Should Qing Wen's sometimes be a bit harder?

Agreed. There could be some more difficult ones.

Hi go_manly

Well said. I agree with you.

I absolutely agree, xiaophil ! Our problems with the use of 得 and 地 is a case in point. I looked at QW #106 on the use of 得, and I found it extremely basic (granted, it was not covering 得vs地, but even so ....).

Of the QWs 131-138, I only have downloads of #131 and #132 ( I'm not currently subscribed ) and I wouldn't say that they are at a high enough level for an Intermediate learner.If some QWs are now covering grammar at a higher level, it would be useful to have them marked as 'Intermed'/'Upper Intermed' etc.  I must say that every QW I have looked at so far is pretty basic, and I can't get much new out of them even though I'm not very advanced in my studies.

I just looked at #131 and #132 again, and apart from some of the vocabulary, I don't think there's anything there which an Ele couldn't handle : In #132 we just get a definition of 舍不得 and examples of it's use with verbs and nouns. In #131 we learn that 难道 is a marker used usually with 吗 type questions. It would have been interesting to have had it spelled out to us why two of the example sentences do not end in 吗 despite John telling us that all the examples end in 吗。

I agree mate,but I get the feeling that CPod have been heading that way anyway and it's coming.I think the approach to QW has been a little different to the weekly Newbie to Media lessons that come out each week.After all,there is only one QW per week and not 5 [one at each level like there are with the other lessons],so I think in the case of QW they have pretty much been building it up from a basic level.Though past QW's weren't rated in level until very recently I think it's safe to assume that they were pretty much newbie to ellie level in the main and only recently as zhenlijiang has pointed out have quite a lot of them been [rated at least ] as Intermediate.I suppose with grammar/QW type questions it's important to have a solid foundation of the basics.But yeah,I can't wait until more grammar structures are explored in QW at a higher Intermediate and above level. :)

ps. On a personal note,one of my goals this year is to go through the QW archive as a priority [over and above any other archive lessons which realistically I'm not going to have time to do].I wonder as we strike higher level QW's how much there is going to be an assumption of a basic level of knowledge that we could have gleaned from previous QW's.I'm not saying that QW and CPod's approach shouldn't continue to be modular though,I just personally think it's an area I should probably start to brush up on.

Hmmm, I honestly didn't notice that they rate them. In that case, I would say, yeah, how about some upper-intermediate lessons and higher.

I feel that maybe at this point your level is high enough that just a look at the pdf's would suffice.

I just noticed you rarely comment. What an honor! haha

Hey I guess you're saying, should some of them be more Upper Inter to Advanced? Because quite a few are already Intermediate. Looking just at the QWs published this year (131 to 138), CPod says all except the latest, How to Start a Conversation With Chinese People (Ele), are Intermediate in difficulty.

Babar: I hope your feeling is right, old pal. As I said, even those two QWs said to be Intermediate seem too elementary to me, and I would class my own ability as transitional between Elementary and Intermediate in terms of CPod's schema of levels. When I look at other grammar resources for Intermediate learners they are pitched at a significantly higher level than those two lessons, but the content is not out of reach for someone at my level.

In one sense it makes sense for CPod to introduce grammar in the QW series at the basic level and increase the difficulty, as you said. It also makes sense that CPod is probably catering to the majority of it's subscribers by not having pursued grammar in QW in greater depth; but the lessons themselves do not follow a progressive format -there are, and have been for a long time, a heck of a lot of Intermediate > Advanced lessons, not to mention Media etc, whilst QW has remained around the Newbie/Elementary level.

I think the QW format is ideal for a more in depth look at grammar. Points or structures which require more time could be covered in a series or in longer lessons. I'm not a grammar 'nut' - I do think that structures etc 'sink in' with repeated exposure, but there are times ( not infrequent ) when I need explanations; explanation directs my attention

and enables further 'unconscious' assimilation of material at a higher level in a sort of dialectical process. The audio input of CPod would be a fantastic way to reinforce what I am already trying to learn through the dry text-book method. My own method at the moment is to concentrate on a single grammar point for a couple of weeks and identify and study examples of it in my reading.

By the way, I think xiaophil is probably right about what you should do - if I can handle a higher level of grammar I'm sure that you can; we don't have to know everything before we take one step further.

加油！

I'd be up for a few more demanding QW episodes. But I also wonder if QW-related exercises might help in terms of exploring the grammatical patterns in the lessons (although they might be time-intensive to implement).

How do, thinkbuddy. A closer relationship between different parts of the CPod universe would really suit me. The easiest way might be to have pointers to lessons which include examples of patterns showcased in QW; then I wouldn't have to search around for examples in action ( which is time consuming for me, haha! )

Disagree. But my vote won't count anyway, because it seems I am the minority here...

Hi chunjie. We're not so much taking a vote as talking around a topic. Why do you think QWs should stay as they are ?

I don't think of Qingwens as being easy or difficult. I rate them as interesting or uninteresting, useful or not. The recent ones have explored a particular vocabulary theme (is there an adjectival form of vocabulary, such as vocabularic?). Such lessons, by their nature, tend not to be difficult. But they are still useful and interesting. I think CPod has varied the difficulty well over the course of the Qingwen series. I am happy to see some harder ones that deal with difficult grammar points, but I would still like to see these mixed with the easier theme-based lessons.

Chunjie, I agree with Brick. Please talk. Besides, in the end, we might not get our way anyway, haha.

I vote that Qing Wen should be more challenging.

What if Jenny and Connie only speak in Mandarin Chinese, John in English andLiliana in Spanish and English.

That would increase the intensity and be AMAZING!

Peace.