FluentU (long, sorry)

[Melanie1989]

So apparently there are no discussions about FluentU, which is surprising as it seems to be quite popular. But hey, that's where i come in! I will start with what the website does, pros, cons, and my own personal -and unfortunately disappointing experience overall. Not everyone will have the same experience of course, i'm hoping to read lots of replies about how much it helped you, so don't think it's not worth checking the website out, it absolutely is. Anyway.

 

Let's hope i don't get sued!

 

So i found the website through the blog while i was looking for resources to help with my learning. The blogs were -and are- great, very helpful. I still check in occasionally now, mostly for slang and learning more about everyday life in China. Through there i ended up on the half of the site which has videos and courses, mostly dedicated to helping you learn characters and improve your listening skills. You can use the site for free, which i did at first, and it's pretty much the same as the upgraded version (which i will get to) but of course you're limited to what you can do.

 

You basically pick from a list of videos that are either made for Chinese learners (also other languages, but of course i'll stick to talking about the Chinese), which are mostly little awkward but entertaining videos that are made by the makers of FluentU. Others are adverts/commercials, songs and tv clips direct from China. 

 

With these videos, you will be given random words or phrases, a few at a time, until you eventually "master" the whole video.

 

You can also upgrade to either one of two memberships. The first is the basic membership. Don't quote me directly on prices as it was a while ago and i'm not completely sure on the conversion of £ to $. Feel free to check the prices, either way it is very inexpensive. From what i remember, it's about $18 for a year's membership of standard grade. This allows you to watch any video on the website at all, but not a whole lot else. You can watch any video with this membership but you can't learn from it, at least with any help. I would strongly urge you to not bother with this particular upgrade! Either use the second one or don't bother with the site at all! I'll explain why.

 

The second upgrade is a bit more expensive, but still really cheap. I have no idea how much though, sorry. This allows you full use of the website, watch and learn from any video and whatever else it offers (i stuck to videos).

 

My own experience was not very good at all. When i used the website for free initially, i loved it. It was no way to learn Chinese on it's own of course, but as a little aid i guess it's alright. There were no problems with the website, i was emailed daily by the mods or whoever and asked my opinions and if i had any questions etc. The videos were great, the website and all, great.

 

Then i decided to sign up. It was my first time signing up to something that i had to pay for on the internet so i paid for just the basic membership, not realising i would get as little as i did. I had planned to upgrade again if i liked it enough. As soon as i paid for the membership (i did it all in one go cos it was so cheap, as opposed to annoying monthly payments), that's when the site went to buggery. 

 

Videos wouldn't load (they are streamed of course so i can't blame them too much), i would finish a test then just as it was saving my score, the screen froze and i had to click off then reload the website but it wouldn't let me back in! I refreshed and refreshed, even shut my laptop down and restarted it and still couldn't get back in! On top of that, i kept getting locked out of the site. I am the only person that uses this laptop (my lucky bf has his own, haha) and i never delete the history or anything so i found it strange that EVERY TIME I TRIED TO LOG IN a message would come up saying something along the lines of "we can't let you log in as your account is being used elsewhere".

 

It took me a good few times to eventually get back in, then of course the videos would crash. This means that during a test it would ask me to type in what they said in the video but i wouldn't know cos it didn't play! So i would lose points on the test and, frankly, be really pissed off. 

 

I would be scrolling through videos and literally out of nowhere get booted off the site! Suddenly i would be looking at google homepage when a blink ago i was looking at two guys almost fighting: "一瓶可乐不够吗？？"

 

I emailed FluentU and told them everything. The first email was really nice and the guy who i assume runs it, Alan, said it all might be due to "an influx of users clogging up the website" and apologised and promised to try to resolve it. I asked if it was just me having these problems and he replied with "No, we've heard this a lot, except for not being allowed to log in". He proposed three things to me - I could take a load of screenshots and send them over, i could change my browser and download Firefox or i could let them hack into my computer and watch me. I told him i would rather just take some screenshots and send them over, which i did and he took like a week to get back to me.

 

In the meantime i was still having all this trouble with the website so i emailed again and asked how everything was going. He eventually replied and said he thought he had already replied to me. I've used that excuse myself, mister. He said that he had looked at my screenshot and decided that the little man head in the top left of my screen (the google user image) was to blame for all this trouble! He said i must be using some sort of illegal hacker thing and that i should turn it off if i wanted to use the site. I replied saying i've checked and triple checked (cos he scared me, but i didn't tell him that) and that the little head is JUST  a user logo and to just give me a refund.

 

I was still planning up until this point to just upgrade and go with it, maybe even changing my browser, but it just put me off using the site altogether. Purely because the trouble only started when i paid them. I can deal with problems with a website (rest assured, i had no desire to cause any trouble, i never would) and i get that they are not necessarily anyone's fault, but i had just had enough by this point.

 

On top of all that, all the videos that are used on FluentU are available on youtube anyway -which is why (four hours ago, hehe...) i said that the basic upgrade is completely pointless. It's very cheap but still a complete rip off of reason.

