What brought you here?

surveying customers is good.  Cpod can probably go to a survey that's 10-20 minutes in length or so, and get more data.

Balance of power is shifting rapidly to China.

More and more Western employees are wishing to or being asked to relocate to China.

Corporate relocation packages often include generous allowances for language training.

Chinesepod subscriptions are frankly tiny (hence great value) in context of an overall relocation package.

Suggest CPod researches which western corporates are most actively sending people to China and then target their head office HR functions to build in CPod subscriptions into the relocation package.

thanks, Chris

Where are those places/points at which the word of mouth is most likely to happen?

still Itunes, I guess - the comments are essential there.

Where did it happen for you?

Not at all, but I tried the typical saturday morning schools - it didn't work for me

Any recommendations on how we can generate more word of mouth?

I'm doing my best - with every chinese word I utter - the very next question is always: where do you study.

Another quesrtion: How long was the gap between the free trial and the actual purchase? Did the trial lapse before you made it or did you do it within the trial period?

Started at a time were free trial was a month or so - took me 3 months (and to be honest, 3 fake accounts) before I actually signed up for premium - is kinda the time I needed to gain the trust to invest for 2 years (I know, it's a comparitively small amount, but then - the Web was free in the good old days ;)

 Any feedback on this would be great.

Hope you are still interested, Ken.

I'm not a fan of press releases for minor or insignificant improvements, but Cpod could start creating and releasing press releases for upgrades like scritter, or when Cpod gets its 500,000th subscriber, or some other milestone. Cpod could also create a press kit of information/fun facts for press to use in stories about China/Chinese/mandarin learning, as well creating a portion of the site to highlight enthusiastic quotes from, and fascinating case studies about, motivated poddies.

on the free marketing front, Cpod should also start asking subscribers that blog if they are blogging about cpod in any way.  For those that are, Cpod should start seeing what the bloggers are saying, and seeing what cpod can do to encourage positive blogging from subscribers. Cpod would need to ask subscribing bloggers specifically about positives/areas of improvement. 

As you know, learning a foreign language is difficult,especially for someone who lives in a different cultural society.

I want to know more, including language itself, different culture, interesting ideas in people's mind,etc. Of course I'm also pleased of making friends.

So, I'm here. Say hi to all of you.

To start i think if people are serious about a language they will need to know first the country history or just have study some part of it as it custom and courtesy.

Because it is important for any kind of relationship example: Business, Love, Friend Ship etc... being able to understand the language and the counter part requires more than language ability. If a person only just study the language many other issues can arise as cross-cultural problems.  

One of the main reason other than expand my knowledge for this incredible information that yet i can not understand since many chinese books are not translated yet. its that i spoke the two of the top 3 languages in this planet and this also will help on business as in my life.

---------------------------------------------------------

As the internet page show us:

"http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/languages.htm" 

The Summer Institute for Linguistics (SIL) Ethnologue Survey (1999) lists the following as the top languages by population:
(number of native speakers in parentheses)

1. Chinese* (937,132,000)
2. Spanish (332,000,000)
3. English (322,000,000)
4. Bengali (189,000,000)
5. Hindi/Urdu (182,000,000)
6. Arabic* (174,950,000)
7. Portuguese (170,000,000)
8. Russian (170,000,000)
9. Japanese (125,000,000)
10. German (98,000,000)
11. French* (79,572,000)   

We all know there is zillions of places where you can learn Chinese online, some for free some for money, but that is not the issue. In my opinion, there is two simple things that make Chinesepod stand out among the rest.

1) The familiar feeling. In time, people get used to the members of the Cpod family. I already notice when Ken is on some trip for a week or so, when Jenny has to deal with the Newbie, Elly and Intermediate lessons with someone else than Ken. Then bam!, there is Ken again! Makes for a family feel...!

Also, for example, the forum where people welcome new counselors to the family, made me realize that the following this place has beats others by a mile. It's almost like a MMORPG game (I make games, so I needed to insert this here, LOL) where the members know each other almost as if in real life...

In fact, by now I even know when John is gonna say something funny or when Jenny is gonna crack up while in the middle of a lesson, or when Ken is gonna stress a word, with his "telegraphic Chinese" comment on the sideline...

Cpod was smart enough to keep the frim go corporate and at the same time keep its "family atmosphere" intact. Very few other places can manage that, and that what ultimately makes firms ROI's go up, no matter how big.

2) Awareness of customer's needs. Most other places are firstly, not so rich in lesson count and lesson variety; and secondly (and most importantly) they are not nearly as close to what customers actually need! The day I need the phrase "It's up to you!" (随你的便 or 随便你), bam! it was in my pod...!!!

Anyways, those are my two cents...

I would also suggest that Cpod forward an email to people on the 7-day trial asking them 2 questions:

1)if they are going to subscribe, and if not, asking them why not. Provide them with a list of multiple choice answers (about 10 or less, and include an "other" category), and make it simple so that you get reasonable, actionable feedback. 

