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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5853 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 305 of 408 25 April 2014 at 2:44am | IP Logged |
I didn't know they actually had software to record that. I've always just downloaded the mp3 files and occasionally the pdfs, but i tend to use them while going for walks. I keep telling myself that i should use them with the PDFs, but i just can't motivate myself to listen to them at a computer.
Btw, another Chinese podcast you might be interested in checking out is iMandarinPod. The ones i've listened to, at least, have been completely in Chinese, spoken clearly and slowly. I think they tend to take a word (or more often, a chengyu), explain it, then give several dialogs using it in context. The dialogs at ChinesePod definitely have a lot more life to them, though.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 306 of 408 25 April 2014 at 9:39am | IP Logged |
It's a very simple counter of lessons you have marked as "studied" in each level. I've just checked and the counter is still completely wrong in my case. I have received no answer to my mail about that either. As I have to renew (or not) my subscription in three weeks time, that's a bad omen for them. There are interesting (not to mention cheaper) alternatives, like:
- ChineseLearnOnline
- Popup Chinese
- or iMandarinPod (thanks for drawing my attention to it)
It is true, however, as you say, that the ChinesePod podcasts themselves are brilliant.
For "intermediate" level dialogues, I also use the mp3 files on the go, mainly. On the other hand, for "upper intermediate" dialogues, I have to refer back to the pdf, in order to check my transcript and my understanding. That's one of the very few occasions when I study Chinese in front of a computer - my phone has replaced it altogether.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 307 of 408 28 April 2014 at 9:27am | IP Logged |
I've worked on a ChinesePod (intermediate) podcast about 电脑屏幕. Quite easy, but I still had to listen to it several times before I understood in sufficient details.
I've listened repeatedly to an iMandarinPod podcast about 北京的故宫。 Thanks again for the tip, Crush. Although the content is more scholarly, less lively, probably less useful to understand normal spoken Chinese, it is also very interesting (for me).
I've read more of of 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑" (I'm at page 124/564, chapter 4/29). I posted an update about chapter 2 on Chinese-forums.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 308 of 408 02 May 2014 at 10:21am | IP Logged |
As life is pretty hectic at home and at work, I've had no time to do anything else than read "流星 蝴蝶 剑", while studying vocab in Pleco and characters in Skritter. So, although I have nothing really exciting to mention in this log, for the sake of personal stats, here's the count of pages read up to now this year:
January: 248
February: 202
March: 268
April: 234
In 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑", I'm at page 159/564, chapter 5/29. I posted more writeups over in Chinese-Forums.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 309 of 408 06 May 2014 at 9:30am | IP Logged |
Yesterday, I discovered yet another interesting source for practicing listening comprehension: 开卷八分钟, 8-minute long shows about modern literature, with transcripts.
The show is made by 凤凰网, just like the popular 锵锵三人行。
凤凰网
List of available shows
As an example, a show about 马尔克斯 (Marquez) 《百年孤独》, on which I worked yesterday:
link
In 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑", I'm at page 181/564, chapter 6/29.
I wrote several write-ups about the book over at chinese-forums.
The thread
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 310 of 408 15 May 2014 at 11:47am | IP Logged |
I restarted working with ChineseLearnOnline podcasts. Their design is very different from those of ChinesePod. They are definitely more stilted, less natural, they sometimes feel more like "lessons" than podcasts, but they are carefully thought out and progressive and rather enjoyable. I've also restarted listening some Chinese in the background while working.
In 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑", I'm at page 241/564, chapter 9/29.
Still revising daily vocab doses with Pleco. My backlog in Skritter is much too long, I'm struggling to keep it under control.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 311 of 408 02 June 2014 at 11:19am | IP Logged |
Not much worth mentioning these last few weeks. Life continues to take its toll, so study time is very limited. Anyway, this is what I've been able to do:
LISTENING: I've worked on a few ChineseLearnOnline podcasts and I've now reached lesson #222.
VOCABULARY: I switched to emergency mode, i.e.:
- for words (which I study with Pleco), I've gradually decreased the daily dose of new words from 20-25 to 10-15, so it's much more manageable
- for characters (which I study with Skritter), I temporarily stopped adding new characters, so I was able to bring the backlog under control and have a much more manageable number of daily reviews
READING: I went on reading 古龙's "流星 蝴蝶 剑". I'm now reading page 373/564, chapter 17/29. Even on the most busy days, I try to make sure I read at least 1 page. Fortunately, on most days, I can read more than that. Here are my stats since the beginning of the year:
January: 248 pages
February: 202 pages
March: 268 pages
April: 234 pages
May: 216 pages
"流星 蝴蝶 剑" continues to be extremely interesting and entertaining, full of passion, lust, action, plot twists, false leads, and all. And the language remains slightly challenging but perfectly enjoyable for intermediate learners.
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| lorinth Tetraglot Senior Member Belgium Joined 4262 days ago 443 posts - 581 votes Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Latin Studies: Mandarin, Finnish
| Message 312 of 408 04 June 2014 at 11:25am | IP Logged |
Unexpectedly, I had some time to watch a movie yesterday. So I watched an old kung fu film called "大醉侠" ("Come drink with me" in EN, "L'hirondelle d'or" in FR). In spite of slightly outdated special effects and the relatively poor quality of the copy, it was actually surprisingly good.
A young martial artist (called Golden Swallow) attempts to free her brother from the hands of a gang of bandits, led by the scary Jade Faced Tiger. She's helped by a drunkard called Drunken Cat.
Another surprise: the movie is spoken in Mandarin. I would have thought that a Kung Fu movie made in Hong Kong in 1966 would have been spoken in Cantonese. It was easy to find a subtitle file (srt) on the net. Unfortunately, I don't know if and when I'll have the opportunity to watch the movie again while reading the file.
There's a Wikipedia article in EN (but not in ZH...).
Here's the trailer on Youtube.
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