6 top Learning Chinese websites: There is more out there than just Chinesepod!

magnus1977
 February 10, 2009, 06:00 PM posted in General Discussion

6 Top Learning Chinese Websites...

Check out what websites are on the list.  Have you heard of them all???

Brought to you by www.MandMX.com

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RJ
 February 10, 2009, 08:08 PM

There is only one Chinesepod. If I could use only one, Cpod would be the one.

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dunderklumpen
 February 10, 2009, 09:00 PM

Popupchinese may become a nice complement to cPod for students who want to listen to different pu3tong1hua4 accents. The popupchinese actors use a lot more 儿's than the cPod actors. E.g. yi1 ping2r pi2jiu3 instead of yi1 ping2 pi2jiu3.
However, I think popupchinese started recently (?) so there is not too much material on the site yet.
cPod rules ^_^

I was a bit surprised to hear Echo of popupchinese saying xie4xie in, what I thought was, the southern sie4sie way. I thought the standard mandarin sound x (as in xie4xie) was supposed to be pronounced as the sh in sheep (羊) or ch in cheap (不贵).
Is that "sh" an old-school way of saying "x" or is it only used in some accents of pu3tong1hua4? Any ideas?

 

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silentnoise
 February 10, 2009, 09:16 PM

These websites don't even come close to the quality that CPod offers.

CPod has variety and the podcasts not only teach you the language you want/need to learn, but they are also really entertaining.

Listen to the drab and dull voices, lousey sound effects and lack of personality offered by competitor websites and it's not hard to see why CPod comes out the best each time.

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henning
 February 11, 2009, 07:16 AM

silentnoice,
I agree that there is absolute no alternative to the CPod high quality and vocab heavy podcasts - and certainly not to the body of available podcasts.

However, David's "popup" is a perfect complement to this - especially for Intermediate and Advanced learners. The shows are actually pretty entertaining and funny (rather "snacks" compared to a CPod full meal, though). And I really like the test-heavy approach and the HSK material.

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silentnoise
 February 11, 2009, 09:33 AM

henning

I forgot to exclude popup from my rant above as I quite like that site because of the HSK and the different accents in the podcasts. I think it compliments CPod quite well.

 

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RJ
 February 11, 2009, 10:58 AM

Henning,

I too enjoy the "popup" snack at times, but view it almost as a cpod spin off since its David's site. It wouldnt stand alone, but definitely number two on the list.