2)You should also ask them about what brought them to the site as a way to gain insight about word of mouth.  Again, a list of multiple choice answers including "other" is best.

i've been working on china for about a decade now.  this has meant visits every year, for up to three times a year, for 2-4 weeks at a time.

initially, i started learning chinese since i had two colleagues who were chinese-born and -bred and who strongly encouraged me.  if the project in china was to be long term, they said, this had to happen.

so i started with books and tapes (Modern Chinese Beginners Course), bought in Beijing.  Cheap, grammatically correct, but fairly boring and out of date conversations that were also juvenile (it's oriented at students, which for me was a long time ago). 

looking for alternatives, i came across a CSU-Long Beach site that provides an annotated list of web resources for people learning chinese.  the site is: http://learningchineseonline.net/

by this time - 4 years ago, or so - the web was getting fast enough for video conferencing and so i initially used one of those online courses that relies on video links for weekly lessons.  again problems: juvenile material, though the method was interesting and seemed to work.  so at the same time, i started picking up the dialogue texts that you publish or used to publish.  and after a little while i decided that a good way to go would be your program, supplemented by online skype-based calls to people in china (friends, rather than teachers - found through a language exchange site).  that's what i have used for several years now, when i am at upper intermediate (just). 

so for me no word of mouth, though i have recommended you to other people who are trying to learn chinese around the demands of work.  interesting material, but i would be really interested in some extension of the kinds of topics that you cover - one example would be news / politics.  for example i have no vocabulary that would enable me to talk about such issues with people in china.

i guess that you should not be surprised that the time lines are long.  as far as i can tell, many (most?) of your subscribers are adults with jobs.  they have limited time and their ability to absorb language quickly has atrophied.  i know that mine has.  but at the same time, the motivation remains.  and - now - the interest, as well.

C-pod is just the culmination of a long, long march of mine...

I started learning Chinese on my own when I stole a book from my school library, in a small town in Argentina, at the age of 13.

I was born in Germany from Croatian parents, but my parents moved to Argentina when I was 12, and settled up in a farm pretty much away from anything civilized so that book was my only Chinese companion for the next 5 years.

For some reason I was interested in China since birth, and allegedly I asked my mother where China was when I was 3, while we lived in Stuttgart. Back then it was West Germany, and my mom never saw a single Chinese in her life...

After finishing high school (and after mastering Spanish, besides my native German and Croatian), instead of continuing my studies I decided I would travel the world, financing myself by drawing on streets as an artist. I made it through quite a few continents, Asia included; for some 3 years.

My first trip to China in 1999 was no surprise to anyone who knew me, but in 1993 I decided to move to the US and settle in Miami. By then I already knew to write some 1000 words but my Chinese speaking was horrendous.

Every time I went to China, my booklet and my pencil were inseparable because instead of using a dictionary to communicate in daily situations; I used to write down the sentence (pretty much perfectly) that was my question, and then I would ask them to write (NICELY!) back the answer...!

I guess I was always the opposite from the rest of Chinese learners; writing always came so easy to me and words just make sense to me the way they are written, while speaking and the tones are LIVE torture to me, even after several visits to China.

Here in the US I finally got a degree (IT Science) and among other things I began developing games. And playing games. One of the games I used to play a lot (called Dofus) had a huge virtual Chinese population, as well as many other people who shared interest in China with me, even tho the game is French.As a matter of fact, I met several real life married couples (one from China and the other one for either Europe or the US), who met playing at Dofus.

One day, while playing this game, a virtual friend suggested to me I should check out C-pod, and the rest is history, as you guys say... That was 2007...

Why I chose Mandarin: I took an undergrad political science course on China a few years ago, and concluded that to really understand China and the Chinese, I'd need to learn the language.

Hoping to be able to at least learn some of the basics on my own, I started studying some of the material available on the MIT OCW website. Although this material was very helpful, it was primarily text based.

How I found C-Pod: Completely by accident, I stumbled across Chinese Pod while surfing the iTunes store and was immediately impressed by the quality of the lessons. C-Pod was still offering free mp3s of all lesson levels then, so I downloaded a bunch and started with those, memorizing the dialogs then using a dictionary to try and piece together the pinyin text (shortly after C-Pod stopped offering the upper level material for free). I tried out a few other free language podcasts (Hindi, Japanese, Russian) none of which were as well structured as C-Pod.

But, to answer your "gap" question, Ken, I'd say I started with the free material last spring, then did the free 7 day trial and signed up immediately thereafter.

My Reason for Learning:

My wife is Chinese and speaks Mandarin and Cantonese along with English.  We had our baby daughter this year and want to give her the opportunity to learn both languages.  My parents in law don’t understand or speak any English.

My progression:

I started learning some Mandarin in 2003 when we first met but it was not until 2008 that I seriously begun studying Mandarin.  I knew about 250 words at this stage.  I started making use of my lunch breaks playing audio tracks from the Michele Thomas Mandarin course.  This got my started then I added some Chinese Pod Newbie lessons along with the text book Beginners Chinese by Wong Ho.  My wife taught me through this book until I finished it around March 2009.  Our daughter was born then which involved the parents in law coming over from China for 10 weeks.  I had enough Mandarin to be able to communicate with them and translate for them at the airport.  I stepped up the pace in August 2009 dropping Chinese Pod and working through the Pimsleur 3 CD’s.  I also began talking for an hour each day with my wife in Mandarin.  I currently know 750+ words and am concentrating on speed and grammar before I add more vocabulary.

Our next idea is to try and speak Mandarin as much as possible cutting out English except when necessary.

I found Chinese Pod by downloading some of the MP3 files from the Internet and listening to the lessons.

I intend to go back to Chinese pod Elementary and lower intermediate when ready to boost my vocabulary.

Colleges in my area only have enough students for the beginner’s courses with Intermediate lessons all cancelled.

Neil

Portsmouth

UK

Sometimes I think ChinesePod stopped the Newbie series of podcasts because Ken isn't available anymore.

