User Comments - iaing

Posted on: Chinese Universities

Agreed and supported... America has very interesting culture and its own language.

Posted on: The Glorious 了(le): Part 2

I think 了 will always be top of my list of Chinese words that I will probably never fully understand...closely followed (in order of 烦死了-ness) by...把,才,的,地,得,打...

Posted on: Where Do You Work?

http://www.learnchineseabc.com/chinese-pinyin-initials.htm

http://www.learnchineseabc.com/chinese-pinyin-finals.htm

Try links for videos of shape of mouth.

Also, the animations in the links, are reasonably accurate for showing tongue positioning.

[ignore the generic written descriptions relating the Chinese sound to English sound, in the above links, as these are an oversimplification and aren't accurate]

Posted on: Where Did You Learn Chinese?

I think the point is a lot of people join cpod to learn mandarin, not English.

It is enough waste that there is way too much English in the main podcasts , without English crossing over into the dialogue files.

I delete the "dialogue" files that have too much English, and I don't bother listening to the main podcasts.

For this dialogue file, I'm not too worried, but am surprised (a little) at the backlash against a request for "Chinese-only". I would support mandarin only dialogues.

Posted on: 林书豪是如何炼成的

可能林不够对不对吧

Posted on: 林书豪是如何炼成的

when are the knicks ever going to win again ?

Posted on: Dinner with the Girlfriend's Parents

"well, sometimes it's not smart to be honest" 

For some reason this cracked me up. A fun game with any propsective Chinese gf may be around how one might rank the following terms (and in what situations the ranking may change):

-mianzi, honesty, harmonious discussion, congming, daylight

Posted on: The ChinesePod Royal Sampler

what is the cost if you are premium already..or should I just move on here?

Posted on: Focus and Specialization

Yeah, basically agree with you too.

In the beginning listening and reading to graded material is almost always best.

I went past intermediate in less than 12 months in Chinese. For the first 6 months, I downloaded 300 elementary dialogues (mandarin only) and transcripts, and listened to them and read through them over and over for 5-6 hours day. In the second 6 months I blended in intermediate lessons - until I knew all elementary and intermediate dialogues (almost off by heart), at this site and CSLpod.

I completely ignored the main podcasts at cpod, but not at CSLpod. The reason being - and the key point is --it is more effective to have both written and spoken material of the same input that you use, and to avoid English as far as possible.

If you can't get written material - it is obviously not the end of the world, and you will certainly benefit and challenge yourself, but it is not efficient particularly early on.

For general reference, and as illustration, a sample day for me now might include:

-listen to a cntv news piece a few times, read through the transcript, listen again, read again,

-listen to a full CSLpod inter lesson, read full lesson transcript, listen a few times more,

-listen to an advanced Cpod dialogue, read transcript, listen again,

-listen to a bunch of elementary diaolgues (mandarin only) one after the other -- while working out at the gym -- anything from ling.com, cslpod, cpod, etc

-watch "three kingdoms" for a while on youtube and follow the subtitles for things I miss

-practice speaking at aichinese.com for half an hour

-chat for an hour on chinesehour.com and then listen to a recording of the conversation and note where I say things not quite so well

I don't really agree with people who say that having the transcript might be less efficient. Particularly coming from people who were never well above intermediate after 18 months, and have lived and study in a target language country, and have a spouse who speaks the target language.

My view, is that these people don't fully understand what really works with this product, and what it takes to progress efficiently and quickly -- whilst also not living in the native environment. I could be wrong however.

Posted on: Focus and Specialization

Language learning is never made less efficient by listening to a dialogue a few times, and then reading a transcript.

Indeed, the combination of listening and reading combined together (particularly for 100% target language dialogues/discussions) is one of the most powerful and quickest way to progress in learning any language.

The science, and practice, behind input based language learning is very sound.