Financial Times article on ChinesePod
kencarroll
March 12, 2009, 01:09 AM posted in General DiscussionHere's the full article from the Financial Times piece yesterday on ChinesePod. I'd be interestesd in your impressions.
bluealvarez
March 12, 2009, 08:11 PMGreat article, nice to see Cpod getting press! It was interesting for me to see a little of the background of the company, and I second the call for user stories - would love to hear if there is anyone on here who started low on the totem pole and is now conversational.
Best of luck with your endeavors at Englishpod! It amazes me that there isn't more of a rush to learn Mandarin over here (US east coast), yet so many Chinese want to learn English. I keep waiting for the day when English is out as the primary language of business, we'll see if it ever happens!
cobre
March 12, 2009, 10:57 PMVery nice article, and well deserved.
jamestheron
March 13, 2009, 04:26 AMNice to see CPod is weathering the downturn so far. I might have expected the opposite.
silentnoise
March 13, 2009, 11:41 PMKen, the article says that you can speak six languages. Can you give us some tips about how to learn more than one language at a time?
Or maybe some of the other poddies could give me some suggestions. I speak French at an upper intermediate level but I never seem to find the time in the day to study French with trying to do a bit of Chinese every day.
Do people have any suggestions or tips on learning more than one language at a time - I want to learn more languages but simply don't find the time.
johns
March 14, 2009, 03:38 AMI am so glad to read of Cpod's financial success. I do not rely on this tool alone to teach me Chinese. From my experience, no one course is enough. But, it does provide more color, insite into Chinese culture and a personal involvment that I have found no where else.
zhenlijiang
March 12, 2009, 07:26 AMhi ken,
reading about CPod's phenomenal success made me interested in user success stories as well. are there for instance users who started here as newbies or ellies and worked their way up to advanced levels? if so what studying methods did they use other than CPod? i do realize this was patti waldmeir being a bit alliteration-happy, but i just don't buy the "painless" thing with regard to learning languages. most people can understand that you have to do some work if you want to build muscle, so why is it that so many want to believe there is some pain-free solution to language acquisition?
the point of CPod is that you make studying engaging and enjoyable and provide material and opportunities for discussion that we just would not get in conventional textbooks and courses. that doesn't mean that we each don't have to do the hard honest work--no one else can do that for us--if we're really serious about our Chinese.
as you say in the interview i guess most of us aren't here with goals like "need to pass HSK level 8 this fall as required by prospective employer" etc, but you are obviously filling a need. for me personally, CPod is the perfect complement (material-wise, viewpoint-wise, diversity of 同学们-wise) to the resources that are available to me in Japan, and i mean to get as much out my subscription as i can! looking forward to seeing many more good things from CPod in the coming years.
cheers, zhenlijiang