野猫号 - New podcast (w/ transcripts in simp/trad)

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Hi,

my gf and I had been thinking about making a Chinese language podcast (she's Chinese) for a while, when a couple of days ago one of her Chinese friends came over and we decided to record some of their conversation. I spent the weekend making a website and editing it a bit. You can listen to the result here:

http://www.yemaohao.com/episodes/001-feng-shui

We'd love to hear your opinions! Especially constructive criticism

[amandagmu]

Good idea. I hate highly structured and boring podcasts because they don't usually sound this realistic. :-)

The only question remains: how to make it a study tool? I will let others chime in here.

My suggestion/request -- pick common topics that are not normally covered by other podcasts or textbooks. For example, I love it when people talk about their families, historical topics, pop culture (非诚勿扰?? ;-)), films, local news, etc.

[stoney]

I like the idea of authentic conversations. I prefer everyday topics and vocabulary. at natural speed.

Some way to include or submit English translations, especially for difficult sections would be cool.

Thank you for doing this.

[laurenth]

Excellent. For learning purposes, I like the natural format of conversation and the fact that a full transcript is available. The sound is good and the website is uncluttered and easy to use.

Is there any way I could use another podcast manager than iTunes though?

I'll certainly be following the development of your podcast. Thanks for your work.

[abcdefg]

I like the fact that the conversation has a "natural" feel, like two Chinese people talking about a topic instead of deliberately making a podcast for language learners. Their speech is clear. The native speed makes parts difficult to understand on first hearing, but that's the way real life is here, at least for me. The transcript is very helpful. I found the subject matter interesting.

One constructive suggestion would be to make it a bit shorter. I'd rather have two short lessons than one long lesson. Easier to tackle. Keep up the good work.

[stoney]

One advantage of a longer text is that new words and grammar have a greater chance of being repeated.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Thanks everyone for commenting!

@amandagmu

The only question remains: how to make it a study tool?

This is a very good question. People on this forum have come up with answers like [1] and [2], but we're working on ideas for a solution as well.

@stoney We're glad you enjoy listening to the podcast! I'm working on translations for the transcripts right now, they should be online soon.

@laurenth Is there a specific podcast manager that you have in mind?

@abcdefg I totally agree. We want to aim for ~5 minutes for the next episodes.

I just uploaded the second episode (might not be visible in iTunes yet):

http://www.yemaohao.com/episodes/002-social-networks-in-china-1

[1] http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/22456-fluency-proficiency-etcsome-insight-please/page__p__182682#comment-182682

[2] http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/19910-post-a-sample-of-your-pronunciation-here/page__st__20__p__160804#comment-160804

[icebear]

One advantage of a longer text is that new words and grammar have a greater chance of being repeated.

This.

I really liked the podcast. The length was just right, the pacing and voices smooth, and the conversation appropriate to my level (somewhere between intermediate-upper intermediate in CPod, for example) - I could follow the gist of the whole thing without reading the transcript, but could also probably go through the transcript and mine dozens of new words if I was inclined, relisten and take away more from it - a good tool for both passive and active learning approaches. I think that's a great balance to hit.

I'll be following for more content - I'd most appreciate more natural discussions - friends talking casually about a hot news/gossip item, recounting natural sounding stories (not the cheesy stuff in many podcasts), and in general natural conversation that isn't so action focused (as is the case with many podcasts - I need to talk to taxi driver, business manager, etc etc etc). I think there is huge value in this type of podcast for those stuck at the intermediate level 口语... (like me...).

[imron]

It's great to see material like this coming out with transcripts.

Regarding podcast managers, you could just run your own RSS feed.

[laurenth]

@laurenth Is there a specific podcast manager that you have in mind?

There are podcasts that are, in fact, downloadable mp3s, so you can listen to them with pretty much anything. Is there a way to do that with your recordings?

[roddy]

On making this learning material - you could maybe break it up with little guides as to what is happening, and questions. "We're now going to hear Fangfang ask Lili for some advice about her boyfriend. What three things does Fangfang suggest?" or "The girls arrange to meet later in the week - where and when will they meet, and what are they going to do?" or "The girls discuss their wardrobes - what clothes vocabulary can you pick out?"

That kind of input helps people follow what could be a long mass of difficult material, and importantly, it gives them a purpose for listening rather than some vague 'improve my listening" intent. And it wouldn't be much extra work to stick the unadorned mp3 up for people who just want that.

[Yang Chuanzhang]

@imron, laurenth I added direct links to mp3s on the website and a feed at http://feeds.feedburner.com/YeMaoHaoEpisodes

@roddy

Thanks for your ideas, we definitely want to make the podcast approachable to people who're at an lower intermediate level. On the other hand we don't want to make an audio text book, because those can get boring very quickly. One thing that's high on our list and that I will implement soon are tooltips for the transcripts with translations (basically what you get if you post the transcript into mdbg). That should at least make it easier to follow the podcast while reading the transcript because you could just hover over the words you don't know.

