User Comments - pretzellogic
pretzellogic
Posted on: Focus and Specialization
December 31, 2011 at 12:51 AMI do feel like the lesson discussion is a full level or more above the lesson itself. Am I truly the only one that feels this way?
Having transcribed a single lesson discussion, and about 30 intermediate and 20 upper intermediate lessons, my take is that the lesson itself is far more challenging that the discussion. I'll go out on a limb and say that I get the jist (80%) of most basic conversation in Chinese, and now its specialized stuff that leaves me in the dust. Specialized stuff being like CCTV news @ 800mph. Intermediate lessons tended to have 10-30 new words that I hadn't encountered before. Upper intermediate lessons tended to have 30-70 new words I hadn't encountered before. Yet the lesson discussion itself tended to be the usual Jenny/John banter, and discussion of some points they felt it necessary to highlight.
Posted on: Focus and Specialization
December 31, 2011 at 12:43 AMcould CPod maybe be persuaded to sell access to a Transcript tab to subscribers who want one, say just for UI lessons?
Just curious, who OWNS the content if subscribers wrote the transcripts? Cpod?
Posted on: National Stereotypes
December 30, 2011 at 2:13 PMGilsonRosa, at the risk of highlighting my own stereotypes, are you a fan of Ayrton Senna??
Posted on: Plane Ticket Prices
December 30, 2011 at 2:09 PMactually, the News and Features from 2009 wasn't a promotion, but an interview with someone from Ctrip.
Posted on: Plane Ticket Prices
December 30, 2011 at 2:06 PMBodawei, just when I was going to say I don't recall a CTrip lesson in the Jenny Zhu Show, I did a search on the site. There was a News and Features back in 2009 with some kind of Cpod promotion with Ctrip. But sadly, I am wedded to United, so these kinds of discount websites are useless to me. Plus, as a frequent flyer, I need something good in the US, not just Asia.
Posted on: Focus and Specialization
December 29, 2011 at 2:15 PMwaiguoren, I remember when I started transcribing the intermediate, and upper intermediate dialogues themselves (not the John/Jenny discussion, but the actual 2 minute dialogue), frequently, I would come up with between 30-70 vocabulary words that I didn't already know. The really interesting thing for me is that transcribing the John/Jenny discussion made me realize I was probably encountering about 10-20 words that I didn't already know. This is, of course, after transcribing a statistically significant sample size of one lesson.
Posted on: Focus and Specialization
December 29, 2011 at 2:08 AMI would love to hear what specific actions/technologies/methods the competitors are taking that you would consider a leap in what cpod offers. I've casually looked at popupchinese.com, and cslpod, so it's not an exhaustive list here. Popup Chinese focuses on video and HSK teaching, and i'll take other's word for the chinese grammar structure focus of cslpod.
Posted on: Presentation on Trends
December 28, 2011 at 4:06 AMBoy, this is one helpful explanation.
Posted on: Presentation on Trends
December 28, 2011 at 3:59 AMraw transcription here.
http://chinesepod.com/community/conversations/post/12443#comment-228619
Posted on: Focus and Specialization
December 31, 2011 at 1:18 AMIf the lesson asked poddies for specialized Chinese situations, then one I came across is setting up your own wireless at home. Not every apartment in China has the wireless router already set up. I know how set up a network when the router is in English, but its a challenge when every page is in Chinese. Then try answering questions like "Broadcast SSID?" "WEP encryption?" WPK encryption? or try going to the page where it asks you to enter the MAC addresses for computers allowed on your domain.