I liked the Newbie lessons a lot, especially Ken's style of presentation.

to build on the previous suggestion, Cpod could issue a call to all students/subscribers to work through them to contact the universities with a Chinese program. Use the students for an introduction if they're willing.

I assume that Universities get trial subscriptions? This might have been tried in the past, not sure what came about it.

Another marketing suggestion would be to follow up with the heads of Chinese departments at every University/college in North America to see if Cpod can be a complementary fit for a Chinese language instruction program.  I'm not clear if cpod was already doing this, or how successful it was in the past.  It's likely that if it was done in the past, names and situations have changed at a number of universities most likely, and it might be worth following up with new heads to see if partnerships can be forged.

Not sure what Ken's role is at this point, and I would have loved to have heard what Ken was going to do with this information prior to recent events.

Ken,

Now that this discussion seems to have drawn to a close, what conclusions have you drawn from this survey? Just wondering how you might use this information.

As an aside, will we be hearing your voice again in the future?

1. I think you would get more word of mouth whereever you find groups of people with a common interest in Mandarin.  Since I study on my own, I am not a good recruit from this point of view.

2. If I remember, I paid up once the trial period was very nearly expired.

Word of mouth will probably happen any time learners get together.  I often use CPod stuff when I organize and prepare for my meetups, but to a somewhat lesser extent since since CPod went to the current price structure.

Most people have already come across CPod by the time they've found my group.  However, I still meet people who aren't familiar with it or what it really offers.

I recall my paid subscription was probably several months after the trial period.

Any recommendations on how we can generate more word of mouth?

Cpod has already been doing a number of items:

1. Sounds like Cpod is going to feature 5 users in some case studies.  Good idea.  I would just add that you use the person's real name in the case. I'm sure that you'll take as many different real life situations as you can get that show cpod favorably, so the more case studies, the better.

You might want to hand out printed copies of the case at trade shows/conferences that Cpod staff might attend, as well as offering them on the site very prominently as a free download. 

2. Cpod is already offering a 7-day trial period.  I'd suggest that Cpod step up welcoming efforts to encourage participation on the site, like acknowledging posts by newbies, and being responsive to any and all posts within 24 hours. I think Cpod could do a better job of customer service in this regard.  At this point, small things are likely to make a difference with some people that might subscribe, and customer service might be one of them.    

3. I suspect that you regularly contact Anne Eisenberg to keep her updated on Cpod happenings.  If not, it might be good to start doing so, or David Pogue, or Walt Mossberg and rave about a new feature in Cpod.  Like for adding Skritter or something.  When Walt Mossberg discussed his review of the Motorola Droid, it might have been nice for him to casually mention that Cpod will work/works on a Droid.  Cpod might want to start regularly contacting key tech bloggers worldwide to let them know how cpod is updating its mobile platform with other tech besides the iPhone/iPod. In fact, you might try contacting Verizon and Motorola to let them know they need to do a better job of highlighting you developers as working on their platform as a counter to the iPod.  Maybe a "cool apps for Droid" or something on the Motorola website.

Hopefully, Cpod fans will carry the torch to the bloggers/columnists on Cpod's behalf on their own.

Back in 2004/2005 I had a long list of Chinese material websites, and had mirrored many of them to my local harddrive. When CPod came on-line I believe I found it within a few days as I was always using google to look for new resources. Signed up and at the time didn't see anything advanced enough as the site was quite new. A few months later I believe I saw a post on chinese-forums about CPod so I returned and downloaded and listened to all podcasts, even newbies, after which I subscribed for the transcripts.

When I started learning Chinese, there was a site which I visited frequently that gave an excellent introduction to Pinyin and overview of the Chinese language and dialects. This helped tremendously as a basis for my studies.

I am an absolute beginner, in fact I haven't started the course yet as I am still preparing myself.

My journey to finding ChinesePod was in a very round-about way. As a pensioner I filled my time by studying for a degree in animation. It was there that I got the feel for oriental animation and the language, in particular Mandarin Chinese. Now that I have completed my degree I am carrying on, at home, with animation and I am currently researching chinese myths and legends with the view to animating one of these narratives in 3D stop-motion.

At the same time my son is living in Taiwan, teaching English and trying to learn Chinese Mandarin. His enthusiasm for the language is infectious and I thought that I might research the possibility of me 'having a go' if only to be able to say hello to his Taiwanese partner.

Whilst in a charity shop I picked up an old 'Teach Yourself' CD that was given out free with The Times newspaper and it was from there that I somehow found a link to this site.

Wish me luck!

Regards

Doing a spot of marketing research are we?

Nevermind, they are pertinent questions, and I'm happy to oblige...

To be honest, the actual time between free-trial and actual purchase was actually about two years for me (according to the marketing theory a consumer goes through several stages before purchase: awareness, knowledge, liking, preference, conviction, purchase). The clincher for me was I hired a tutor from a supposedly 'famous school' in Beijing for 70 yuan an hour and we covered mundane topics such as 'ordering food at a restaurant' (um, I do that every night anyway...) 'colours' (really?) and 'buying clothes'...for two nights a week. I quit after two months and on the same day I signed up, and paid up, for ChinesePod...I just wish I had of done it sooner! Like badeni says, with a course or in my case tutor, you have to follow a precise structure, you can't learn what you want. That's the beauty of ChinesePod I think - you can learn exactly what you want, when you want!

