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Ari’s Chinesepod method | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 1 of 19 24 October 2011 at 6:11pm | IP Logged | |||||
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So jondesousa asked me in a private message a long time ago about my Chinesepod method. I've been yapping
about how I think Chinesepod is awesome but never really explained my method in detail. CPod is pretty great, but it's very open and it's not easy to know how to use it. Since I've been away from HTLAL and language learning for many months, I didn't read the message until now, but here goes, I'm posting my CPod method. Maybe it can be useful for people other than jondesousa, so I'll post it here for all to see. Okay, my very first CPod method was strictly listening. Lots and lots of listening to lots and lots of lessons. No active study at all. This wasn't very efficient, but it was effortless. Progress was slow, but I was in no hurry. It took me a long time to get to feel comfortable in CPod's Elementary level, which is when I started to get really intense. Actually, what happened was that CPod stopped giving out the audio for free so I stopped learning Mandarin completely. Maybe six months later I took it up again, registered and started my intensive period. That's the method I'm going to describe now. During this period, I went through a new lesson every day, in this way: * In the evening, at home, I'd go through the new lesson. I'd listen to it a couple of times and read the transcript. I made sure I understood it perfectly. If there was some grammar or vocab point I didn't get, I'd ask about it in the comments section or on the CPod forums. I needed a perfect, if slow, understanding of what was being said and how. * I added all words that were unknown to me before I started the lesson into Anki. All of them. The amount of words would be quite big every time I gained a level, and would then gradually decrease. When they got down to quite few (something like one word every sentence), I'd start including more and more lessons from the next level up. This way I could keep a steady stream of new words (like 30 a day or so). I'd work on my Anki deck throughout the day, mostly during breaks at work. * The next stage was on the walk to work. I had a 15 minute walk to and from work, which I'd use to do shadowing. Playing the dialogue-only audio file on a loop, I'd work through it something like 10-15 times during that walk. After having listened some more at work, I'd do it again on the walk back and usually this would be enough for me to accurately shadow the entire dialogue and understand what I was saying, as I was saying it. The feeling of speaking accurate Mandarin at native speed and understanding exactly what I was saying was a pretty big motivation boost. By the time I got back home, I'd internalised the dialogue and was ready to start the next lesson. Many lessons had really difficult parts that took a lot of effort to get through. I got through them by doing a lot of rewinding and replaying the audio many times while shadowing, and by memorising the difficult parts and going through them again and again in my head while at work. I can still quote several CPod dialogues from memory now, two years later. The above was pretty much the core of my method. Listen through, make sure you understand completely, add all unknown words into Anki, shadow until you can follow along without mistakes. But that's not the entirety of it. There was also a supplementary practice. Here's how that went: * After a lesson was done, I'd add it to my "Completed CPod" playlist. This playlist would grow larger and larger and I'd listen to it throughout the day. Besides that 15 minute walk, I had a 45 minute bus commute. I'd spend some of it working through my Anki deck and a lot of it just listening to the old CPod dialogues. I'd actually have two playlists: one with the dialogue-only audio and another with the entire lesson. I'd switch around between them, but most of the time was probably spent listening to the dialogue-only audio. * During work I'd also listen to that playlist a lot, but I'd make sure to get a couple of listens to the next lesson I was going to start when I got home. Getting five or six "pre-listenings" like this was good, because some of the stuff had time to sink in before I really sank my teeth in the lesson. * At home, when not going through lessons, I'd watch a sh*tload of Mandarin kung fu dramas. In the beginning I'd watch them with English subs but concentrate to try to pick up words I recognise. After a while I switched over to Mandarin subs. * Oh, and I did more listening as I was falling asleep, by using a sleep timer on my computer. So, to arrange this chronologically, here's my typical day during my intense CPod period: * Wake up. Bus ride. Listen to old dialogues and lessons, often half-asleep. Also get a couple of listens to the lesson begun yesterday. * 15 minute walk. Shadowing the lesson begun yesterday, rewinding to work through difficult areas. * At work: During breaks I'd work through my Anki decks (yay for bathroom breaks!). Whilst working I'd listen to old dialogues and also start listening to today's new lesson. * 15 minute walk. Again shadow yesterday's lesson. Often make a first attempt at shadowing today's lesson once or twice. * 45 minute bus ride. Work through Anki. Listen a bit to old lessons. * Home again. Get the final few reps of Anki. Work through today's new lesson. Add all the new vocab into Anki. Make sure I understand the lesson completely. Post a bit on the CPod message boards. Watch kung fu soap operas until my eyes bleed. Go to bed. Listen to more CPod dialogues as I fall asleep. Edited by Ari on 25 October 2011 at 4:10pm 38 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| jasoninchina Senior Member China Joined 5231 days ago 221 posts - 306 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Mandarin, Italian | Message 2 of 19 25 October 2011 at 4:35am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for sharing. And welcome back!
