Helping Newbies

Ken,

The first thing that springs to mind is the frequent questions that pop up again and again scattered over the boards that are just repeats of questions asked elsewhere.I think it would be good to have all these faq's put together in one place like the help section.They are the one's that address things like:

How do I write Chinese characters?

How do I read Chinese characters?

How do I input pinyin?

What are some good online dictionaries?

Popup translators;tips and warnings.

Why aren't the characters showing up.All I see is question marks?

...etc,etc.

I tried to start a group to address this but it got buried and never really got off the ground and besides I'm not sure a group was the best place for it anyway.I think questions like this should still be asked on the boards where clarification is needed but it would be great to have one place where a newbie can refer to.Perhaps CPod could put together the best answers possible with a list of options where applicable,and perhaps there could be a comments section below this where users could then ask further questions or more experienced Poddies could post further suggestions.

There have been several excellent posts along these lines but they end up getting buried.I think if you had the resources,digging some of them up and collating them would be a good place to start.

I realise some of this is already there but I think it could be expanded upon.

The other thought that pops to mind is something that can help one guage one's progress a bit better.I'd love to see more testing available for those who respond to this sort of motivation.I think people can get discouraged if they feel like they aren't making progress,but if you could break the progress down into baby steps so people can see for themselves that ,hey, they are ahead of where they were last week or last month then I think that would help.A bit like belts in a martial arts system,it provides positive feedback.

I think bababardwan made some really excellent points. I wouldn't put those questions in a FAQ though (only the truely desperate read FAQs), but make it a Newbie podcast *series* - a series where you introduce the absolute basics of learning Chinese on the web. And the basics of learning Chinese with this very site.

A structured start of maybe 30 to 40 lessons beyond that 7 podcast demo set. What are characters and how important are they? How does Pinyin work? What about those Popup-Translation addons?

Those lessons could (and should) also refer to existing podcasts (A lesson on the newbie lessons for traveling) - so this series would be some kind of a "meta series". With a cushion of almost 300 Newbie lessons, CPod can easily do this.

A second important insight that I got from here: There are contradicting forces at work. More grammar. Less grammar. Make Qing Wens easier. Make them more challenging. Could there be a way to suit all sides? I would think splitting the Qing Wens would be a way out of the dilemma - QW for Newbie/Elli questions and QW for Intermediate questions. The latter could also come by a different label like "The grammar show".

BTW. I agree that Pete does an excellent job. He is a high-impact addition to this site. A different flavour, for sure. But one that was missing so far.

hey ken,

i think that a solid foundation in grammatical sentence structure will allow students to progress more quickly and prevent bad habits becoming ingrained and therefore much more difficult to 'fix' later on. i think more feedback on newbie and ele posts and the activity stream would be invaluable.

i don't know the dropout rate you guys have at the newbie level but i'm sure with extra input into the above areas newbie students will gain a more solid foundation and thus be reluctant to look elsewhere, or simply give up. great for business, great for the students.

that said, students of all levels must be pro-active with their study. chinesepod is a great tool,i wish it was around ten years ago when i was a newbie at uni, but it shouldn't be relied on as the only method of study.

You just have to have a product for every kind of Newbie, and you are almost there. The The Canton Fair Survival Guide is a great example of what would help.

• If I want to learn Chinese to go for a business trip that really requires no Chinese I want to say Hello, Thanks, and all things going well - gānbēi.
• If I want to impress my girlfriend's mother, then I need some family and relationship type lessons.
• If I want to supplement my study - I am really going to need to drill down a bit of structure.
• If I want to learn Chinese to adopt a child, I really need all those baby talk lessons.
• If I am in a country village in the North East teaching English, and I realise a little bit too late that I need Chinese lessons then I really need everything and fast.
• I may have a specific task (e.g. a traumatic ticket office encounter is imminent) and I don't want to stand for 12 hours.

The thing about lessons every week is they need not have any obvious progression. I should be able to take any lesson my level as my first lesson. At the same time, they next 10 lessons could be completely irrelevant for me.

Your archive, to me, is your greatest asset. I would love to see playlists, a radio, better metadata (I would happily tag lessons).

I think the interaction with the presenters/staffers is a huge benefit. The comments are half of the brilliance of chinesepod. I would love to see nested comments, so I could follow a conversation that develops. And although I play on the site a lot - the community conversations part is a bit confusing to me...

If there is a large dropout, I assume there are a million people that only know Cpod through iTunes, and the main challenge would be to get them through the door. Things like that could be achieved by promoting the Menu Stealer series on the podcast. It is already really easy to signup - so I can imagine that would draw a few in.

Hope that was worth the read :)

as mentioned above, chinesepod provides an invaluable resource for almost any situation, this i believe is chinesepod's greatest asset. the community section and the newly created activity stream are also very beneficial. however i think they can be improved by providing more feedback.

i'm harping i know, but generally most people write the way that they would speak. i think most people would agree with that. that said it makes sense to provide corrections to poddies chinese posts and comments on the activity stream. nothing beats having your own comments corrected for you to study, and this in turn will encourage more people to utilize these functions.

at a guess, i would say most poddies are working and not studying formally. who is going to correct them? the newbie and ele levels need special attention to provide a good base from which to progress.

having said all this, i do realise that if one wants to pay the extra then all is good. i guess the market must dictate where resources are allocated. however, i would suggest that keeping new learners would be a priority, they may in turn decide that the service is great s reflected in their progression and understanding and therefore may choose to upgrade.

just by two bob's worth, or three.