But during those two years, I don't think you put a foot wrong - I even visited the office (and you!) and everyone there was great, fantastic and friendly (including SpanishPod, ItalianPod, FrenchPod, etc.) I 'spose what took me so long to sign up, is that I wanted to be fairly confident (and motivated) of progressing towards some sort of fluency before parting with my hard earned (again, it's what the marketers may call a 'high-involvement' purchase).

As for the word of mouth, I'd prefer it of we kept ChinesePod our own little secret (just joking). To tell you the truth, I was a little disappointed when the audio and dialogues were for 'subscribers only', because with knowledge and a site like this, the more people use it, the more valuable it becomes, and the more we can learn - we are in the 'information-age' afterall, and I think making users pay could in fact limit the potential of the site. That said, I understand that this may not be seen as viable from an economic point of view.

A feature article in The Economist three years ago or so.

Ken,

Word of mouth after a talk I attended.

Any recommendations on how we can generate more word of mouth?

I think people are motivated to pass on word of mouth recommendations when they think something is great and it's something they're passionate about.To that end the awesome service you provide is the key and it's obvious you have many passionate and loyal supporters.Above and beyond that to get people extra motivated about spreading word of mouth and perhaps go out and try and actively recruit I can only think of some sort of reward system.You know the sort of promotions...refer 3 friends who subscribe and get a months premium or guided or something for free.I'm not personally looking for such handouts,but it may motivate some.Simply knowing that the more new subscribers there are the healthier the business and the more potential for growth in features,more minds to share the passion with should be enough though.

go_manly,

What I would be interested in knowing is how many people, if any, actually made the decision to begin learning Mandarin after stumbling across this site.

..well I came with a background interest in Asian culture,a few reasons I could think of studying Mandarin,but no compelling reasons..no significant work benefit and no near future plans to travel when I checked the site out from shear curiosity after a word of mouth recommendation [actually I think there was a few months between this recommendation and when I actually checked the site out properly] and once I started listening I was hooked by the engaging personalities and how easy they made the newbie lessons and that at the end of the lesson you felt like you had learnt something useful and it all seemed possible.Sure the long challenging road ahead was still there [a big part of the appeal] but the entertaining value of the podcasts provided with all the tools to make the breakdown of the lessons easy and reinforceable made it all very appealing and the rest for me is history.So ok,I did have some interest but definitely no concrete plans and no major motivating factors and I'm pretty confident that if I had not come across CPod I would not to date have studied any Chinese.

@Ken

1. I think your word of mouth (aka free advertising) 'opportunity' is past - you are already big news.  Anyone learning Chinese who also Googles is likely to have heard of you.  :-)  I rabbit on about ChinesePod a lot and everyone I speak to says 'Oh yes, I know, I know'.   

2. The gap between 'free trial' and paying for a basic subscription for me was about 12 months.  I think a more valuable free trial would be for going from basic to premium - it is a big jump in price and you really don't know what you are getting. Likewise the higher subscriptions.    

1)no word of mouth for me, NY Times turned me onto Chinese Pod.

2) I did the 7-day trial around Feb/March 2008. At that time, Cpod was running the 888 lessons for a 1 yr premium subscription. I think I signed up within about 30 days, thinking that if I took the promotion

• I was guaranteed more lessons than Pimsleur and others
• I would get lessons at higher levels, not just newbie lessons with lots of food and taxi and passport lessons that I already knew, and
• Some of the lessons would be cool ones like Formula 1 that you couldn't get with other Chinese language sites. 

I studied abroad in Beijing for two months in summer 2007. It was my first exposure to the language and the culture, and I fell in love with it. I did not have time to pursue learning the language for a couple of years afterwards. I currently attend medical school in New York, but I am taking a year off due to some personal matters; but I realized that this year would be a perfect time to really learn the language. In particular, I have a motivation to become proficient with medical terms in mandarin, since knowing a foreign language can be a very valuable skill for any doctor.

I was literally just randomly searching Google for something like "online chinese lessons", and stumbled upon ChinesePod.  I am very thankful to have found & selected it, considering how many other sites are out there.

Q1:  Harder for me to answer because the school I attend has a very small community that has other high priorities, so can't really speak about word-of-mouth.  I agree with go_manly in that absolute newbies need a little bit more structure on this site.  I was fine starting CPod at the Newbie level b/c I previously had a couple month's instruction in a classroom in Beijing, but I imagine I would feel overwhelmed if I came in cold.

Q2:  I made good use of the site during my 7 day trial.  I probably would have done the approach that a1pi2 took and copied as much as I could until I decided whether I wanted to pay or not; but it turned out that an offer for a free upgrade to the Guided subscription expired on the same day my trial expired.  I probably wouldn't pay at the normal Guided price, but I figured with weekly speaking lessons I would definitely not lose motivation throughout the year.  So I made the decision to purchase on the last day of my trial in order to get the free upgrade.

The second question is easier to answer. I started when all the audio was free. I saved a few PDFs from my free trials (I used two different emails to get two free trials) and transcribed Newbie lessons unaided for a while. I have an old email from myself at the end of 2006  that contains transcriptions of the first dozen Newbies. Looking at my profile, I didn't start paying you until October 31, 2007.

This means that I made two free trials last almost a year. I am a very casual learner--I have no real personal or professional need to know Chinese--but I think there's an interesting lesson for CPod here. CPod didn't hook me on Chinese but it convinced me that learning Chinese on my own is possible.

I didn't subscribe initially because it didn't seem I would get full value from my investment. I used one free trial very lightly, came back for a second peek and used it a bit more, then finally committed. I might have paid for a "newbie-only" Premium subscription and gotten a lot more benefit from the other services (expansion sentences, etc.) It took me a while before I felt I could manage to consume what CPod offered so I didn't bother signing up for a year.

