Review of Yoyochinese.com

[ralphmat123]

Hello there, so I thought I would do a review of the site yoyochinese.com just in case some people were thinking about signing up for it, or even for people that are looking for websites to help learn Chinese and are looking for good sites to sign up to.

 

So I'm going to give a brief overview of the site, list all of the features and then some pros and cons. I've been using the site for about 6 months and my experience is largely positive and I would like to share my experiences with everyone.

 

So the site is located at www.yoyochinese.com and is hosted by a lady called Yangyang Cheng, who is Chinese but has been living in America for quite a few years so she is now quite Americanised (I’ll leave you to decide if that’s a good thing or not!).

 

(You can also check out her Youtube page at http://www.youtube.com/user/sloppycheng where Yangyang posts loads of the videos used on her site, so you can see the different types of videos she offers and the style in which she teaches. This is where I first found out about the site and is what convinced me to sign up and purchase a membership. I highly recommend you to check out her Youtube page, even if you don’t want to sign up to her website as it is full of free videos to help you learn Chinese.)

 

The whole yoyochinese.com website is made for English-speaking people learning Chinese, although I know that foreign people also use the site too. The site is mainly video based, with some audio content but the vast majority of the content are videos. In the videos, it mostly consists of Yangyang standing in front of a cartoon blackboard which is where they display the Chinese characters and Pinyin. What I like about the videos is that she gives translations of the text but also goes into detail about the characters and breaks them down to their individual meanings. What I mean by this is that when for example she gives the word for ‘movie/film’ which is 电影 she explains that this literally means 'electric shadow' which I really like as I remember things like that and I prefer knowing the components of the characters rather than just learning it as one word. (I have uploaded a few screenshots of the site, so hopefully you will be able to see them at the bottom of this post).

 

So the site is broken up into the following sections (everything I say is true at the time of writing, Nov 2014):

 

·        Beginner Conversational Chinese- this series is as it sounds, it is aimed at beginners and the series teaches basics like numbers, greetings and saying things like 'yes' and 'no'. This series consists of 120 lessons each lesson is about 5-10 mins long. It’s a good foundation as it teaches lots of fundamental elements of Chinese and really help you to learn authentic everyday Chinese.

 

·        Pinyin lessons- this consists of around 5/6 video lessons about the basics of Pinyin and the pronunciation. I have used this in passing but I already knew Pinyin when I joined the site. Would be really useful material for total beginners though.

 

·        Chinese on the Street- this is a really interesting series where a colleague of Yangyang's who I believe is called Toutou or something, interviews real people in some city in the North of China, when they are out and about i.e. in a shopping centre or just on the street and she asked them random questions like 'why do foreigners learn Chinese' or 'do you love your boyfriend/girlfriend?' just to hear their reactions. The first time you see with no subtitles and then they repeat the video with Chinese subtitles. The English translation and explanations come on the accompanying pdf's and there are 60 videos. I really like this series because it's not made for foreigners, it's real people speaking real language. My only slight complaint is that I would prefer there to be a 3rd repetition of the video with the English translation because sometimes opening the pdf and watching it alongside the video can be a hassle.

 

·        Intermediate Conversational Chinese- this is my favourite series because it combines the Beginner’s series format and the Chinese on the Street one. So basically they show a short video of people being interviewed about some topic like ‘what is your favourite season and why?’ and they show all of the responses and then Yangyang goes through all the vocabulary and grammar structures and of course gives translations and good extra examples of grammatical structures or vocabulary. This series, as the name suggests, is aimed at intermediate students (although I myself have used this series and I am in no way intermediate) but I would say the level is not as high as you would think so it is actually really accessible to most learners. This series consists of 50 lessons, usually around 10/15 mins long.

 

·        Chinese Grammar- pretty self-explanatory, Yangyang goes through different grammar points like the use of 了 and compliments of result/direction etc. This is actually really useful as she also gives, using the trusty blackboard graphic, all the characters and the pinyin and also different example sentences with helpful diagrams and images. This series contains 71 short videos.

 

·        Chinese Learning Tips- this is kind of like the grammar section in my opinion but it’s normally answers to FAQ’s from students and is more of a “how do you say … in Chinese?’ type class or she’ll explain the use of a particular verb like 让 and its many uses. It is good though because it covers a lot of things that I was unsure about in Chinese or things I never realised before and Yangyang always gives good detailed explanations and examples. This series contains 60 lessons.

