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Languagepod101

 Language Learning Forum : Language Programs, Books & Tapes Post Reply
12 messages over 2 pages: 1 2  Next >>
Cavesa
Triglot
Senior Member
Czech Republic
Joined 5008 days ago

3277 posts - 6779 votes 
Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

 
 Message 1 of 12
30 April 2013 at 3:50am | IP Logged 
Anyone has experience with using these? The innovativelanguages.com have resources for
quite a wide selection of languages. I have just started with the Germanpod101 (looking
for something to put into my mp3 player) and I must admit seeing Judith-Sprachprofi in
charge is quite a guarantee of quality for me. I would need to ask for changing my
username before daring to post on their forums (my full real name is accidentally
included) so I'll first try here. What is your experience with this? How advanced are the
advanced lessons? Is the quality consistent in all the languages? Did you enjoy using the
material? What are its strengths and weaknesses in your opinion?

My first impression is very good, I even consider buying Basic membership. However, I am
going through a Beginner course and we all know it is easier to find (and probably to
make as well) good beginner stuff than the intermediate or advanced one.
4 persons have voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5129 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 2 of 12
30 April 2013 at 6:47am | IP Logged 
I've looked at a couple of their courses (either xxxpod101 or xxxclass101). Some are
really good, others so-so.

I thought the Polishpod101 course was very good. They did a good job of simply
explaining in plain language why certain things are said in certain ways.

The Turkishclass101 course, while easy enough to follow, since it was maybe the fourth
resource for the language I'd used, wasn't nearly as helpful with their explanations,
and some of their translations, while not exactly wrong, were far from complete. But I
also had the benefit of 20/20 hindsight for a lot of what I *thought* the explanations
should have been.

They both seemed to follow a loose structure that was mimicked in each course, but did
allow for some cultural and linguistic differences.

R.
==

3 persons have voted this message useful



eggcluck
Senior Member
China
Joined 4700 days ago

168 posts - 278 votes 
Speaks: English*
Studies: Mandarin, Japanese

 
 Message 3 of 12
30 April 2013 at 11:39am | IP Logged 
I used Japanesepod101 when I was studying Japanese, it was their main flagship site. After a while I found the male presenter starting to grate on me.

Though I did find the site itself useful, though in the intermediate levels that I reached I found some of the vocabulary choices to be questionable such as 'lava bath'. Some of the tools such as their SRS have better alternatives, it is a classic case of trying to be a one stop shop, with the kind of problems that that entails.

My favourite point about the site was its vocabulary explanation with example sentences of which I made heavy use of, just a shame that I could not take the audio to make my own flashcards with.

I did browse the other sites but was put off by the cookie cutter style front pages, and the 'spamtastic' selling methods.
4 persons have voted this message useful



Arekkusu
Hexaglot
Senior Member
Canada
bit.ly/qc_10_lec
Joined 5380 days ago

3971 posts - 7747 votes 
Speaks: English, French*, GermanC1, Spanish, Japanese, Esperanto
Studies: Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Estonian

 
 Message 4 of 12
30 April 2013 at 2:25pm | IP Logged 
I quite enjoyed Japanesepod101, despite the fact that there is quite a bit of time wasted on useless banter.

I wrote a series for Frenchpod101, but unlike Sprachprofi, I wasn't involved in the recording process at all.
3 persons have voted this message useful



jdmoncada
Tetraglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 5033 days ago

470 posts - 741 votes 
Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Finnish
Studies: Russian, Japanese

 
 Message 5 of 12
30 April 2013 at 2:30pm | IP Logged 
I agree about spamtastic selling methods!


I have used several different courses from Innovative Language Learning. Basically, I got free subscriptions for each of the languages I study that they also produce. Because of it, I get a lot of email from them.

The pdf files are not part of the free package, but they are available as free downloads through Audible.com. Basically the company sells their podcasts as an audiobook through Audible, and the lesson notes are free supplementary material. There's where I got the things I wasn't willing to pay for directly. The most useful of the lesson notes to me personally was for Japanese because it would have the dialogues written several different ways (romaji, kana, mixed kana/kanji). Then I was first learning how to read Japanese, this was really useful.
4 persons have voted this message useful



fabriciocarraro
Hexaglot
Winner TAC 2012
Senior Member
Brazil
russoparabrasileirosRegistered users can see my Skype Name
Joined 4714 days ago

989 posts - 1454 votes 
Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishB2, Italian, Spanish, Russian, French
Studies: Dutch, German, Japanese

 
 Message 6 of 12
30 April 2013 at 3:31pm | IP Logged 
I've used the RussianPod101 and quite liked it! While I was at A2/B1- level, it was quite useful. I never tried the advanced ones though.
2 persons have voted this message useful



Michel1020
Tetraglot
Senior Member
Belgium
Joined 5016 days ago

365 posts - 559 votes 
Speaks: French*, English, Spanish, Dutch

 
 Message 7 of 12
30 April 2013 at 5:52pm | IP Logged 
I have mp3 and pdf or transripts out of the lesson comments.

For the lower levels I have sometime difficulties to chose where to start - basic bootcamp - pronounciation - newbies - absolute beginners - Survival Phrases - even Genko.
Maybe I am wrong but I think the same words and structures come again and again in each of these divisions.

In some languages I started at advanced (dutch thanks to years of school and some other podcasts on the internet and Italian thanks to my french native and my quite advanced Spanish).

There are a few cultural points that I doubt about - in the Italian advanced for example they claim Italian dubling industry to be the best or the first (I don't remember exactly) in the world - well Bozo everything foreign on french or German tv is dubled in their own language - dubling is not specific to Italy.

In another episode they claim pre-dinner drink to be endemic to Italy.

In a low level russian episode they claim most taxi drivers in Beijing will understand you if you talk to them in russian - do chinese and russian natives here agree ?

I have my own claim - most taxi drivers in the world will understand you if you talk to them in English - I am not even sure of that one.

In my opinion the advanced audio blog could be better - from what I listen to so far - they are basically a reading of a cultural script at a too uniform speed by one individu.

I don't want to sound too negative - you get mp3 from humans with editable transcripts. In some languages you can get a lot for free from their own site - in other you depend on illegal copies if you don't want to pay.



Edited by Michel1020 on 30 April 2013 at 5:55pm

3 persons have voted this message useful



hrhenry
Octoglot
Senior Member
United States
languagehopper.blogs
Joined 5129 days ago

1871 posts - 3642 votes 
Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese
Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe

 
 Message 8 of 12
30 April 2013 at 6:17pm | IP Logged 
jdmoncada wrote:
I agree about spamtastic selling methods!
...
The pdf files are not part of the free package.

They do tend to send out some pretty shameless emails after the full-access trial has
ended (it was after 7 days, last time I checked).

Speaking of full-access trials, If you plan ahead, once you get your trial membership,
you can freely download ALL available content directly from the website. Takes some
forethought though, since most languages' full premium content is multi-gigs in size.

R.
==


1 person has voted this message useful



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