1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| hkboy Groupie Hong Kong Joined 5676 days ago 65 posts - 86 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Cantonese, Mandarin | Message 3 of 19 25 October 2011 at 4:54am | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks and welcome back Simon! I've missed your posts. Where have you been?
I've been spending a lot of time with Cantonese and really nothing with Mandarin. However, I've still got my subscription to Chinesepod and I'm going to start back at it soon. Thanks again for the post. How long did you spend at this before you moved up to the Intermediate lessons? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 4 of 19 25 October 2011 at 6:32am | IP Logged | |||||
Playing and designing roleplaying games, and training martial arts, mostly. I can't focus on too many things at once, so when I get a surge in one hobby, another tends to fade out. I haven't been studying languages for many months.
Well, I was pretty comfortable with the Elementary level when I started this, so I got to Intermediate pretty quickly. Then it took me a couple of months before I started adding Upper Intermediate lessons. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Elsinore13 Groupie United States Joined 4976 days ago 41 posts - 53 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Mandarin | Message 5 of 19 25 October 2011 at 12:48pm | IP Logged | |||||
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This post could have come at a better time! I was thinking of dropping C-pod, because (I thought) I wasn't getting enough. Now I realize that I need to dig much deeper into each lesson. I'm anxious to try work some of your tips with my schedule.
Thanks for sharing this! (I will be sending you a PM) 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jondesousa Tetraglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 227 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish | Message 6 of 19 25 October 2011 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Ari,
Welcome back and thank you so much for this excellent post. This is exactly what I needed. I went through the newbie lessons just listening and reviewing the dialogues and didn't feel much connection with some of the new words here and there. I'm going to use your method as I think it makes much more sense than how I was using it. It looks like you took a very deep dive at 1 lesson per day. I'm hoping that I can get through 2 a day with as careful an examination but if not, I'll stick to one a day for now. I sincerely appreciate your help and guidance and it looks like I'm not the only one so hopefully it was time well spent for you. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Ari Heptaglot Senior Member Norway Joined 6582 days ago 2314 posts - 5695 votes Speaks: Swedish*, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Cantonese Studies: Czech, Latin, German | Message 7 of 19 25 October 2011 at 4:21pm | IP Logged | |||||
Working through one lesson a day was pretty intense for me, but I was mostly working at the Intermediate and Upper Intermediate levels, where lessons are quite a bit longer. With Newbie lessons two a day should be feasible, though I never actually used this method when I was there.
Time spent helping is time well spent. :) Just glad my experiences could be of some use to others. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| jondesousa Tetraglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/Zgg3nRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6264 days ago 227 posts - 297 votes Speaks: English*, Portuguese, Japanese, Esperanto Studies: Latin, Mandarin, Spanish | Message 8 of 19 25 October 2011 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi Ari,
Much thanks again. I finished about 60 of the Newbie lessons and have only been learning 1-2 new words per lesson now so I am going to jump into the Elementary level now. According to Chinesepod.com, they say that after about 80 lessons at the Elementary level one should start to transition to Intermediate. Since I've been working hard at NPCR on the side, I'm hoping to get through the elementary in about 1-2 months so I can really start the new year in Intermediate and above. I really appreciate all your help and support and I'm sure others do too. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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