 

·        Live Google Hangouts- again quite self-explanatory. Every so often Yangyang does live Google Hangouts and they’re filmed and she answers people’s questions and usually its things like pronunciation and also learning advice. At the time of writing there are 10 videos, but each one is about 40 mins long.

 

So that’s all the content there is on the site and I hope that’s given you a clear explanation of what to expect from the site. Now I’m going to give my pro’s and con’s list and my personal experience. I’ll start with the con’s so I can end on a positive!

 

 

Con’s:

 

·        Although it looks like there are a lot of series and videos, because most of the videos are (deliberately) short, it means that you get through all the content quite quickly. I’ve been using this site for around 6 months and I have pretty much gone through all of the content. This is really my only gripe about the website. I do understand that it is a relatively new site, but I feel the content could be updated more often. I did actually write to them about this, which I’ll explain in the next point.

 

·        Pricing. At the time of writing, the prices of the site are actually (I think) quite high. Its $45 for one month’s access, $75 for 3 months access, $99 for 6 months access and then $159 for 1 year. I chose the one year option and because I’m from England, I paid in pound sterling which worked out to around £100. Now given that they don’t seem to update the content on a really regular basis that seems like quite a lot of money. I did email them and I said that I have signed up for a year and that the site hasn’t been updated for quite some time. To be fair, they did come back to me and apologise and explain that they would be adding a new series about writing Chinese characters in the future, but it would not be available for a while. After another email to them saying I found that unfair as this time waiting for updates was eating into my year subscription (as they don’t offer lifetime membership like other sites). They came back and told me that they would offer me another year’s subscription free once my subscription had come to an end, so I thought that was a fair solution and I hope they honour this when the time comes.

 

That’s it for the con’s, now on to the pro’s:

 

·        Although I have previously complained about the frequent lack of updates to the site, I must say that the content on the site is actually really good and I am still happy I made the purchase. The lessons are concise and informative and I think the way Yangyang explains things is really good and she’s clearly passionate about what she’s doing.

 

·        I like that the format is mostly video based because I like the visual element of learning and I like to be able to see the characters and pinyin at the same time as hearing the explanation. (On a side note, the videos however cannot be downloaded as there is no option to do this, but it’s quite easy to download programs on your internet browser that allow this to be done, but let’s not go into more detail about that…)

 

·        The main focus of the site is on Grammar, which may not be a pro in some people’s eyes, but as someone who has learned several other foreign languages in the past, I know how important grammar is and this site really excels in this area.

 

·        The whole emphasis of this site is towards English speakers, so she explains the points always from this view point which is really useful for me as an English speaker. I will say though it’s very Americanised (and I’m British ;)) but that’s not really a criticism!

 

·        On each video, it’s possible to leave comments and ask questions and you will always get replies to your question, most of the time from yoyochinese themselves, so it builds a kind of forum or community which is really helpful. The only thing I will say though is that you don’t seem (at least I don’t) to get notified when your question has been responded to, so you need to keep checking back to see if someone has replied to your comment. You can also use the search box to search the site for a particular word or element you want to learn about.

 

 

So to sum up, I do think, like all things in life, this site is not perfect and there are several things that could be and should be improved upon, but on the whole I have had a very positive experience with this site and I think Yangyang (and her team) are very good at what they do. I would recommend this to people at beginner/intermediate level, as the site at this stage not really suitable for advanced learners because the content is more focused for the lower levels. I think if the site continues to improve then it could be a really good site for all Chinese learners. I do recommend you to check out the Youtube channel which I posted at the start, and check out the videos and see if you like the style of teaching before you commit to purchasing a membership. You can see examples of the different series of lessons, like Chinese on the Street and the beginners/intermediate series and this is really good to get a flavour of the site.

 

谢谢 Yangyang and I hope this review has been helpful to anyone who wants to or is learning Chinese. If you have any questions or anything, just leave a comment and I’ll be happy to respond

[Shelley]

Thank you for your efforts in giving this site a review, I have read through it and i still wonder what makes it worth the money? i wonder if i would be better off spending my money on good textbooks or classes at my local adult education centre.

 

Can you say in a few words why it is worth it? What level did you start at and what level are you at now? Would you feel happy having a conversation with someone and if so at what level?