What I would be interested in knowing is how many people, if any, actually made the decision to begin learning Mandarin after stumbling across this site.

Imagine the market potential if you could actually encourage a large slice of the population to start their Mandarin studies with Cpod. Be the first to put the idea into people's head that they should learn Mandarin, rather than only picking up people who have already started learning.

Having said that, I think that absolute newbies need a bit more structure than is offered here. I think there needs to be a written introduction to the language (not a podcast) which is clearly visible when people first find the site, with hyperlinks to articles on Pinyin (and the Pinyin Program), characters, etc. There could be suggested Newbie podcasts for people who have an interest in specific topics. At the moment, newcomers have to go exploring, which is difficult for total beginners who don't know what they are looking for.

I had never heard of a podcast before I found this site, and I imagine that I am in the majority amongst people of my age. I am not afraid to explore, but other non-tech-savvy people might need encouragement to do so through the more conventional written word.

1) in a Chinese class

2) appr. 6 months

This is intriguing, guys.

A couple of further questions:

Where are those places/points at which the word of mouth is most likely to happen? Where did it happen for you? Any recommendations on how we can generate more word of mouth?

Another quesrtion: How long was the gap between the free trial and the actual purchase? Did the trial lapse before you made it or did you do it within the trial period? Any feedback on this would be great.

Hi Ken,

I received a free subscription as an employee at Kai En in Shanghai.  I had never studied Mandarin before or heard of Chinesepod.  I liked it so much that I paid the difference to upgrade to a praxis account so that I could also continue to study Spanish while in China. 

I have now been back in New Mexico for almost five months, and even though I'm working half-time (read: broke) I coughed up the money for another year-long praxis subscription.  Ironically, I still study Mandarin more regularly than Spanish, even though I'm surrounded by Spanish speakers.  Two of my fourth-grade students here in NM just moved from China, so I get to practice a little bit.  Their parents were delighted to hear that I had just spent a year teaching English in China.

As a language teacher I appreciated the methodology and philosophy promoted by Kai En and Chinesepod.  I recommend the praxis sites to everyone I can, and I even emailed my co-teacher a link to your blog about connectivist principles in learning. 

Well done all around!

Hi Ken,

After traveling to China for business and pleasure I started learning Chinese with the Pimsleur tapes. I really liked them and completed all three levels. Since I do a lot of traveling I had put those lessons on my Ipod for those long trips across the pond. After I finished them I was looking for more content on the web and found your site one evening while I was in Bangalore, India fighting jet lag (almost 4 years ago). I very much enjoyed the enthusiasm of you and Jenny and the entire Cpod team as the business was growing. The personalities and the almost daily content updates tied to current events, seasons etc. make your site compelling for me. Your thoughtful comments on web based learning strategies also intrigued me and I have enjoyed watching your business evolve.

Initially I was interested in being able to get around in China by myself without a group of helpers. I focused on listening comprehension and simple conversation which gave me the freedom I wanted to explore cites and the countryside and find my way back to a hotel, airport etc. Your daily pod casts and web format helped me establish the regular study rhythm that has allowed me to achieve my initial objectives.

Next I am trying to learn to read Chinese with the hope of gaining access to the enormous amount of untranslated news and literature.

Overall it has been the strength, dedication and intelligence of the Cpod personalities that has kept me coming back. The content is great but the people, spontaneity and constant change associated with your virtual world are your greatest assets. I would be happy to discuss any of these topics further if you wish.

The time frame can be longer than one realizes, Ken. I do biomedical research in a lab, am approaching retirement and like to learn languages (French, Spanish, German, Russian...) and began Mandarin in 2008 when a teacher offered a small evening class at the school where I practice qi gong, in El Cerrito, CA, USA (SF Bay Area). Once a week book-lessons weren't doing it for me, so I went online. Sites to teach tones, navigating pinyin, and some characters helped. John's site, SinoSplice, was terrific. The NY Times article--March 2008?--linked me to CPod. I tried the trial, then went for premium because you had a good promotion. I couldn't used it as often as I wanted, but the methods agree with my own ideas about how to learn most effectively. Then, groan, life intervened--divorce, selling a house, moving, working, knee replacement.... So it's going more slowly than I'd like, but I think I'm sticking with it despite having no immediate use for it, on chances of future travel, because of Chinese friends and students who work in our lab, and because I always wanted to learn a tonal language. Now the cultural side beckons, as well.

  That brings me to the longer time frame: three generations of ancestors who worked in China as doctors and missionaries. One was the first western doctor in Changsha, at the beginning of 1905. Check out the book Doctors East, Doctors West, by Edward H. Hume, Norton, NY, 1946. (Hope you can find it...) The way he described learning Chinese so as to practice medicine and learn from Chinese doctors as well, the poems, traditional sayings, and the beautiful characters that his book is filled with, were probably what started me on a longing to absorb this language and culture. "Exchange the riches of East and West", he said. Yes, big time frame. Now it seems possible even for a person like me, anchored in the US, to be part of this process of Bigger Mind that we all seem to be involved in. I think you should definitely include non-business learners and retired folks in your marketing. Alumni associations that promote travel might be very good partners or referrals. I'd be glad to talk by Skype if that's useful to you. Think BIG!

