my IPod touch. In that I can not only listen to the dialogues, I can also se the dialogue in Chinese (for beginner also with pinyin). I usually listen to the dialogues when I ride the bike to and from work. I usually listen to the dialogue twice on the way to work and then the repetition and words on the way back.
- When I come home in the evening I log in to the net and reads though all the dialogues. Useful patterns and sentences I save in my own software for future use.
- I do take a couple of tests with the flash cards. Interesting new words I save to my vocabulary collection for repetitions.
- I am lucky to have a Chinese wife since over a decade so I let her play one part in the dialogue and hence we can practice the spoken Chinese. She is also taking the new words and let me construct new sentences wit them.
- I am often revisiting old lessons to refresh my memory.
- From time to time I download lessons from the advanced section just to challenge my listening skills.
- When flying or sitting in booring meetings (I have a lot of those) I log in to the Iphone version of the site and takes some flashcards tests.
mandarinboy
August 31, 2008, 10:30 PMWe do actualy: http://www.aircell.com/ Right now there is few regular airliners using it even thought it will be introduced on several of them soon. http://www.gogoinflight.com/jahia/Jahia/site/gogo/lang/en/participatingairlines Before Lufthansa had their fly net that where closed in 2006. Today we only have it on the corporate jet and on the AA flights from NY to LAX . You can already today get some laptops equiped with flight friendly equipment. I guess we will have it on most regular airlines in the near future.
diegan_storm
September 20, 2008, 12:17 AMHow can u see dialog on your ipod? I have an ipod video, but dunno how to view characters.
mandarinboy
September 20, 2008, 05:25 AMWhen you are listening to an Cpod, tap on the lesson once and you will se the dialog with characters, pinyin and translation. Then you also have the mobil version of Cpod: http://m.chinesepod.com . There you can study your vocab etc.
auntie68
September 20, 2008, 09:05 AMHi mandarinboy! Well this is how I use CPOD (*I'm a humble "Basic" subscriber): From the RSS feed to my iTunes, I "sweep" all the current Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, and Advanced into a "Reference - TODAY - Mandarin" folder in my iTunes library.
Once a week or so, when I can find the time, I listen to the podcasts. I refer to the Chinese-character transcript in the MP3, ie the transcript in the "lyrics" field, to double-check that I have heard it correctly. Whatever I don't get, I look up in my Little Dictionary. And if even that fails, I post a question on the comments thread for the lesson.
At the moment, if old lessons get "refreshed" by a question that somebody has posted, I do try to listen (or re-listen) to that old podcast. Although I might not refer to the pdf etc unless I am trying to work out the answer to a specific question which somebody has raised (very useful!).
The comments threads are useful for me because even if the language seemed okay for me, the questions asked by other users are often very good ones, I will ALWAYS look up the answer, and I don't mind "cementing" what I have learned by sharing it in the thread as a comment.
When I'm done, I'll re-name the folder "Reference - REVISION - Mandarin". Then hopefully -- but not always -- I might listen to the podcasts again either from my Mac or (more likely) when I'm driving.
When my CPOD subscription expires some time in December, I plan on "revising" perhaps 1 or 2 "old" ("old" meaning that I downloaded it in the past) UI and Advanced lessons each day, by keeping these levels on some kind of loop on the iPod that I normally plug in to my car stereo.
I no longer listen to Newbie or Ele lessons because my RSS feed no longer includes the "dialogue-only" track for them. I simply don't have enough time. But I'll look at the pdf, and follow the comments.
HTH.
adjusting
August 31, 2008, 03:10 PMWhen flying or sitting in booring meetings (I have a lot of those) I log in to the Iphone version of the site and takes some flashcards tests.
You have internet access while you're flying?