[imron]

That should at least make it easier to follow the podcast while reading the transcript because you could just hover over the words you don't know.

I think that this is not a good idea, because it actually ends up discouraging people from learning new words, for example, instead of thinking "ah I don't know that word, I'll have to look it up and learn it", they think "I'll just quickly look at the meaning first, and then learn it later". Only once they look at the meaning and then move on, they soon forget to go back and learn it, so what ends up happens is they get a quick translation which helps them comprehend the current sentence, but that actually subverts the learning process.

[li3wei1]

Wouldn't the same function be achieved with Perapera or similar? And with Perapera, they can quickly add the new word to a list for later study. As for Imron's objection, this would apply if they're just reading it, but if it's a podcast transcript and the point is to listen to it until you understand it aurally, and in some cases repeat it, I'd say something that eliminates look-up time would be useful.

[imron]

I'd say something that eliminates look-up time would be useful.

I think there's a balance. Eliminating look-up time can be a valuable thing if it's part of a process that results in the word being added to some sort of active study routine (e.g. flashcards). If that doesn't happen however, then not only are you eliminating look-up time, but to a certain extent you are also eliminating learning (but possibly giving the illusion of learning through short-term comprehension).

I'm a big fan of the "mark and then lookup" approach. I think it would be valuable for example to have something that correctly segmented all the words in the article (because trying to figure out correct word boundaries can often be a problem for learners), and that then allowed users to mark words that they didn't know. These would be stored in a list, which could then be used to automatically generate flashcards with definitions or whatever, or that could provide definitions - but perhaps at the end of the text, and not inline with it.

This way it forces people to acknowledge words they don't know, as opposed to popup definitions that allow you to pretend you know a word even if you don't really know it (or if you only partially know it).

At the same time, it also makes it easy to get at the words and their definitions for learning purposes.

[roddy]

I wouldn't bother with pop-up translations. Every one by now has got their own pop-up translators if they want them, and if they don't, they would probably prefer to get one rather than rely on yours. Maybe provide translations for new or difficult vocab, but there's no point in having every 的 popping up. It's also a pain to make sure it works across browsers and (particularly) on mobile.

I don't think what I suggest is getting anywhere near an audio textbook. I'd also point out that audio textbooks are only boring if you make 'em boring. Little bit of structure, little bit of purpose, and you'll make the recordings more useful to more people.

[stoney]

I don't have need for new/difficult word translations, because I can simply use a dictionary. I would really love translation on a sentence/phrase level, which is something that chinesepod and popup chinese do. I realize this is a lot of work and I don't expect it out of a free service. Maybe you could implement some sort of wiki thing where users could highlight questionable parts of the dialogue and others could give their recommendations.

[Gleaves]

Good stuff. Good luck with it. I was pleasantly surprised by both the sound quality and reasonable level. I can commiserate with the comment on your about page about the lack of this type of content in Chinese.

One request - when I listen to 德国之声 and the like I can see episode notes and a link back to the site with the transcript. If that sort of stuff was embedded in the file, I would find it helpful.

I de-Itunesed the link and it gave me this. http://www.yemaohao.com/yemaohao.rss Seems to be working fine in my droid podcast manager. (The feedburner link just gave me text).

[Yang Chuanzhang]

Hi,

I just uploaded the third episode. Personally I like it best out of the three we have so far (although I had to cut out a part about Taiwanese dramas in the middle because of cell phone noise).

You can listen to it here (might not be visible in iTunes yet):

http://www.yemaohao.com/episodes/003-dian-shi-ju

I've also been working on a method to study the vocab from the transcripts. After reading the comments in this thread and thinking about what I would use myself, it's pretty much turning into what imron described: One part that creates Anki flashcards (zh -> en) from a list of Chinese words and one part that makes it possible to add words from the transcripts to that list.

@Gleaves: Thanks for your comment, glad you like it. Yes, the iTunes RSS and the feedburner links are separate because I hacked that together really quickly, I'll tidy up the rss mess on the site in the coming days.

I'm not sure what you mean by embedded. Do you mean you see a link to the transcripts on your phone when you play the file? I can add that for the next episode.

[a-xing]

when I listen to 德国之声 and the like I can see episode notes and a link back to the site with the transcript. If that sort of stuff was embedded in the file, I would find it helpful.

Gleaves (or anyone else), would you mind explaining how you find the link to the DW transcripts. I looked all over and I can't find it, all I see is the one sentence episode summary... OTL

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Regarding yemaohao: thanks for making it; the transcript is so useful! Sometimes though the speaker leans away from the microphone when speaking making it a bit difficult to hear, especially when they finish their point so the last few words get a bit garbled. (Not really a big deal)