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Best resources for Mandarin? | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes |  | |
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5229 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 9 of 33 16 September 2010 at 6:33am | IP Logged | ||
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I'll second kuai le han yu 快乐汉语. There's over 100 episodes and it's reasonably enjoyable to watch. It has subtitles, so it's good to use right from the beginning. Also, twice in every episode they introduce and explain a rule of grammar used by one of the actors. I like to write these down and practice with them.
Another show that is super funny is 喜羊羊与灰太狼 。 This cartoon does not have subtitles, at least any that I've seen, but it uses really simple language and is hilarious to watch. If textbooks are your thing, I use the series put out by Beijing Language and Culture University Press. As far as textbooks go, I've used none better. If they had more audio for it, I think it would be the ultimate resource. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| FamusBluRaincot Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 5559 days ago 50 posts - 114 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 10 of 33 16 September 2010 at 10:17am | IP Logged | ||
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When I first started Mandarin, I scratched around for any materials I could find. I wasn’t too serious about my
studies, and didn’t learn any characters. Most of the courses were pretty bad, and I kept abandoning my studies when I ran out of material. I liked the Pimsleur course, though it only teaches a tiny sliver of the language. The audio portion of the Living Language series was a disappointment. The learn-in-your car type courses that you can find at Amazon.com were useful. Yes, they only teach vocabulary, but thats important too. My favorite course was “Le Chinois sans Peine” by Assimil. I had high hopes for Chinesepod when it first came online, but I soon became frustrated by their approach. They had way too much blather in English, and badly spoken Mandarin by Ken Carroll. I thought things would improve when they brought in John Pasden, but now I had to listen to interminable grammar lessons in English along with his non-native (good but not perfect) Mandarin. Of course I could delete everything except the dialogues, but then I would be tied to a screen with the translations. Also, they seemed totally disinterested in teaching Chinese culture-no stories, history lessons, etc. I dumped the Chinesepod lessons from my Ipod when IMandarinpod came online. They had the cultural content I was looking for along with the usual practical lessons on more mundane topics. They have pumped out about a 1000 lessons by now-most of them substantial. Some are easy, some are difficult. Some of the teachers are better than others. Grammar instruction is in Mandarin-difficult at first, but better for you in the long run. I think they are the premier source of Mandarin content on the web. The IMandarinpod lessons are no long totally free, but all of them can be obtained at a very reasonable price. ChineseLearnOnLine is another good source of Mandarin materials. They start at the beginner level, and are always respectful of your time. They keep the English to a minimum, and systematically teach you the Mandarin necessary for all Mandarin instruction. The whole format is much better thought out than that of Chinesepod in my opinion. Unfortunately the lessons don’t take you to a very high level, and there aren’t enough of them. My vote for the best Mandarin teaching on the web goes to CSLpod. Many of their lessons are simply brilliant- effective, efficient, and fun. Their level 3 lessons focus on everyday spoken language. I haven’t used their level 1 lessons, but I’m sure they are also very good. They have over 1000 lessons available, but seem to have stopped producing new ones. These days, most of my study is done with audio material I downloaded from VeryCD.com. They have Mandarin translations of most of the great Western classics both for children and adults. They also have hundreds of hours of Chinese stories and lessons for children and adults. The easiest material, aimed at preschoolers, should be accessible to advanced beginners. 8 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| FamusBluRaincot Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 5559 days ago 50 posts - 114 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 11 of 33 16 September 2010 at 10:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Let me apologize for the poor formatting on the above post and other postings of mine. The formatting seems
correct on my screen, but when I cut and paste it to the window, I get what you see above. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 12 of 33 16 September 2010 at 11:33am | IP Logged | ||
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No course is perfect for everyone and which course is better is a matter of opinion. I don't want to look like a CPod fanboy rabidly defending everything about it, but I feel I need to make a few clarifications.