 

Anyway, it's just something(s) to keep an eye on. Sorry for rambling, i seem to just love the sound of my own typing. But i would love to hear your experiences and if you have any questions, ask away. Hope this was at least a little bit helpful to some of you.

[Melanie1989]

I forgot pros and cons but i think you can gather all that from what i said anyway.

[Tatarik]

Hello Melanie, 

 

Thanks for the review. I'm also very surprised that FluentU doesn't have topics on these forums. 

 

I happen to be premium user of FluentU, and so far the experience has been very positive. I started using it quite early as a free user, but I thought the vocab review and decks would be a nice addition to have. 

 

Just like you, I like the concept of having access to a huge collection of original video with the nice pop-up translations that have made Pleco so popular. 

 

PROs: 

- original content, that's the real native stuff

- diverse content: news, ads, music videos, home-made content, etc. You'll find something you''re interested in. 

- pop-up translation: I can't imagine learning Chinese without it

- customized vocab review (premium)

- polished and intuitive UI

- can import/export vocab pretty easily

- quick and reliable support for premium users (I have used it a lot to ask questions, and the team is very helpful and responsive)

... what else? 

 

CONs: 

- doesn't have a clear system to review words on a regular basis (even if flashcards review is SRS-based). I'm scared I am seriously falling behind but I don't know how much behind I am. 

- accessible from China mainland with a VPN? These are YouTube videos.. @Melanie: where are you accessing the website from? )

 

Cheers,T. 

[Tatarik]

Same here. I am in no way affiliated to FluentU, but every time I raised a question or a concern, Alan and his colleagues were very helpful. 

I hope your problem can be solved quickly, FluentU is a great resources and the team is working hard on the website. 

[Melanie1989]

Tatarik -In England

[Tatarik]

I was wondering cause I'm not really sure yet about accessing FLuentU from mainland. Hope someone can give some feedback :-)

[Melanie1989]

Tatarik I actually just asked my Chinese friend this morning, i'll let you know when she gets back to me if you like?

[Tatarik]

Oh thanks, this would be very appreciated.

I should be moving to China soon and I'd like to continue using FluentU. 

 

Like you said, the videos are hosted on YouTube, so unless she's using a VPN, it wont work. 

 

Cheers, T. 

[Melanie1989]

Oh tatarik, you can only use the site in china through breaking the "firewall", she said. Otherwise, it'll be rreally difficult for you to break through. But if you do use a cloak, you will be fine. She also said not to worry, the ban's there but no-one really cares about it, ie: it's illegal but you're not going to get thrown in jail cos you access a banned site, there's even plenty of people who will do it for you for free if you want.

 

Hope that helps.

[roddy]

So folks, who's using FluentU and would like to tell us about their experiences...

[Meng Lelan]

I used it when they had a free trial but didn't like the all English platform and lack of kungfu clips, so got bored and quit. 

[Melanie1989]

Actually, i'll break my own promise to myself...

 

Seeing as though this thread was a huge flop by anybody's standards, does anyone want to start a new one? Or should i just open another one just saying "so, anyone used fluentu? i haven't..."?

[imron]

Seeing as though this thread was a huge flop by anybody's standards, does anyone want to start a new one?

I'll go one step better and split all the off-topic posts in to their own thread.  Going forward, let's try to keep this one about FluentU.

[hedwards]

Personally, I was using it a bit when it was still called fluentflix, but I didn't really do much with it. It's a good idea, but it didn't really strike me as being particularly useful. I'd personally rather have a deck of flash cards for the vocab used in the video and not bother with the subtitles at all.

 

There's also the issue with the length of the videos. I think for some people having very short videos is desirable, but, I find that with longer videos I have a longer period to get used to the specific accents and vocabulary as well as a longer context to work with when interpreting which meaning applies. I tend to use Learning Chinese From Movies as it's more interesting for me to watch. It's expensive and doesn't include the actual DVDs, but you get flash cards and worksheets to go with the custom subtitles.

 

Ultimately, I could go either way on FluentU. It's something that's useful if you're engaged with the materials, but I didn't personally find the materials to be engaging enough to keep my interest for very long.

 

BTW, if people are curious about LCFM, I wouldn't mind talking a bit about that, just not in this thread as that would definitely be going off topic in a way that's not helpful.

[fabiothebest]

For hedwards: sometimes I watched movies in Chinese language with subtitles and I plan to watch more of them. I didn't know about LCFM, a quick search showed that it stands for Learn Chinese From Movies. I found some videos on youtube. It seems subtitles are made of 3 layers: 1) Chinese characters 2) pinyin 3) English translation. I think it is almost impossible to read 3 lines at a time for each sentence because of the speed anyway if we pause the video it's possible. Probably watching movies in Chinese is above my level, someone who speaks a better Chinese than mine will surely feel more comfortable at watching Chinese movies. Anyway yes, if you have some more details to add and you would like to share your experience, I'd appreciate if you create a new thread about that.

