Dave's new project "Popup-Chinese"...

henning
September 08, 2008, 07:45 PM posted in General Discussion

Remember travelyan "Hammer Peter" Dave?

Just accidentely opened his adsotrans blog and saw that he started a new project. A Chinese language service that seems to be designed complementary to CPod in its current form of existence - with lots of focus on written and HSK material (as to be expected).

Very interesting. I have taken the free trial access from Adsotrans and already tried the HSK exercises. Now those are real exercises.

Here is the URL:http://popupchinese.com/

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fordbronco
September 09, 2008, 06:46 AM

thanks for the link... seriously impressed.

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light487
September 09, 2008, 08:16 AM

Nice site.. kind of expensive subscription though for having such a small amount of content. May be once they have more content I will consider subscribing but really it's just another cPOD from where I am standing.. different lesson structure done with a northern accent rather than a shanghai accent, and also a little more emphasis placed on the pronunciation rather than just highlighting which tones are being used.

Mixed feelings..

 

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7dwarfs
September 09, 2008, 08:18 AM

CPod can learn a lot from travelyan's new site: easy to use downloads (text files w/ cut'n paste), option to choose simpl./trad. characters (long asked for, but CPod will NEVER do this!), great web design, many new and promising concepts to enhance learning!

I like it!

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henning
September 09, 2008, 12:03 PM

7dwarfs, actually travelyan was a key technician behind CPod until very recently. And he did quite a good job if you ask me (If I am not all wrong, the traditional plug-in is his baby). I don't think the UI of the "Popup Chinese" site is any better. It basically follows the same concepts, there just isn't so much to organize yet.

What "Popup" does provide, however, are challenging exercises. This is still one of CPod's soft spots and in that regard I see the the sites as complementary.

Maybe we will witness a merger one day?

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kimiik
September 09, 2008, 01:05 PM

Another little difference between Cpod and Popup :

The Cpod girls from Shanghai use a very high pitch.

The Popup girls from Beijing use a medium pitch which go with the really deep voice of Dave.

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wei1xiao4
September 10, 2008, 12:45 AM

Very interesting site.  Right now the content was either too easy or too difficult for me, but I will keep checking back.  Thanks, Henning!  I have missed Travelyan.