[ralphmat123]

Hi Shelley, I'm glad that you liked my review. I would say that it is a bit expensive for the site and I think they probably should lower ther prices due to the lack of content at the moment but I signed up becuase I really liked their style of teaching. However I must say that I am also taking classes at my local college as well but when I started I already knew lots of characters and vocabulary because of yoyochinese and I actually was better than some of the other students who had been learning for longer. I think you probably should supplement your learning by going to class but I find text books boring and the website would for sure be a better option than that in my opinion. I would say my level is now upper beginner maybe very low intermwdiate because I can have a basic conversation and I can understand my teacher when she asks me questions and yoyochinese definitely helped me in the regard. I think the best thing you can do is check out her YouTube page which i posted in the review (if you haven't already) and check out the videos and see if you like that style of teaching. If you're a beginner the site is definitely a good option but like with all things it is down to personal preference. Hope that helped

[Silent]

 

I think you probably should supplement your learning by going to class

Of course more exposure from more sources is always better. But does this remark imply that yoyochinese can't really stand on it's own and does not offer a real curriculum? In other words, is it like a real course with clear order to go through and building on itself or is it more like a podcast style collection of 'random' lessons without a clear order to watch them? Maybe the remark is more based on the speed in which they go through the curriculum?

[ralphmat123]

Hi Silent, what I meant was that I think even if you find a good online course, I like going to class to have real interaction because courses online are not usually as interactive as real language classes.

In terms of yoyochinese, I don't think it is a full curriculum and to respond to your question, I don't think it is a curriculum that follows a pattern, the lessons are quite random although the lessons in the series usually follow on from each other in some way but the overall course I don't find is really that structured. Not to say that it isn't good though. I still think its a good programme and I would recommend it because the way they teach is still good and effective, even though it doesn't follow the conventional pattern. On the site it does offer a 6 month plan which shows you which lessons to do and when and obviously the lessons are structured to get progressively harder, but it's not like a course book that has a chapter on family then another on food etc and you work through it. Yoyochinese is more designed I feel to get your knowledge of the language up by teaching you the building blocks of the language and really understanding how the language works, which is why I chose it. Hope this helps.

[889]

I think websites should be upfront about pricing, so I had a pretty bad reaction to this site when I looked around it and couldn't find any information, any information at all, about pricing.

 

The big question is, just how many hours of instruction are available on the site? Is the availability of lessons the same whether you choose the six-month or one-year option?

[XiaoXi]

The best resource on her youtube channel for learning Chinese are her teach English to the Chinese videos.

[ralphmat123]

Hi 889, thanks for your comment. The pricing is clearly advertised on the site and once you sign up for a free account you can clearly see it. If you also type in yoyochinese pricing into Google, it does come up. It's available here https://www.yoyochinese.com/subscriptions

Also in answer to your question, the site says that it offers 40 hours of video and 50 hours of audio. And as far as I know access to the content is the same regardless of how long of a membership you buy. Hope that helps.

[889]

Thank you for the link to that page, but my point is that there is no link to that page on the website, not until after you sign up by following the banner: "SIGN UP and watch free video tutorials immediately!" They should add "PLANS AND PRICING will be disclosed after you sign up for your free trial!"

Yes, this is a very common web come-on and very intentional, but I don't think much of the sites that use it. You end up wasting time looking high and low for a link to prices that doesn't exist.

[ralphmat123]

I agree. They should display the price list more openly.

[Melanie1989]

Whoa, they are pretty expensive! Thank you for such an informative review! I have been watching Yangyang's youtube videos since i started learning Chinese and i have always thought very highly of her personally and her methods. But that is quite a ridiculous price, in my opinion, for what they seem to offer. But, alas, i am poor anyway.

 

Thank you for your helpful review anyway, very interesting.

[ralphmat123]

You're welcome Melanie1989. Glad it was useful:)

[winterpromise31]

I'm currently using yoyochinese and love it. I started the Beginner course in February and am now working through Intermediate level. When I started, all I knew was how to pronounce pinyin. Personally, I think the website is totally worth the price. I am learning a ton and feel like I still have a lot to learn from the Intermediate course. I wish there was a lifetime subscription option, but I'm happy with my one year subscription. I follow the learning schedule and use Anki to help memorize the vocab and practice the sample sentences provided in the PDFs. 

 

Like the reviewer, my favorite part of the website is the Intermediate course because it combines Chinese on the Streets with grammar lessons. I find this incredibly helpful. I hope they eventually add another grammar course after intermediate level. 

 

I am lacking most in speaking practice, though I do occasionally practice with a Chinese friend of mine. She has told me she's impressed with how quickly I'm picking up Chinese, so that reinforces my confidence level with the courses. Once I finish the Intermediate course, I'm not sure what I'll study next. Probably a textbook. The video courses are way more fun than textbooks, though.