First off, I love Chinese Pod, and I tell everyone about the site, who is interested in learning Mandarin. (How's that for gushing?)

A Table of contents of the Newbie (and others) lessons would be very helpful. Isn't that possible?

I like Babawardan's suggestions about a centralized FAQ section with a links to helpful sites (online dictionaries, etc.). I recently figured out Chinese characters on Ubuntu which I had installed on my laptop. I am still having troubles with my Windows box.

Some gentle comment moderation needs to happen. If someone asks, a question in the newbie section that is entirely in hanzi without translation, one could copy and paste the question to a more appropriate thread and answer it there and then provide a link to it. People would get the hint (or send a private message if they don't).

Also, whining like "I miss Amber" isn't helpful. Yes, people feel the need to complain and want to feel that they are being heard. Have a separate link to post complaints and respond to them in a timely fashion. But I know from my medical practice, employee turnover is a reality.

Hopefully, that is helpful. The positives of Chinesepod definitely by far outweigh the negatives.

Honest truth is that I was a newbie back in early 2006, and I found that I struggled with the lack of structure a lot so that I never really got going until I took a 13 week course at university. Bear in mind also that I had learnt Chinese when I was a child, so for me that course was really a refresher course. There is a newbie "set" now, though? I found that I needed that clump of knowledge of basic verbs, pronouns, common nouns, QW and numbers 1-10 to get going. Then after that, Chinesepod was great. Until that point, Cpod was just a bit too random for me to get going.

I think the newbie lessons could stand to be more directed and focused.  Less pointless chatter and more direct language instruction.

synesthasia88, I think the chatter acts as a mnemonic for many of us here.  Plus, Ken's and Jenny's delightful chatter makes the lesson much more enjoyable...much better than a traditional (boring) classroom.

Hi Ken

As a Cpod newbie living down under & visiting china on business only a couple of times a year I don't  have the opportunity of interacting often with the chinese community or even listening to Chinese being spoken in everyday life situations. My progress therefore is quite slow and i am eager to speed it up! I feel that having access to some comprehension type passages and excercises on each topic which we could listen to (in the resources section) would be helpful in speeding up progress.

thanks.

Hi, Ken,

I started from scratch six months ago, and progress so far is good - happily working through elementary lessons at the moment, and the occasional intermediate as well. In general, I think that CPod does wonders at the newbie level, and I'm not sure that I have much in the way of suggestions as to how things could be improved: there simply has been no struggle. It has been pleasure all the way!

Perhaps it might be good to have a complete newbie's guide to CPod - say a one page overview - for when people register, as I didn't really get the hang of everything that CPod can do for a few weeks. But other than that, I can't think of anything, other than to say keep up the exceptional work.

Best wishes,

Will

I believe that to continue with the rate of speech, or pace if you will as moderate.  

The tones and rhythm of the language must be clear.  This is an old issue, really.  I do not want to dig up the past.  But, I strongly believe that the Newbie needs to hear very clearly each dialogue. I think Jenny does a super  job.  

Let me just say this from experience.  When I first started learning Chinese I an an extremely difficult time mimicking the lexical chunks (as you call them). 

I do love CPod and found that after over two years I have learned to cope with the quicker speeds.  But, I think especially pace is important to the Newbie. 

You would have laughed your head off listening to me try to say some of what I now find quiet easy.

Also, if the Newbie is a premium member, then those items should reflect a moderate pace.

Just my two cents from experience.  Remember a Newbie is just a baby.  But, the baby wants to learn in a hurry.

hehe

With respect,

Teacher Al

Shenzhen, CN

Nothing keeps people coming back to something if they love it; they feel successful; ie they have a perception of success.

Someone once said "Nothing breeds success like success."

Make the Newbie feel successful by structuring things so the possibility of success is probable.

When I was a Newbie, it took me hours and hours of listening just before I could hear the language.  My point is that hearing the rhythm of the language clearly is of paramount importance to the Newbie.

Now I find the Newbie quiet easily; elementary is where I am and Intermediate is where I am very challenged and would like to be.

Teacher Al

Shenzhen, CN

Premium membership:

I would like to see a short series of lessons each Dialogue showing patterns using common phrases than can be recognized as patterns.

About grammar and structure.

I am happy that a lot of what I learned was not structured.  For example, the "de" "ne" and "le" need not be explained to me as a Newbie.  I "accepted" them.  hehe

My point is that I can now read a Chinese Grammar book and understand the "grammar points."  My opinion about me as a learner is that starting with grammar would have bogged me down.  I would have been too troubled about getting things exactly right.  

But, as you say, it is Chinese on My Terms and I had the opportunity to make selections that suited my own learning style.