Lisa

My second para got cut off- apologies

I discovered chinese pod surfing the net. I joined last year, stopped and then rejoined again. I use it to improve listening skills because  I still feel I need an interactive teacher. So my main means of learning is with a china based teacher using skype. We use Short Term Spoken Chinese Pre Intermediate produced by the Beijing Language and Culture University Press  which I think is one of the better books of its kind and which I would locate between your intermediate and higher intermediate lessons.

For me one of the main advantages of chinese pod is not necessarily the substance of your pod casts (which are often very useful) as much as the engaging personalities of the hosts (jenny, john and yourself) which help to keep my interest and maintain my motivation. Motivation can sometimes flag when working through dry textbooks. In my view your hosts are your key assets.

The second attraction of chinese pod are are your less conventional sections such as poetry. Much as I need lessons such as buying tickets at railway stations this section was like a breath of fresh air. I thought that the guy who taught the lessons was very good. It makes a change from the usual stuff you find in chinese language textbooks - such as ordering food in a chinese restaurant ( a subject that i cannot stand anymore).

I first studied chinese in the University of Sydney for a year. after failing first semester with a 36/100 or something of the sort I went to beijing for a month during semester break (and slightly into the new term, I believe). I improved drastically because of this and managed to get a Credit second semester. A friend of mine recommened chinese pod and I signed up for the free trial and downloaded as much as I could during that time. Then my trial expired. This was around 2+ years ago. I have been getting emails since then which I occasionally opened but never did anything about them.

The year after I went to china + asia for around 6 months, spending 4 months in china. Mostly travelling around though with a 1 month stint in beijing purely studying. I went back to australia after that and didn't study at all for the next 10 months.

Which brings us to today. I just moved to israel and am going to chinese classes twice a week and registered to CPod to get some extra practice during the week.

El Tommer-o de Vardi

Hello everyone, I am currently majoring in Chinese at the University of British Columbia in Canada. I've always been fascinated by chinese culture since I can remember. I don't know if it was all the kung fu movies with Jackie Chan, the exotic food or the stories I've heard about the Great Wall, emperors and dragons.

Originally, I started to learn Chinese just for fun because at the time, my uncle was working at the Canadian embassy in Beijing and he invited us (my family and I) to go visit him in China. So I thought, wouldn't be fun to learn Chinese before going there? So I took a introductory course outside of school, nothing too serious, we didn't learn any characters just simple conversations. Needless to say that I fell in love with China but after that trip, I realised I really wanted to pursue my Chinese at a more academic level.

I actually found out about Chinesepod through my friend. He said you should really look into that website, it has a lot of great tools.

I think Chinesepod is the best thing that has happened to my learning experience yet. It makes learning more fun and engaging. I really don't like the learning style in classrooms. First of all, the textbooks are really boring and a lot of the words we learn are outdated and really not useful like (an aerogram 邮简). The second thing is that you need to follow this precise structure, you can't learn what you want. When I started learning English as my second language, I used to hate learning grammar in class so I started to watch TV shows I was interested in and thats how I learned English.

For me, I like Chinesepod for the freedom it gives me to learn any thing I want, whenever I want and nobody has to tell me what to do. I also love how Cpod uses technology as a medium of learning. It enables us to connect with thousands of other people with similar goals. And also, whenever I listen to a podcast on my mp3 player, I feel I have like a team of teachers in my pocket. Thank you Chinesepod!

I would also be very happy to have the opportunity to share my thoughts with Ken.

-Denis 

Ninghao Ken,

I signed up for Cpod last December in preparation for our trip to the World's Fair in 2010. I have been casually studying the newbie lessons.  About a month ago I realized I needed to ramp up my efforts if I was really going to be able to communicate.

I think an add popped up online while I was researching travel agencies to help us get around.  It may be that somehow you found me and sent me an email.  I am vague on how I discovered Cpod but am really glad I did.  I've recommended the various pods to anyone that mentions language studies.

My wife and I adopted two girls, one from from Hefei and the younger from near Changsha.  For those trips I learned some basics that really made a difference as we wondered around cities with our newly adopted kids.  It was great fun "talking" to people.  We're planning a trip next summer to Shanghai and the world's fair.  Since we have been to China twice (6 weeks total) and I love language I decided to really try to learn, at least enough to be a good tourist.

One of the plans I hope to fit in while in Shanghai is to visit your offices. I am amazed at all the great work you all are doing.

It would be a pleasure to talk with you.  I feel like I already know you and Jenny from the newbie lessons.  In fact I am signed into the Cpod school that takes place next week Tuesday and Thursday, so I'll meet Jenny via Skype then.

You can reach me via email at john@psandl.com so we can arrange a convenient time for both of us.  As a principal in a marketing company that works with colleges and universities in the US, I would enjoy talking about how you are promoting Praxis and the various pods you are growing.

Slainté,

John Stapleton

I think I described my motivations in other posts, but basically like other responders, I started because of some contact with China (business travel) and later study of Chinese became an end in itself, because it is interesting and a challenge.

I'd be very happy to have an opportunity to chat with Ken, though.  So, I responded.

I worked in Beijing for two months a couple of years ago and started learning the language. I found china a very exciting place and I have been back a few times. I use chinese pod to supplement my other learning which is with a Beijing teacher using skype.

I described a bit about why I wanted to learn Chinese, but not how I stumbled upon ChinesePod.  I remember trying to translate some poem from pinyin and using an online pinyin to English translator - mandarin tools I think it was.

With almost no idea with regards to the structure of the language, I did my level best to translate it bit by bit.  As you can imagine, I couldn't really make sense of what I ended up with and my Chinese friend couldn't help but laugh out loud at the result. 

