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.

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

I actually took a college class three years ago, so CPod at this point is a good review for me. That class was extremely hard, and although I finished with an “A” in it, I lost interest in keeping the study up because I felt it was just too much too soon for me.

Now, when I get to the intermediate level, maybe I will share some of your concerns. I read your follow up review and I’m glad you are now enjoying the CPod even better, and that the more advanced lessons are to your liking. After I get through the free intro lessons, I will definately pay for the one year subscription.

Chinese Pod is an amazing learning resource for Chinese. There really should be one of these for Korean learners, but I haven't been able to find one. If anyone knows some good Korean listening resources I would be eternally grateful.

If someon…

P.S. I find teaching pretty rewarding. It’s also interesting to see my students’ own language acquisition.

I can’t stress enough that learning names DOES matter. I had similar problems to the ones you mentioned in your post. Many Chinese acquaintances used their English names with me, and I wasn’t really that comfortable with all the common Chinese names until after finishing my M.A. in Chinese literature. In the end, I learned most of them from reading about politicians in the paper. *They* don’t use English names. Names are an important part of the language, and for beginners, just learning ten or so is a big step in the right direction.

I’m not sure if most Chinese students value their study time as much as you do, though. Most college students I’ve known would accept wasting 10-15% of their listening time with branding and English chatter.

The biggest problem with Chinese Pod is the lack of material. Nobody could possibly work through all the beginner pods and then be ready for the intermediate ones without outside study from other sources. The next biggest problem is the massive pronunciation problems of the host. People acquire language from the input to which they are exposed. If 1/3 of the Chinese a student hears is from Ken, there WILL be a negative effect.

Spot on with the review! Chinese Pod is the best podcast resource on the web, and it has a lot of potential, but it’s not ready to replace textbooks just yet.

-Jake

P.S. Mark, with your interest in Chinese, why are you still teaching English? There’s quite a bit of scholarship money available for students as motivated as you seem.

For the record, I think that Serge Melnyk is a worse alternative to classes or conversation partners than ChinesePod is. I also agree that ChinesePod is the best resource of its kind on the web and has the potential to be really useful for students. It just isn’t there, yet, and I don’t feel any “shame” in saying so.

There are thousands of people learning and being really motivated by chinesepod. I’m one of them. You just sound like sour grapes. Chinesepod is a work in progress that was started just a few months ago. If you had done even the most rudeimentary research you’d know that they are constantly improving it. You completely ignore the brilliance of the idea and the fact that they have made it work. In the space of a few months they’ve gone from nowhere to the dominant force. Why not include that in your ‘review’ instead of gurgling on about their English names. This is absurd.

I would give your ‘review’ a 1 out of 5. Poor effort and a shame that you would deter newcomers from the best resource for Mandarin on the web.

And then someone suggests Serge Melnyk in the comments?? What is it with you people?