Ken Carroll no longer works with ChinesePod. His voice is in some of the older lessons, but not in the newer ones. The dialogues are exclusively read by native speakers and the explanations are usually by two people, at least one of which is a native Mandarin speaker. The lower level lessons (Newbie and Elementary) have short dialogues with explanations of every word in English. At the Intermediate level, all explanations on grammar and usage are said first in Mandarin by a native speaker and then in English by an American. This is done in a conversational and relaxed manner, so it's not a word-by-word translation, rather John (the American) talks in the sort of way people talk on the telephone in the movies, repeating everything the other person said. In the Upper Intermediate it's mostly Mandarin with some clarifications in English and when you get to the Advanced level it's all Mandarin. There are also stand-alone shows like Qing Wen (explaining certain grammar points). As for the cultural part, there's a lot of that nowadays. Since you get to pick and choose your lessons on every level, you can learn a lot about the cultural issues since many lessons highlight them. Of course, not all of them do, but since they've been going for five years, they have thousands of lessons, so you won't be in short supply. There is a separate show called 'Dear Amber' which is no longer produced, but still available for download. This is purely culture, explained in English. Another now discontinued show is Poems with Pete where you get classical Chinese poems read and explained. Oh, and you no longer need to delete everything but the dialogues since they are available as stand-alone files. The dialogue transcriptions are on the screen as well as embedded in the lyrics portion of the MP3s. At the site you get hideable line-by-line translations and mouse-over translations word by word. Clicking on words will save them in your personal vocab section which you can work on through Skritter (writing practice with your mouse, doesn't require separate Skritter account) and flashcards. It also syncs to Anki and StudyArcade if you're an SRS fan. The site has an API, so third parties can do stuff with the lesson contents (I know there's something called AIChinese that uses this, but I'm not sure what they do). If you fork out lots of dough you get telephone conversation practice and individual study plans. I haven't tried them, so I can't vouch for them. There's also an active community where you can ask questions and get answers and some other useful stuff, like randomized exercises for every lesson and an audio file with vocab and phrase practice (English-pause-Mandarin type audio). So there you go. Decide for yourselves if it's your cup of tea. Edited by Ari on 16 September 2010 at 11:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| FamusBluRaincot Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 5559 days ago 50 posts - 114 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 13 of 33 16 September 2010 at 9:36pm | IP Logged | ||
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Ari:
You are right to point out that my information about Chinesepod is not up-to-date. I am happy to hear they have improved and I may even give them another try. I guess I am put off by people who keep insisting that they are the only resource you should check-out when you study Mandarin. Also, I feel like I should root for the underdog. Chinesepod is by far the best at self-promotion and the only one that seems to make much money. The other sites I mentioned are poor at self-promotion, and deserve to be more widely known. I think its a shame that several have stopped producing new lessons. I'm not against the use of English in lessons-just excessive English. The later lessons of ChineseLearnOnline show how this can be done. A lesson might have, say, five words in English, but they are thoughtfully chosen to give you the exact hint you need to understand whats going on without wasting your time. As soon as you are past the rank beginner lessons, Adam, the non-native founder of the site, wisely chooses to stay in the background and let the native speakers handle the lessons. My bias is toward stand-alone lessons, that I can use while I am on the move. Also, while I have great respect for non-native speakers who have learned the language well, I much prefer to learn from native speakers only. Some of the lessons CSLpod level 3 are the best I have heard in any language. The teacher is brilliant and gifted. She seems uncannily good at guessing which words and constructions you will have trouble with. She varies her pacing according to the difficulty of the material, and leaves you time to absorb and repeat. When she thinks the material should be more familiar, she speeds up and gives you a taste of full native speed. I have often had the experience of listening to the slow-paced opening dialogue and not having a clue what its about. A few minutes later, after her all-Mandarin instruction, I hear the dialogue at full-speed and now I understand every word. If Chinesepod were to hire her and let her handle things, I would sign-up immediately. In a few short years, the Chinese learning landscape has changed from a desert to a lush paradise. I'm not sure if any language other than English has as many good learning materials. Its wonderful to have such a wide choice. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6580 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 14 of 33 17 September 2010 at 3:51am | IP Logged | ||
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Yeah, I'm certainly not dissing the other pods. CPod is good at promotion and it's been in the game the longest, using a format which gets more useful the longer you keep going. Of the other pods I've only tried ChineseLearnOnline. It was kinda good, but the lessons weren't stand-alone but rather each one built upon the previous one. Also the teacher was Taiwanese so she had a bit of an accent.
More options is always a good thing and the other pods are certainly worth checking out. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| irrationale Tetraglot Senior Member China Joined 6048 days ago 669 posts - 1023 votes 2 sounds Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Tagalog Studies: Ancient Greek, Japanese | Message 15 of 33 17 September 2010 at 8:05am | IP Logged | ||
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For me, I couldn't get past Chinesepod's over-use of English, John Pasden's non native Chinese (I never want to hear a non-native if not absolutely necessary), and too obscure and/or cute vocab. To me it really seems they try to make it too entertaining and add too many slang type words that should be learned way down the road. Either it was too easy with too much hand holding and English, or full native with Shanghai slang and no middle ground. I tried Cpod more than a year ago, however, so maybe things have changed. What I say is according to 1 or 2 months browsing and trying the lessons. Full native Cpod is great for pure listening practice, however.
I guess what it comes down to is personal preferences. I am firmly in the Audio-Lingual Pimsleur/FSI school, and most of the time, do not want any grammar explanations at all. Massive amounts of meat and potatoes sentences, drills, substitutions, etc, with no frills or interesting vocab to make it entertaining. I could definitely understand different learning styles, but doubt that using CPod is a main study vehicle could bring anyone to fluency and am reticent to recommend to a beginner. However since Ari has stated the affirmative, I stand corrected. More power to anyone gaining fluency in this language through any method. Edited by irrationale on 17 September 2010 at 8:11am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Chris Heptaglot Senior Member Japan Joined 7119 days ago 287 posts - 452 votes Speaks: English*, Russian, Indonesian, French, Malay, Japanese, Spanish Studies: Dutch, Korean, Mongolian | Message 16 of 33 17 September 2010 at 11:07am | IP Logged | ||
Erm, call me suspicious here, but one post by this brand new member quoting a URL and saying that all other Chinese resources are a waste of time except that one... Oh, and it costs to join. Anyone else's alarm bells ringing here? 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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