It was then that I found ChinesePod and got this great idea to learn the language....

For giggles, I can dig up the poem and my original "translation".

-Dave

I found Chinesepod through word of mouth. Before I came to China I met a friend who already spent a year in Shanghai and by asking how he got so good at Chinese, that's how I found out about Chinesepod. My motivation of learning Chinese is of a few reasons (work, more opportunities). Another is as a British Born Chinese I initially got some pressure to learn Mandarin. Stereotypically alot of the locals look at me in a confused manner when they realise that I didn't speak of word (or character) chinese when I first got here. This made me feel abit embarassed and stupid because they would actually question and question why I just don't know Mandarin which made my stay very uncomfortable at the beginning.

After being in China for nearly 2 years, I can hold a decent enough conversation but there is a lot of room to grow in. Some friends say I've improved alot, some say I still got a long way to go, but I hope to reach my goal of being fluent. I can make locals think that I come from Guang zhou province, (the knowledge of Cantonese helps) so I guess its progress.

These are awesome responses - lots of insights that help me understand you and what you want. One thing that strikes me is how long the time-frames are.

Please keep them coming. I definitely want to know more about how you guys decided to learn Chinese and ended up with ChinesePod.

China brought me to ChinesePod.  I guess I came a conventional route, conventional except for my age.  In my early fifties I was looking around for something that might occupy me for another fifty years.  I started at Technical & Further Education Ultimo (middle of Sydney's Chinatown), two hours a week.  I probably learnt a reasonable amount but decided that I would have to go to China to learn the language. I enrolled in a university course because it included time in China. July 2006 I came to China and still hadn't looked at ChinesePod. Found it by Googling for resources and took the one week trial, but distinguished myself by doing no lessons at all (busy time at uni.)  Returned to Australia in July 2007 and decided I would try ChinesePod again (from memory February 2008.)  My wife says that I am an addict.  And we are living back in China.  

Having been born and raised in California suburbia, I was largely isolated from other cultures as a boy.  At Cal Poly SLO things changed a little bit as I was exposed to a more diverse community back in Concord, CA.

After graduating from college and living and working in San Jose, things really changed. 

Fast forward 20 years - I work in a large office with people from all over the world, many of them from China. 

In short, a couple of things brought me to Cpod.  First, it's clear that learning Mandarin can be a great asset for me personally as the diversity of people that I interact with only continues to grow.  I mentioned earlier that I work with a large group of immigrants from China here in San Jose, but recently the work we do directly with groups in China has grown dramatically.  It's a bit embarrassing to continually speak with people who have never even been out of their native China but posses good English skills while the US natives on the other end of the conversation know none (and I mean zero, not even one word) of Mandarin.

...which brings me to reason number two.

From my California experience I have found that when many native Chinese speakers hear an American utter even the simplest phrase " nǐ hǎo " it really goes a long way.  Putting it another way, I have Chinese friends to impress :-).

I've been a member for a couple of years now and at first was diligent but then let it just slip away.  I really want to succeed and and trying in earnest again.

Regards,

Dave

For the record, here are other language programs I've used: Rosetta Stone, Pimsleur, FSI, Colloquial Chinese and some program with "speech recognition" that was really expensive and didn't really work.

Here are the programs that really helped me get further: ChinesePod.

Though to be fair, ChinesePod didn't really get me very fast progress either until I really buckled down and got serious about it.

I received a brochure in my letter box in early 2008  from my local evening college. I browsed through the available courses, and for whatever reason decided that the Mandarin course would be interesting.

After being struck by a car in late April last year, I was out of action for a few months, and my Mandarin lessons were put on hold. I wish I had discovered Chinese Pod at this time to help me pass the time.

I re-enrolled in a Mandarin course at the Centre for Continuing Education (an offshoot of Sydney University) in February 2009. In their self-prepared textbook, they listed a few useful websites, amongst them Chinese Pod. I checked out all the suggested sites, but Cpod was the only one that grabbed me. I've been hooked since then, and the University course has only been a secondary source of study. It was Cpod that finally convinced me to go Broadband back in February (dial-up had always been good enough for me before).

I have made some negative comments about the Cpod method in the past, and I still stick to those thoughts, but the fact remains that most of my (somewhat limited) progress has been due to Cpod.

I guess one place cpod should start targeting lead generation efforts would be marriage license records in the US.  I started learning Chinese because the woman that became my wife made it clear that I would have to come to China periodically.  I was up for the challenge I suppose.

My first attempt at learning mandarin was at a language school in Boston. I took an 8 week course.  It was fun, I learned speaking and reading and writing, but it was expensive, and I didn't see going into the city for the next couple of years to learn. 

2nd attempt was around the same time as the language school, and I used Living Language Ultimate Chinese.  I really liked it, and learned plenty. I think that course's problem for me was that it was very static, and didn't have many topics that I wanted (like internet-related lessons).

3rd attempt was Pimsleur's.  I really liked Pimsleur's for Chinese, and listened to all three levels.  It was expensive, but perfect for me, and I learned a lot. Of course, there are only three levels.  Had there been more, I might have done those as well.

Somewhere between Living Language and Pimsleur's, we moved to China and then returned to the US. My motivation to learn Chinese went through the roof, but upon our return, I went back to being semi motivated.  I guess if it had been more definite that we would move back to China, I might have taken advantage better of the opportunity to learn with less stress back in the US.  But I still didn't have as much motivation.

