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CLO vs. ChinesePod vs. PopUpChinese vs... | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Links & Internet Resources |  | |
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5369 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 1 of 25 21 February 2011 at 4:01am | IP Logged |
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Hi guys,
I was just hope that I could some feedback from Mandarin learners who have used various Chinese podcasts. I know the topic has been covered before, but I feel that the podcasting market has matured enough that one might be better able to gauge the different series. At this point the various company's have been around long enough to deliver the right mix of content. If I I'm not mistaken the "big" Mandarin podcasts are: 1) ChinesePod 2) ChineseLearnOnline 3) PopUpChinese 4) ChineseClass101 5) iMandarinPod* 6) CLSPod* Did I miss any others? How would we rank these as of 2011? I might actually get a subscription to one or another, once I get to an upper beginner/lower intermediate (finish Fluenz/FSI/TYS/Assiml). *Added per suggestion of other members (see below) Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 22 February 2011 at 5:39am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5753 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 2 of 25 21 February 2011 at 5:37am | IP Logged |
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Also check out http://www.imandarinpod.com
I really think you should trial their material and see for yourself. I've used CLO on and off and know that some dislike that it's a progressive course which builts on prior lessons. However I like that aspect. There are people who don't like the slight Taiwanese accent. That doesn't bother me given the many different Mandarin accents that I encounter locally in the US. CLO's primary focus is on listening and speaking. Other people might not like that. I also have used PopUp Chinese on and off for the Beijing accent. Their irreverent dialogues can be a nice change compared to the dialogs that many sites tend to have. Which one you like may also depend on how you work the material. I do not use website options such as flashcards, preferring to use Anki on my laptop and iPod. I dislike hearing a lot of English and therefore prefer to work with transcripts and audios stripped of English explanations. CLO, once you get to level 3, drastically cuts down on the English. iMandarinPod seems to do that pretty early too. I'm currently using CLO for echo work. My present thoughts are to become very comfortable echoing and shadowing the CLO material, through their highest level. Then move on to work the PopUp Chinese dialogs in basically the same way. Then I'm thinking of moving to iMandarinPod. I'm trying to work with the various accents, starting with the material that I personally like the best. By that time, I'll probably also be spending more time with character work. Right now, characters are on the back burner. Good luck! Edited by Snowflake on 21 February 2011 at 5:42am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5369 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 3 of 25 21 February 2011 at 6:28am | IP Logged |
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Thank you Snowflake! Great point on the use of transcripts get all the banter on the
podcasts. If one know the basic grammar and has the dialog MP3's, one can kind of "Assimil-lify" the podcasts, and then repeat/shadow. The most useful elements of the Podcasts are transcripts and audio with grammar notes. Irrelevant dialogs can be awesome (Assimil). 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Snowflake Senior Member United States Joined 5753 days ago 1032 posts - 1233 votes Studies: Mandarin | Message 4 of 25 21 February 2011 at 3:58pm | IP Logged |
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BTW, CLO only goes through intermediate. That's another reason why I plan to switch materials. The other programs that I mentioned go through advanced.
1 person has voted this message useful | |
| FamusBluRaincot Triglot Groupie Canada Joined 5355 days ago 50 posts - 114 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, French Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 5 of 25 22 February 2011 at 12:03am | IP Logged |
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Missing from the list is Cslpod.com. Some of their level three lessons are brilliant. They could serve as models for
how to effectively teach a language. They bill themselves as a source of supplemental learning rather than a “one- stop-solution” site. Imandarinpod has pumped out over a thousand lessons with transcripts and word lists. The earlier ones are available on DVD for a modest price. Some are quite advanced and others are easy. Until very recently, they haven’t produced any lessons for beginners. The teaching is fair, but the content is excellent. I think they are a must have. The Confucius Institute Online has lessons for every level and they keep adding new material: http://learning.chinese.cn/en/ 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| LatinoBoy84 Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5369 days ago 443 posts - 603 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish*, French Studies: Russian, Portuguese, Latvian | Message 6 of 25 27 February 2011 at 6:08am | IP Logged |
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Thank you for your insight. I am just really happy to see how the different services
have evolved in the last three to five years. Podcasting has been a blessing for language students. The amount of content generate in certain languages, such as Mandarin, is outstanding. Mandarin in particular has benefited from competition among sites. Edited by LatinoBoy84 on 27 February 2011 at 6:08am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Rob_Austria Heptaglot Groupie Austria Joined 4796 days ago 84 posts - 293 votes Speaks: German*, Italian, Spanish, French, English, Portuguese, Japanese Studies: Croatian, Mandarin, Russian, Arabic (Written), Turkish | Message 7 of 25 29 March 2011 at 11:55pm | IP Logged |
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I've used ChinesePod, CLO and www.melnyks.com
ChinesePod has an enormous amount of content and offers lots of practical exercises on its site. However, I'm more of a traditional learner, so I prefer books (or pdf files) and listening to audio material (all of which you also get with ChinesePod). I liked ChinesePod but somehow I preferred CLO because, as another user already mentioned, they cut down on the English spoken during their lessons and I really liked that. I also liked the idea of a progressive course. Melnyks is a gentleman who lives in Canada now. He is a Canadian citizen but I'm quite sure his mother tongue is a Slavic language (because he keeps omitting articles when he speaks English;-). He offers a lot of very useful and in my opinion extremely practical content. His course progresses much faster than the other ones. Besides, he does not offer any extra exercises on his site (you can download a worksheet for each lesson, however). His lessons are theme-based so you can choose the topic you are interested in. As strange as it may sound, the only thing I did not like about his course was the fact that he often mispronounces words in English to the extent that they are incomprehensible (when you first hear them at least). You may say that you want to study Chinese and not English and that therefore this might not be a problem, but if you hear him say "food" while he actually means "foot" it can be kind of confusing, especially since you will hear these mistakes over and over again in his recordings. As time goes by, you may get used to it though. His English translations of the Chinese texts also contain lots of mistakes and I found that somewhat disturbing (I would have asked a native speaker to at least have a look at the English translations). Maybe this has to do with the fact that I'm not a native speaker of English and therefore rely much more on correct usage of the language than you may, but I just wanted to mention that fact because it actually is the reason why I sort of stopped listening to his lessons. You should give them a try though. I'll definitely check out the other sites you mentioned. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| rolf Senior Member United Kingdom improvingmydutch.blo Joined 5801 days ago 107 posts - 134 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Dutch | Message 8 of 25 17 April 2011 at 12:35am | IP Logged |
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I have recently listened to a handful of Chinesepod lessons. They are quite good.
I like the format and they are great for long train journeys but without the need to focus as hard as you would with e.g. Michel Thomas or Pimsleur. I can't compare to the rest though. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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