Sincerely,

Teacher Albert

Just expanding on my comment about assessment and motivation.Of course just like in martial arts where at the end of the day it doesn't matter what belt you are,it is how well you can defend yourself in a real life situation that is going to count,in this case at the end of the day how effective you are in communicating [and from the cultural side of things avoiding being a fluent fool as you've pointed out Ken] is what is going to matter and not what level of Chinese learner you are or what assessment you can pass.But I think if you did have assessments [of all aspects of the language ,though of course spoken would be a bit more involved] then not only is that motivating,something to aim for one step at a time,but it may actually end up being worth something someday.I realise there is the HSK and all that,but I looked at that site,and as far as I can see I'd have to travel interstate for that and that would involve a lot of time and expense that I couldn't justify.If nothing else,it could be good preparation for such a test.It could even be broken down into sections.You could even get to print out a certificate for say passing your ellie listening comprehension section.There could be smaller steps,like low ellie,middle ellie,high ellie.You could start with a low newbie level that used material only found in the 6 introductory lessons.I don't think that would take too long to be in position to pass and thus very early in the piece you have this positive feedback and acknowledgement in the form of a certificate that you are actually getting somewhere.Imagine that.I realise this is not going to be everyone's cup of tea,but hopefully for some others it would provide a good gauge of where they're at and motivation for something to aim at,and may focus where they need to improve more.I also agree with the comments about feedback of comments written in Chinese ,but I realise this is labour intensive and you have to work out where to put your resources and it looks like you've already started heading down that track in the activity stream.Good start.

Basically as a newb I used to have 4 lessons.
newbie (which I can not emphasize how great they are)
elly (some can be extremely challenging)
Qing Wen and the old D.A. (both amazing)

now we have just newb and elly. 
i used to get so much out of qing wen, now it’s become more of an intermediate class.

Please take this as constructive criticism.

I’ve really wanted to voice my opinion on this but did not know where to begin. It’s all about the team who is giving the lessons. How the teachers are teamed up. All of cpod teachers have their strengths.

The difference with qing wen before and qing wen now is that there was a dominate native English speaker as the main voice before. Now we have a native Chinese speaker as the main voice. You cannot compete with Jenny, her personality is too strong, which is not a bad thing, she’s an amazing teacher as everyone knows. But as a native Chinese speaker she doesn’t think of the angles that a native English speaking Chinese teacher would. Like Ken does or Amber used to...
for example, I heard Ken talk about shoulders and wings the other day jiānbǎng and chìbǎng.
wow!! i won’t forget that. It just stuck.
It’s just that the native English speaking Chinese teacher has been where I am and they can relate with things that helped him or her on their own journey.

As far as Pete, he's a Chinese scholar way beyond my understanding. His poem are fun to listen to, but I just don’t get that much out of them. I have only heard John (when Ken is sick) on a few lessons because Intermediate is beyond my level.

It used to work so well for us dummies that didn’t understand Connie when she said her lines that Amber or JP and even Clay would ask. How do you say such and such Connie and she would answer.
But now instead of 2 dominate native English speaking teachers we have one who’s smarter than all of them who gets pushed to the backseat.

I think part of improving the newb experience on cpod is bring back a more basic qing wen. Poems with Pete is way beyond the newb level as well so really we have 2 lessons newb and elly. Please take these comments as constructive criticism and from someone who really loves Chinese pod.

Miami Meiguoren

The Newbie lessons themselves are excellent. However, I feel like there is just something missing. The breadth of content on ChinesePod doesn't really open up until you reach the Upper Elementary-Intermediate level. It would have been nice to have some feature to supplement the Newbie podcasts when I was a Newbie. I know this is just my perception because you guys are open and fair to learners of every level, but when I was a Newbie, I felt a little bit left out.

Also, whining like "I miss Amber" isn't helpful. Yes, people feel the need to complain and want to feel that they are being heard. Have a separate link to post complaints and respond to them in a timely fashion. But I know from my medical practice, employee turnover is a reality.

I will enthusiastically second this. The whining in the Qing Wen comments is out of control. And when I say "whining", I'm not referring to the constructive criticism. We have people constantly pining for the "good old days", personally insulting the current hosts, and even casting aspersions on CPod for "driving Amber away."

Hello, my name is Tina, and my Chinese name is 刘文琪(liu2  wen2  qi2)    I am Chinese   And I live in Beijing now

I am glad to help newbies, if you have any question about Chinese, you can send email to me ( bxwenqi@gmail.com)

I disagree with synesthasia88 as I think the chatter helps and really takes off the pressure to remember so much information when you're just starting to learn a language for the first time.

When I discovered ChinesePod, I was frustrated with the apparent lack of structure to the learning (I was always used to textbooks and formal courses) and so I was a little unconvinced about progressing with CPod.  However, I eventually found the five introductory lessons which were helpful and I progressed from there.

It would be great if CPod had a static page of "20 phrases you must know" or something similar because as a newbie, I felt quite intimidated that I would venture on to the site and find a lesson on e.g. "Newbie: Chinese Breakfast" without first knowing how to count or say the days of the week. 

But I love the site and the ability to choose lessons on what I'm interested in rather than what comes next in the textbook.

I agree with the comments above about an FAQ section that will help a newbie get started.