[hedwards]

When I get a chance I will, but you shouldn't be pausing videos very frequently, the subtitles are there to help you a bit, not as a replacement for listening. The main reason to pause is so that you can write the vocab down for further study, but since you have the subtitles file and the flashcards, there's little or no value in doing that.

 

When I get a chance I'll write something up, right now I've been more focused on my graded level reader. I tend to rotate between the reader, a movie and always with the SRS decks.

[limyee]

@Melanie and Tatarik: I have never tried the FluentU site at China but if the videos are hosted on Youtube then you can try using media hint. This unblocks videos by installing their browser extension (Chrome and Firefox). Here is their site: https://mediahint.com/ 

[Tatarik]

@LimYee, are you in China and have you tried to use Media Hint to access FluentU videos? 

[alan]

Hi Melanie, 

 

My name is Alan, and I'm the founder of FluentU. 

 

I'm really sorry about your experience. That's a big FAIL if I ever saw one. It's my fault (especially since I did handle your message). We try to do the best job possible on supporting our customers, but we definitely have a lot of room to improve, and thank you for pointing that out. 

 

I think you do deserve a more complete explanation about the problems you experienced, since I clearly did a very bad job of doing that. 

 

Regarding the sudden log-offs once you started paying and the "little man head": we do have a system where single user can't be logged in at multiple locations at the same time (much like how Spotify boots you off if you are using it from your phone and computer simultaneously). Our system has generally worked well, but we didn't account for the Chrome browser user profiles which you were using. We had a hard time figuring out the exact cause of the bug because we hadn't seen it before. We should fix this and it is on our to do list. 

 

About the "influx of users clogging up the site": at the time, we were expanding into other languages and reaching out to prominent bloggers (you can google "FluentU Spanish" or "FluentU French" and you will see the promotions that we ran at that time). And as a result, around the time we did have a large influx of new users. It turned out that the influx was unrelated to your problem (it had caused some other problems, which we quickly fixed). I probably shouldn't have mentioned that to you when I wasn't sure that it was the problem. 

 

About the 3 options proposed to you: at that point, we still hadn't diagnosed the problem. The information that we had received until that point wasn't enough to fix it. So we needed more details (either in the form of screenshots, or by remote desktop). If screenshots and remote desktop were both too inconvenient, then using another browser was the only other option.

 

About thinking that I had already replied to you: This was an honest mistake on my part. I was surprised that I had not replied to you in 7 days, and I was trying to convey how sorry I was about that. I think the unusual nature of the ticket contributed to me dropping the ball (and it was me who dropped the ball). 

 

About the basic upgrade being pointless: I would agree with you if I thought that our value proposition is showing people YouTube videos. We don't make any effort to hide that most of our videos are from YouTube (many of the beginner videos were, in fact, painstakingly made by us by hiring a professional video production company: http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2014/04/17/fluentu-a-producer-of-original-videos-for-learning-chinese-2. And now we have hundreds of "audio dialogues" which we have all wrote and recorded ourselves: http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/audios/#most-recent). 

 

FluentU Basic is indeed pointless if:

 - your Chinese is so good that you can tell where one word ends and another starts

 - you enjoy spending time looking things up in dictionaries

 - you don't have trouble with words that have multiple definitions

 - you enjoy writing words down in your own vocab lists

 - you don't like example sentences that clearly demonstrate how a word is used

 - you don't need audio dialogues which target specific situations

 - you like looking for fun and engaging real-world videos for learning Chinese

 

FluentU Basic adds a lot of value if: 

 - you need help "parsing" Chinese (ie. knowing where each word begins and ends)

 - you like to save time when looking up words and adding them to your vocab

 - you like context specific definitions which have been written by professionals (eg. http://goo.gl/gPvBPV)

 - you like having example sentences that were written by professionals for Chinese learners just like you

 - you like seeing examples of how a word has been used in our 1300+ videos (http://goo.gl/MXrvjt)

 - you like having audio dialogues which target specific situations (http://www.fluentu.com/chinese/audios/#most-recent)

 - you like having the web's best videos for Chinese learners served up to you each week

 - not to mention our upcoming mobile app (http://app.fluentu.com/)

 

To sum up: if you like grinding it out when learning from videos (look it up, write it down, search for example sentences, etc), then you don't need FluentU. If you would like high quality information to just be there in one place so that you can focus on learning it, then FluentU is exactly what you're looking for. 

 

Anyhow, I didn't mean for this to end up being a giant ad for FluentU but when someone says your baby is ugly, it's hard to stay quiet. I think it's probably hard for most people to know the amount of time, effort, and resources it takes to develop the site and annotate these videos. 

 

If we can't be best friends, I hope at least that we can not be enemies. Honestly, I just dropped the ball. We need to improve our customer service. Thanks for pointing that out.

 

Wish you the best Melanie!

 

Alan

[limyee]

@Tatarik Sorry I have not tried it yet because I study overseas. I want to test accessing FluentU videos in mainland once I get back. I hope it wont be too late for you though