FluentU (long, sorry)

[Bad Cao Cao]

FluentU is just the latest example of style over substance in Mandarin language learning. It follows on the heels of chinesepod (which never provided any native natural (unscripted) dialogue with an accompanying transcript), which in turn, followed on the heels of a plethora of unnatural stilted content, marketed as Chinese learning.

 

What learners really need is exposure to lots (and lots) of natural native dialogue of decent length - with all content in downloadable mp3 form, with downloadable editable text (pleco reader etc). You want good natural native content, which you can access wherever and whenever. Very, very, very few Chinese learning companies actually provide this.

[lechuan]

Bad Cao Cao, which Chinese learning companies DO provide that?

[Mr-H]

I've not had any of the problems Melanie describes. (I use FireFox with a VPN for youtube) In fact, I've had a really good experience with FluentU.

I'm an American International School HS teacher living in China. I started learning the typical way: a Chinese tutor slogging through the old-style curriculum, but what I really needed was more practice listening and adding to vocabulary. (At my school we speak english all day and even though we live in China, I don't have a lot of time to practice with Chinese friends.)

When I found FluentU and tried it for free I was really pleased especially because videos are "well packaged" where the subtitles are interactive (just mouse-over to get the pinyin and english definition). What is really cool is the additional control they give you over the videos: they play bar is segmented BY EACH PHRASE -- so if you want to go back to a phrase or replay a phrase, simply click! (You know how hard and frustrating it is to go back to a specific phrase or word in a video -- well it is so effortless with the FluentU controls.) I also think the cost is justifiable given all of work they must do to analyze a video, translate, and deconstruct for learning.

I did upgrade to premium, but because of my job demands, I quickly decided I couldn't focus on FluentU until school ends in the summer, so I contacted their customer support and asked them to put me back on the free status. The replied to my message right away -- very polite and personable -- they gave me a refund for that month -- no questions asked. Because I was treated so well, and because of the cool learning approach through video, I definitely will come back to FluentU.

[Melanie1989]

Alan,

Boy did you miss out on a lot of discussion. I wanted to take a while to reply to your comment so i can make sure everything i say cannot be taken any other way than what i mean. Didn't mean to leave you hanging.

 

I am also sorry for my experience but, as i said in my OP, that was just my experience and i don't expect for one second that everyone else will have the same. I also pointed out that customer service was great, at least up to a point. Something that i think was deleted before you got here was about the "hacking" part. It freaked me out a little at the idea of you sharing my screen so i could give you evidence of me being logged out all the time and i mentioned this in a few posts. Apparently this is actually a normal suggestion. I didn't know this so i will apologise for that so you can see it. Others agreed with me that it would freak them out too so i don't feel too bad, but if that offended you (like it did some others) then i sincerely apologise.

 

Calling your baby ugly, well maybe it's fair for you to feel that way, but that was not my intention either. I gave an honest review of my experience, it was not an attempt at making your website look useless. I did say that the first upgrade was pointless, as i still think it is and recommend going for the most expensive upgrade. I said all this in my OP too, but people seem to be overlooking what i actually said and just jumping on me for the not-so-great parts. but all this is just my opinion and you can take it or leave it. My opinion means what you let it mean, i am nobody, so what does it matter? Not to you Alan, of course, just for the other responses i got.

 

The thing i was having the most trouble with was that the website only started playing up after i paid you for the year. This i still think is a valid reason to be suspicious, as i said to you in a private email at the time, i believe, but i guess it's all academic now. Your website is great, i do want to make that clear, as i thought i already did but i guess it got lost in the list of complaints. I did encourage people already to go for the more expensive upgrade as i believe it would be most helpful, you can see this again in my OP. Clearly i was not trying to discourage people from using the website or make it look bad or i would have said DON'T USE THE WEBSITE, IT WAS CRAP AND ALAN WAS MEAN TO ME. I didn't say any of this so i am struggling to understand the reaction i got from certain people.

 

Anyway, i am one person and (to the members who initially responded to me) i don't deserve to be attacked by anyone for having an opinion others don't agree with. I am sorry if you felt like it was an attack Alan, it wasn't meant to be. I was asked to open a discussion about FluentU and i did and it was just honesty and maybe a disappointed reaction. 

 

Either way, i thank you for your tactful reply.

[Melanie1989]

 "My opinion means what you let it mean, i am nobody, so what does it matter? Not to you Alan, of course, just for the other responses i got."

 

**meaning, i understand why you might be upset as it was about your website and i said all this publicly. But many others disagree with me so in the grand scheme of things, my opinion still means bugger all.

[Mr-H]

Hi Melanie:  I just want you to know that when I read your original post, I did feel that you were trying to be balanced and fair based on your experience.  And I don't think it would have made immediatly disregard FluentU-- it would push me to research more.  And your post generated a lot of discussion which actially helped FluentU.  So it doesn't matter if your analysis was spot-on correct or not -- what matters is that you posted an authenic experience and that post generated other posts which together do the job of building a correct picture of the product.  This is the way the internet should work.  (Too many people choose not to put in the time and effort to give real authentic feedback -- that is sad because we all loose out to fake paid responses.)  So: good job.

[Melanie1989]

Thank you! That means a lot, it's nice to know that at least someone could see what i was trying to do. Thank you again, sincerely.