User Comments - pretzellogic

Posted on: World Cup Football

something like that... Brazil is a lot of fun, but so are some of the other Latin American countries. Actually, i've heard that the favorite in the world cup tends to do poorly in the tournament, and Brazil is usually the favorite. I'm too much of a realist to think that the US is going to make it to the final, although I would love to see that.

Posted on: World Cup Football Terms

Soccer can be boring, but watching it on Univision in the States is way more fun than watching soccer on ABC/ESPN. 

Posted on: World Cup Football

It's on like donkey kong! Go USA and Brazil!

Posted on: A Tour of Xi'an

It might be that digging up all that mercury left in the tomb would create an environmental disaster.

Posted on: A Tour of Xi'an

I thought that there was an interesting story about how one of the terracotta warrior's headswas discovered by a farmer back in 1976. Maybe that can be told in another lesson that talks more about the farm community surrounding the tomb, and the excavation sites.

Posted on: Progress Tracking and Grammar Guide

there also needs to be a way for users to turn off progress tracking if they decide they don’t want it, as well a way to adjust the levels once users pick motivation/desired outcome.

Posted on: Progress Tracking and Grammar Guide

I made a comment similar to this on the blog post, but the blog didn't end up posting the comment correctly (or I can't figure out what I did wrong...)

Another thought is that Sarah’s post implies that Level and Placement tests will automatically be tracked IF YOU TAKE THEM. I think it would be helpful if the Progress Tracking feature encouraged you to take level and placement tests after completing a certain number of lessons. I also think that there should be 4 buttons that ask

1)what kind of learner are you? (slow, fast, focused, casual, meandering)
2) and also why are you learning Chinese? (just curious, planning for a pleasure trip, planning for a business trip, moving to China, dating Chinese man/woman, marrying Chinese woman/man)
3)what are you hoping to gain from learning on our site? (just curious, learning a few words and that’s it, learning conversational mandarin, fluency in mandarin by next week)
4)how much time do you think you can put into your mandarin studies on a weekly basis? (<1 hour, 1-2 hours, 2-3 hours, 3-5 hours, 5-10 hours, >10 hours)

This way, a helpful assessment can be made prior to the learner starting with the progress tracking tool, and the progress tracking tool can give them better feedback about their progress given their goals outlined in the above buttons.

Posted on: Progress Tracking and Grammar Guide

The progress tracking guide is a great idea. Good job Cpod!

I made this comment on the blog, but i'll make it here as well. My problem is that the cpod website says I have, or am studying about 853 lessons. The site seemed to automatically assume that opening or downloading a lesson means that I was studying it, and that wasn’t the case. I think that I only have actively studied about 200 lessons or so at this point. Since i’m on guided subscription, the lessons that Grace says I have studied have been studied, but the other lessons haven’t been. I need some way to help cull through those 853 lessons to review the ones that actually were studied.

I would also suggest creating a button, or some kind of lesson progress activation button, so from that point on, the system knows you are studying for real, instead of assuming you’re studying, and can start measuring progress from that point.

Posted on: Insecticide

John, insight into upcoming lessons further out is always helpful and interesting. Thanks for that tip.

Posted on: Security Check in the Subway

I've used "lǒuxià?" or "lǒushàng? in those situations. I've heard Chinese just say "xià?" or "shàng?" in those situations as well. I'll be interested to see what others say.