ChineseLearnOnline.com

[KaiMcCoy]

When I first moved to China, I could not speak a word of Mandarin so I looked everywhere on the net for a decent guide, I downloaded at least 30 different programs but finally found a podcast that teaches you right from the basic tones... I let my local friends listen to it and they all agreed that it would be very beneficial as they cover EVERYTHING. The website is www.chineselearnonline.com and for the free users, you only have access to the audio downloads (lessons can be downloaded 10 at a time) but for the premium users, you have 24/7 assistance, tutorials on the characters, etc. Its up to lesson 200 and something now and at this stage they teach you Chinese... in Chinese... I'm only up to lesson 20 something but I have already downloaded all the way up to the latest one. So if you want to check it out, here is a direct link to the bulk downloads, enjoy.

http://www.chineselearnonline.com/downloads

[self-taught-mba]

Reads like an advertisement to me.

So when you moved to China instead of looking at all of the local resources schools, teachers, tutors, friends etc. you instead enrolled in a strictly online service?

That is some course.

That site has been mentioned here before and it looks pretty decent, but the post sounds very strangely like an advertisement.

[KaiMcCoy]

I have had a look through and as of today ( 10/06/08 ), there are 234 lessons each teaching something new or reviewing past lessons. I have written up a lesson structure for each lesson just so you can see what this site offers as the lessons go by. Its a very simple description taken from the site, just to make things a bit easier. 保重.

ChineseLearnOnline.txt

http://www.mediafire.com/?4tgdxdcwidm

[KaiMcCoy]

I can assure you the original post is far from an advertisement... I originally moved over to China as a foreign teacher so the only teaching of Mandarin I was getting was from my students and that wasn't much help as I was supposed to be the teacher. Those lessons have improved my oral Mandarin remarkably so I thought I'd have half a heart and let others benefit from this as well so they didnt have to go through hundreds of sites and programs looking for a half decent teaching guide when they don't have anyone willing to help them on a daily basis...

[self-taught-mba]

Sorry if a little suspicious.It's just when someone registers and posts a plug for a site in the same day on only the second post history has shown it tends to be just that - a plug.

Where did you get the "ChineseLearnOnline.txt" ? Didn't see it listed on their website nor a google search.

[KaiMcCoy]

Reading my original post back, I think I should go into marketing lol. Well, what I did was go through the entire list of lessons and typed up the headings/topics of each one so I didn't need to listen to each one individually to find what I was looking for. I now just have to look at that document and bam, go straight to the lesson... It took a good half hour to type up but I know it'll save me (and possibly others) hours in the long run.

So no, you won't find that .txt anywhere... cos I only made that in the last few hours...

Take care (and I'll try to sound less excited when writing about something I like so it doesn't look like advertising)

[tony1343]

CLO's been mentioned on this site a few times, though I was never able to find a good review of it when I first starting looking.

I've been using it for maybe 8 months and really like it. I'm up to Level 4, somewhere around lesson 185 (I skimmed through the first lessons real quickly since i had done pimsleurs). Anyway, I also ocassionally use ChinesePod, but I really like the progressive nature of CLO, which is why I have stuck with it and become a paying member.

Only complaint would be that it first it tried to switch speakers to get the user experience in accents from different areas (southern china, beijing, taiwan, etc), but the later episodes seem to pretty much stick with Taiwanese speakers. So my pronunciation is probably tending that way (I almost never use the 儿 sound), though I also often speak to some Chinese people from Southern China (Zhejiang, where I guess the native language is a Wu dialect).

Anyway, thought I'd give my two cents.

[KaiMcCoy]

Thanks for your 2 cents Tony I can never find the time to do more than 3 lessons at a time so unfortunately I'm nowhere near your level. Maybe one day though