Comments on: Review: Chinese Pod

By: Jonatan

Jonatan — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 23:40:50 +0000

All this bashing on Jenny’s accent is completely groundless. More than half of the Chinese population don’t pronounce every -nG sound for example, Jenny tries to do this eventhough it’s not natural to her.
@Johnny Lee, I gues serge melnyks must have promised you some money or so because his native speakers sound like crap if you ask me, they have a Taiwanese accent that is absolutely terrible, Melnyks himself sounds more standard.

The fact that chinesepod does not help you progress to the next level sufficiently is a big problem though.

Also the old lessons with Ken speaking Chinese in intermediate lessons were obviously atrosiously bad, but they’ve learned not to make that mistake again…

I don’t like the fact that they’re making it harder and harder to use their site if you’re not a paying customer, but that’s their right I guess.

By: johnny lee

johnny lee — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:56:51 +0000

i have listened a little more to chinesepod. for the most part jenny is OK but i am noticing there are definitely some times she said things weird and it is almost certainly due to the shanghainese accent.

By: johnny lee

johnny lee — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:45:57 +0000

all you have to do is turn on Chinese TV or the news channel and you can see how Mandarin should sound.

By: johnny lee

johnny lee — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 06:42:06 +0000

i wholeheartedly disagree with this review of chinesepod. while i do think chinesepod has a very nice site and is fun to listen to and practice, i think chinesepod is a poor resource for learning the language. contrary to the comments above I actually find the serge melnyks course far far superior to chinese pod. the person who comments about serge melnyks does not understand chinese language well. one is able to learn vocabulary very rapidly in melnyks and each course builds on the former very specifically. i do not think chinesepod is useful for learning this way compared to melnyks the system itself is poor because it does not drill into people’s heads all of the words as language is meant to be learned. in regards to pronunciation: serge melnyks accent is def not the greatest mandarin, but the native speakers on his podcasts are perfectly accurate. I have grown up around dozens of chinese dialects and lived around other chinese my whole life and I can promise you none of them speak with the accents of Jenny in Chinesepod. The native accent speakers in melnyks is far more accurate. Jenny has a heavy Shanghanese accent but most Mandarin speakers do not speak like this. Shanghainese otherwise known as WU is a whole different dialect altogether and all the shanghainese people I know cannot pronounce Mandarin well at all.

By: Lily

Lily — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 21:14:42 +0000

I LOVE CHINESEPOD!!!!

By: Joop Dorresteijn - Learning Chinese with help of Iphone/iPod Touch

Joop Dorresteijn - Learning Chinese with help of Iphone/iPod Touch — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:50:33 +0000

[...] previous apps, I like to listen to the Chinesepod Podcast. While some don’t like it that much, I like to listen to it to hear about Chinese culture, and get some [...]

By: rohit

rohit — Tue, 19 Jun 2007 20:51:15 +0000

I agree almost completely with the post…spot on! The main problem I had was the atrocious accent and tonal mis-pronounciations of the host at beginners level (Ken I beleive).

Still with over 500 lessons now, its a hard resource to beat, and not too expensive (I would not subsribe as premium…the $10/month option is good enough). This coupled with pimsleur and FSI should be enough resources for beginner-upper intermediate learners who are not in China.

By: chinese pod listener

chinese pod listener — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 20:39:28 +0000

I have been studying chinsese for a year and half and the university, in the area I live in, doesn’t offer an extensive curriculum for studying the language. So, for me, chinese pod has become useful in learning new vocabulary words, with an explanation to what they mean, that I wouldn’t learn in class and it is also entertaining. My girlfriend, who is Taiwanese and studying english, finds the lower levels useful for her english and in turn helps her learn how to explain chinese words to me in english. They do have vocabulary lists and alternative uses for these words which is also helpful. I tried listening to all the levels when I first discovered this podcast. Now I only stick to the intermediate or elementary. If you ever get a chance you should listen to the upper advanced level (Gao高Ji级). In these podcasts Jenny and the other female only conversate in chinese. I have only listened to two of them, “Shanghai Expo” and another one about the olympics in Bei Jing where they talk about the ticket prices and stuff. Overall it can be a useful resource for students of chinese as well as a student learning english.

By: Xiao Hu

Xiao Hu — Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:00:39 +0000

Your review was extremely uninciteful as you yourself admitted you don’t listen to the podcasts for free (maybe because you have already attained a level past that presented in the podcasts), but for the rest of us who still need a little help the podcasts are filled with useful new words and the music is non-intrusive as well as giving the podcasts a more pleasant sound. The small amound of English they use is okay because 90% is in Mandarin and if Jenny prefers to call herself Jenny then that’s just a matter of her own personal preference.

I ONLY agree with the fact that her “eng” sounds like “en” Ke Cheng sounds like Ke Chen etc.

By: Chinese Pod Revisited | Doubting to shuō: Chinese, Investing, EFL and Being a Geek in Taiwan

Sun, 15 Oct 2006 08:10:50 +0000

[...] Since my initial review of Chinese Pod, I’ve received more email related to that one review than any other article I’ve written. Several Chinese students appreciated my perspective, and expressed similar feelings I had about Chinese Pod. On the other hand, I also received more angry emails regarding the review than I had ever previously seen in my life. After suffering insults about my site, insults about myself, insults about my family, and even one email that included vague threats against me, it became very clear to me that there are some CPod fanatics out there. [...]