Another Learning Chinese Podcast
May 19th, 2006 by MarkTonight, I stumbled across another podcast for learning Chinese. It’s doesn’t have that much content up and it’s not worth a whole review, but it does some things pretty well. The blog is in English, so it’s easy to tell what kind of podcast you’ll be getting, but once the pod starts, it’s almost completely Chinese. The podcasts are all recorded by a Chinese woman who’s accent sounds pretty clear to me. Other than the odd foreign student or two she interviews on occasion, there aren’t any weird accents, either. I think it’s pretty good for intermediate students like myself, but there is one huge problem. All the pods don’t seem to be organized by level of difficulty. In other words, if your Chinese isn’t good enough to understand some of the pods, you’ll have to hunt around quite a bit to find the easy ones.
April’s Learning Mandarin Podcast
Note: She’s with the Mandarin Second Language Learning Center
:
May 19th, 2006 at 6:16 am
And I have yet to find even one crappy podcast for Korean - you Chinese learners are so lucky.
May 19th, 2006 at 11:47 am
Mark-san,
Thanks to you, I have learned a word “podcast” today. I usually study foreign languages with cassettes and CDs. But I can easily imagine how convenient it would be to carry a small MP3 player with me when I take a walk.
The time has come for me, an old guy, to get one and catch up with the times. By the way, I have found that even using the POPjisho makes my browsing very slow. I have to buy a new PC in addition to a MP3 player this year !
May 19th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
EFL Geek, why don’t you and one of your Korean friends start one? Even if you just record one a week and you don’t put any effort into making it not sound “crappy”, it will be the best Korean podcast in the world and your fellow weigukin will thank you for it! Maybe it would even inspire some college students to make a good one.
May 19th, 2006 at 3:15 pm
Mark,
After 9 years in country I don’t really have any good Korean friends. We have all drifted apart and it’s difficult to make friends with Korean males over the age of 30 (details would be an entire series of posts) so no help there. My wife is busy and would support me but does not have the time I do to devote to this sort of thing.
I did audio blog (sort of) on my Korean learning blog today for the first time and hopefully will continue into the future. You can see/hear my first attempt here.
Will sniff around and see if I can find some people who would be interested in setting up a Korean podcast for learners - I’d even host it.
May 19th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
Korean Podcasts for Learners…
A few weeks ago I wrote about Chinese Pod and lamented that there was no such resource for Korean language learners. Today I saw that Mark found another Chinese podcast. I left a comment to which he responded: EFL Geek, why don’t you and one of y…
February 25th, 2007 at 4:31 am
Here is another Chinese podcast: http://www.iMandarinPod.com. Try it and you will love it.
October 9th, 2007 at 3:38 pm
Let me also put in a plug for http://www.IMandarinPod.com . They are the best I have found for advanced beginners and beyond. And they are totally free. Don’t be discouraged if they seem a little difficult at first. It takes time to get used to the all Mandarin form of instruction. Search for the easier lessons and don’t give up. Once you have adapted to this form of instruction you won’t want to do it any other way. And you will find yourself progressing more rapidly than you thought possible.
January 11th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Ken,
Totally agree. I’ve also started using cslpod.com.. I’m in my fourth year of study and and am starting to progress very quickly with both imandarin and cslpod’s totally chinese format.
January 11th, 2008 at 5:56 pm
Mike and others,
I also use Cslpod.com. Their approach it totally different than IMandarinpod.com, but that’s what makes it so great.
I’m ecstatic at all the good Mandarin material that has recently become available on the net.
Chinesepod.com and melnyks.com are the sites that first appear on search screens looking for mandarin lessons. Both these sites have some good material, but I think its a good idea to look beyond these sites. Different approaches keep your interest up and give you new insights.
I also feel that we learners have a responsibility to publicize the good, but lesser-known sites. Its in all our interest to see these sites thrive and grow. The people at Imandarinpod.com and cslpod.com are not as slick and professional at selling their sites as Chinesepod.com, but some of them are truly gifted teachers and obviously nice people who deserve any help we can give them.
Here are some others I like:
chineselearnonline.com is a good site to check out for people who aren’t ready for Imandarinpod.com etc. Their lessons are efficient and organized, with a Taiwanese accent. More advanced lessons are starting to come.
clavisinica.com/voices and specialchinese.com also have some good all-mandarin material.
I randomly cycle through my downloaded material while I’m driving and running. I listen, and repeat whenever I can. I don’t worry if I don’t understand everything at first, as long as I understand some. When I start over on the cycle, I am gratified to notice how much my understanding has improved, even though it may be two weeks since I last went through a particular sound file.
In another year or so, I expect I will be looking for audio books in Mandarin. I would love to find an audio book of Harry Potter.