The Fix - feedback here, please

kencarroll
June 21, 2007, 08:23 AM posted in General Discussion

I've seen some dispersed feedback on The Fix. If you have comments feel free to post them here. We're not done with this baby yet!

 

Profile picture
rich
June 21, 2007, 08:27 AM

Uh, what is "The Fix"? I haven't been reading personal posts for a while.

Profile picture
jbradfor
June 22, 2007, 03:03 PM

All these great things just appear on my harddisk! The magic of RSS and ChinesePod, what a combo! First QingWen, and now The Fix. I think it's a useful addition, but honestly it is not really different than what Pimsleur's been doing for decades. But it does fill what is for me a big gap in ChinesePod, so I give it two thumbs up. But you know what would totally rock? Add a feature to allow each user to create a CUSTOM mp3 of what words they want to learn. Sounds hard? I don't think so. For each vocab word, you'll need to record it being spoken, and used in 2-3 sentences, so you have 3 sound files per work. [Maybe more if you want different speeds and don't want to use a program to slow-down / speed-up sound files.] When the user selects (say) 10 words to learn, the program goes out and grabs the 10 words, and just copies them to an outfile in random order (a couple of times, different order / speed each time), then it does the same thing for the example sentences. I could hack that together in a day. Now *that's* Mandarin on MY terms!

Profile picture
excuter
June 21, 2007, 09:59 AM

I onli had the first version (need to upgrade...) till now but it´s a great thing though :-) keep it up and you won´t get rid of it anymore (who would want that anyway) ;-)

Profile picture
user41542
June 21, 2007, 11:02 AM

It is great, a very good tool, now you only have to add the single hanzi meaning as well as the double hanzi meaning then it would be perfect! thanks.

Profile picture
billybobjoebobwilly
June 21, 2007, 03:50 PM

I still have no idea what "the fix" is :-(. Care to elaborate?

Profile picture
henning
June 21, 2007, 03:54 PM

billybobjoebobwilly, http://blog.praxislanguage.com/2007/06/18/now-you-can-review-and-practice-speaking-with-chinesepod/

Profile picture
henning
June 21, 2007, 04:00 PM

"The Fix" is a great addition that can be expanded upon. I would love to see two training sections in those audio files for a) sentence building: by iteratively building up complexity in the translation-tasks - start with rudimentary utterings and stepwise add bells and whistles so in the end you express a full blown complex thought. b) grammar points e.g. vary translation tasks with "just", "not yet" etc or do tense (have been, still being...).

Profile picture
billybobjoebobwilly
June 21, 2007, 04:04 PM

Hey henning, I'm still not seeing the link "below the audio clip".. Is there text next to the link which can identify this feature.. Also, is this a Paid Subscriber feature? I'm currently on the 'free' account. tks

Profile picture
rich
June 21, 2007, 08:43 AM

Never mind... now I know what it is. Cool!

Profile picture
akaportraits
June 21, 2007, 09:30 PM

very newbie question.... What do I need to see the characters instead of a row of little boxes? I'm sure this is handled in a FAQ somewhere, but I seem to have missed it...

Profile picture
azerdocmom
June 21, 2007, 09:54 PM

akaportraits look under the "Help" tab above, then "Technical Questions", then "Displaying Chinese Characters."

Profile picture
man2toe
June 22, 2007, 04:41 AM

I think the Fix is a paid subscriber option billy. The Fix is an excellent tool. What I would like to see is an option of having the Fix attached to the main lesson so that it is in the same download and can be heard immediately after the main lesson.

Profile picture
bart
June 22, 2007, 05:26 AM

I love The Fix - best new feature since the launch of Chinesepod. Unlike Man2Toe, I actually plan to use it the next day, to make sure I retained the previous day's lesson. Pacing was off a bit for me, but I'm sure I'll get used to this, or it'll shift over time. In any case, this will be fantastic as a collection of these things start building, then I'll probably fill up a chunk of my iPod with those and listen to them in chunk of, say, 30 minutes.

Profile picture
bazza
June 22, 2007, 07:40 AM

The advanced fix is cool, it gives us lower level folks some good advanced vocab input.

Profile picture
rich
June 22, 2007, 09:28 AM

I'm still a student of previous lessons, and am always getting expats here in Tianjin listening to ChinesePod. I know it would be a big project, unlike making the dialog MP3s, but would really like to see this for previous lessons. Could be done slowly, like 15 lessons a week... wouldn't take long to get the 540-some lessons without it up to speed. :) Just a suggestion. -Rich

Profile picture
mona
June 22, 2007, 01:35 PM

Bazza, don't sell yourself short. You don't strike me as a "lower level" CPoddie. But yes, I agree - I love listening to higher level lessons and picking out words. The Fix makes that just so much more enjoyable (because it really drills some of the phrases into your brain).

Profile picture
RonInDC
June 21, 2007, 04:16 PM

Love it. A little quicker on the immediate ones?