爬中文山

Yeah, I remember enjoying their intermediate lessons a lot. You can often guess some of what the Chinese speaker is saying from the how the English speaker replies, even if you don't fully understand the Chinese. How are the latest lesson from the new crew? I only ever got to experience the Shanghai/Jenny and Taiwan/Fiona eras.

On 12/31/2019 at 11:57 PM, StChris said:

Yeah, I remember enjoying their intermediate lessons a lot. You can often guess some of what the Chinese speaker is saying from the how the English speaker replies, even if you don't fully understand the Chinese. How are the latest lesson from the new crew? I only ever got to experience the Shanghai/Jenny and Taiwan/Fiona eras.

 

Exactly! I Find I gain as much from listening to the native Chinese speaker making asides and comments than from the actual lesson. And yes, the native English speakers answer helps make the Chinese very clear and easy to follow.

 

The new crew is a bit of a mixed bag imo. First of all there seem to be a bigger variety of host teams and they seem to be putting out quite a lot of content at all levels and topics. This is definitely good. Another positive is that they seem to have several laowai hosts who have good solid pronunciation. BUT, One thing I find annoying is that in the (admittedly few) lessons I've listened to, they seem to include more English. I just don't see why the native speaker has to speak any English at all once you're at the intermediate level. The absolute sweet spot was the John Pasden ones, I wish they could just follow that model. I wonder if they speak so much English because either A. the Chinese host wants to show off his/her English and enjoys speaking it - but frankly, I could care less to hear it,  I'm not there for English pod. B. Maybe it's marketing thing and most customers aren't like me, they want entertainment primarily and things to be kept easy.  There was a new lesson on alcohol, with 2 ABC(?) hosts and I jumped around the lesson looking for Chinese language would begin, but it seemed almost entirely in English! Here's the link to that example: https://www.chinesepod.com/lesson/chinese-drinking-culture (don't know if it'll open if you're your not a subscriber or not)

 

Anyway, I DO think Chinese Pod is an amazing resource and a good value, this is just a relatively small complaint. I do think the new team is doing pretty good overall. Basically, I just cant wait for the day I can move up to a level where there is no English at all.

On 1/2/2020 at 3:44 PM, suMMit said:

Anyway, I DO think Chinese Pod is an amazing resource and a good value, this is just a relatively small complaint. I do think the new team is doing pretty good overall. Basically, I just cant wait for the day I can move up to a level where there is no English at all.

 

I think Chinese Pod is worth it just for the library of existing lessons alone. It's how I started learning Chinese, and I have very fond memories of the experience.