It was in this period that I came across Cpod in a New York Times article.  This was about March 2008.  I suppose the rest is history.

I first came to China in late 2007 to teach, and absolutely no intentions whatsoever of even attempting to learn the language...(too difficult, foreign, etc.) but then one of my colleagues had downloaded heaps of newbie lessons on our office computer, and like simmonpettersson, was just a casual listener. The thing is, I kept renewing my teaching contract, thus still living in China and still listening to ChinesePod, while my colleagues came and went.

Your ultra-practical lessons (ordering food, asking for a napkin, booking train tickets, booking into a hotel) made communication possible for me. I have said this before in a previous post, but it is not an exaggeration to say that ChinesePod has dramatically improved the quality of my life in China. Living in China can be frustrating enough - but not being able to communicate at all? (I think that's one of the ironies of being an English teacher here - you're illiterate in the country you are 'teaching').

I now regard myself as an Intermediate learner, and while my Chinese (speaking in particular) is far, far from perfect I can generally get around and make a reasonable attempt at communication in most everyday situations.

While preparing to move to China I was searching i-Tunes for any language listening to supplement book learning and R-stone because I had been told that listening/comprehension should precede spoken/written. 

First I subscribed to C-POD, got the ten day trial, then became a member downloading lessons to my MP3 player and listening on my daily drive to and from work. I knew that I looked crazy to the other drivers as I repeated the dialoge in my car so I faked using a bluetooth device sometimes to avoid the fearful stares I sometimes received in bumper to bumper traffic. Very soon the other learning programs were secondary to the POD. I now live in China and credit finding the great teaching methods and materials found here for my quick use of the language and also helping adjust to the culture. Still listening and learning!!

jckeith, good stuff. Any more detais on how you came to know about CPod and the route you took to get here?

Once I decided to begin learning Chinese, I looked around for a bit and decided to try Rosetta Stone. While I was using Rosetta Stone, I was reading a forum post where people were discussing resources for learning a foreign language and one of the posters recommended Chinese Pod. Once I looked into the site, I thought it sounded like a great model and signed up for my 2 week trial, and the rest is history, as they say.

I dropped Rosetta Stone not long after I started. I was also using Pimsleur's audiobooks alongside CPod, but that quickly fell by the wayside as well. CPod really is in a class of its own. A little over a year into my CPod subscription, I've advanced from newbie to intermediate and I'm still as enthusiastic as I was when I first started.

Hi Ken

Back in 2003, I started learning Mandarin from the Pimsleur audio course, (I was living in the UK then.) I began studying on a whim, just to impress a Chinese friend I'd made. (Although it's also true to say that I've always loved language, and I wanted to see if Chinese was really as difficult and 'alien' as most western people seemed to think.)

As will happen though, I came to really enjoy the study, and I began to learn about China and to feel interest in the country and its history.

In 2004 I came to China to teach English at a medical school in Guangdong province, and quickly realised my ability to communicate in Mandarin was nowhere near good enough. I kept at it by studying various books and tapes, and I got sporadic help from Chinese friends and colleagues. (My work schedule at that time was quite heavy, so I felt unable to commit to a personal tutor or class.)

I discovered ChinesePod quite by accident. I think I was googling a book title one day, it must have been the Autumn of 2007. One of the search results mentioned something called ChinesePod, so I thought I'd have a look. I think it only took me a few moments to think: My god, why didn't I know about this sooner? I quickly signed up for the trial week and enjoyed my first ChinesePod lesson: The Pickup Artist. (Actually a bit difficult for me back then.)

When possible I became a keen user, and felt my ability expanding as it never had before. As I'm sure you know, these days I just love the Pod, and still love learning Chinese, although I now feel I'll probably never scale the real heights, (too old, too busy, too easily distracted!)

I never use skype I'm afraid, but if you would like to chat with me, just send me a PM and maybe we can make contact by phone.

I've been doing Chinese martial arts for years and studying Chinese was just one of those things I wanted to do. I also entertained notions of learning Classical Greek at the time. I found few good resources for the latter, and ChinesePod for the former. This was around the very beginnings of ChinesePod, many years ago. I listened to the lessons leisurely, not subscribing, going on and off for a long time. When you changed your model to newbie only for non-subscribers, I stopped using the service. Later on, when I had a fulltime job instead of being a poor student, I decided to actually pay for a subscription and start my Chinese learning in earnest. The way I used the lessons changed (actually working with them instead of just listening) and my results changed dramatically. Now I'm hooked, and since I've decided to spend a year in China practicing martial arts, I've intensified my studies a lot, making CPod indispensible.

jckeith, good stuff. Any more detais on how you came to know about CPod and the route you took to get here?

chanelle, that's hepful.

I appreciate all feedback.

Sept. '07 I followed an introductory Chinese course at the Confusius institute in The Hague. One of my classmates recommended Cpod and I had a trial subscription, but was to busy preparing moving. After I settled down in China (begin '08) I became a paid subscriber and have been using the site almost every day (but sometimes less intensive for a few months when back in Europe).

Motivation : surviving China :-), be fluent in the (hopefully not too far) future. I just like to talk with people I guess! I think I would die if I could not communicate here.

Choice Cpod: like the site / the people and most of all like the content. This works for me.

Happy to help if needed.

My motivation is pretty simple. Even though my wife is as American as they come, she still has strong ties to China since most of her family is there. I began learning Chinese to be able to travel to China and communicate with her family. Once I started, however, I found that I enjoyed learning it just for the sake of learning it.