Are new hosts hired? When are we expected to have new lessons?

I am still keeping my membership paying 29 dollars every months and just been using existing contents eagerly waiting for the “Change”.

Can we get updates at least on what’s happening?

It’s been months since the management posted about “Chinesepod is changing” and there is no follow-ups after that.

Even though Chinesepod has great contents thanks to the previous people who worked hard, now I am getting doubts on the ethics of the management itself.

Hey Management people, what is happening? Do not hide. Give us specifics.

I foolishly pay annually and renewed my subscription in December. NEVER again!

Yes the lack of communication and transparency is rather disconcerting, I do hope some new content is in the pipeline as it has been such a good and highly regarded learning platform for many years

We are sorry to have had this period of time without new content. We were hoping that our library of lessons would be extensive enough to keep everyone learning and satisfied during this transition.

We are investing major time and money in improving the site and the content. I know it is disappointing to have lost our most recent hosts, but as you have seen in the past, we have had various hosts who were great in a different ways. One of our current challenges is that we are implementing multiple curriculum with multiple hosts. It has definitely taking us longer than we would like to find the right people and develop the new material, but we are confident that it is worth the time and attention we are giving it.

We are currently recording content in several different production studios with several hosts and different teaching styles. We are not sure how many of these programs we will actually roll out, but we are testing and refining ideas.

Your opinions and comments are important to us, and we are trying to incorporate many suggestions in our new programs and curriculum.

Thank you for being dedicated ChinesePod customers. We appreciate you and will continue to work very hard to bring you the best Chinese learning material possible.

I’m sorry, but the way you have responded to customers’ concerns has been nothing short of disgraceful and disrespectful to our intelligence.

I relayed one thing back to a member of your staff, but I will say it again here: The only thing I have learned from ChinesePod since renewing my membership is how not to run a business. Hiding whenever customers voice their concerns and failing to give us adequate notice just reeks of incompetence and ineptitude.

I bought an annual membership in December, believing that I would be able to continue my Chinese learning journey, but the only thing I appear to have bought is a barrel of laughable excuses, which your response above simply reinforces.

The implication of the above message is that we will have to wait longer. This is not right, it is not ethical and deplorable on your part - continuing to earn money while showing blatant disrespect to your customers. Shame on you, ChinesePod, you are a disgrace!

(A disgrace I am stuck with until December, since I purchased an annual membership… That sucks, but doesn’t suck as much as your team does at PR).

i am really surprised and sad by how easy is it for many to be really harsh. Chinesepod is a fantastic learning platform and a great community. Subscription based services are payments for ACCESS to a wealth of information, not always for a new content on the clock. I wonder, have all of you who feel ‘cheated’ really studied every single lesson and know it all? if so, you probably don’t need the site anymore? i understand that you feel the communication hasn’t been what you expected ( there are often times when its difficult to communicate while a change is happening) but i would just say: remember that there are real people behind the scenes who work hard and for whom whatever is happening is probably much harder than for any of you who have the choice to switch to another platform. Be gentle people. You are intellectuals who study languages, there are better ways to give feedback. I am very dissapointed in today’s world of anonymity behind avatars or the digital screens where many allow themselves to behave in a way they would never in real life. Why is that? no need to comment or send back a reply to me. i have nothing else to say but to please ask you to just think about it.

Thanks for the response. However, it has been almost 3 months now that the old hosts have left. It will be more reassuring if we get an idea about “when” we will get the new content. For people like me who have been subscribers for ages, the library of lessons is not extensive enough. Except for newbie lessons, we can’t see any fresh content on the website in 2018. I understand it is a tough time for all of you left behind to sort out things, however, the silver lining is that your customers expect good content from you. Please keep that in mind. Wish you all the best!

I’ve been using ChinesePod to complement my Chinese studies since 2006. When I started, I was listening to Newbie lessons. The changing of the guard (it’s not the first time – I do miss John and Jenny) has been a fun opportunity for me to revisit some lessons from the beginning of the Chinese pod days, and to explore the huge archive of lessons that I couldn’t understand when I first started. Keep up the good work, Chinesepod! Maybe bring back Pete from Poems with Pete or John for a guest appearance!

Agreed, ChinesePod was at one stage a great learning resource. They created so much new and dynamic content that really was a major boon to my Chinese learning.

Under my previous subscription, I downloaded most of the previous lessons. The reason I purchased an annual subscription was for new lessons, and the CP team has yet to respond to my request for an extension to my subscription to offset the time I have been waiting for new content to be released.

Furthermore, this is business, not a charity. Businesses survive based off the provision of a product or a service and, you know, respecting customers. They have provided ZERO information about when we can expect to receive content (oh, I regret that decision to purchase a 1-year subscription so much), and heard about their old hosts leaving through a post from a user of ChinesePod, NOT through the team itself. Do you think that this is responsible from the team?

Also, regarding your statement about switching to another platform: I would, BUT I ALREADY SPENT $200 ON THIS ONE. Also, I am using my real name and profile picture, so I guess I’m not really hiding in that case… I’m just as much an asshole in real life as I am here, don’t worry about that, hahaha.

Finally, I personally doubt that they are working hard “behind the scenes.” Working hard normally results in content, they have, since Fiona, Constance and Gwylim left, released no new content. This just illustrates that the management there takes its customers totally for granted and shows a complete disregard for our concerns. Those “people” that we need to think about, are screwing customers over with their ineptitude and incompetence.

i saw that there were no new lessons for a long time and thought it was due to a subscription issue.
I signed up for the annual subscription and still no new lessons. Then i read on the forum that there were no new lessons from Chinesepod. Disappointed - i made contact and asked for a refund from Chinesepod who refused. I managed to get a refund but not from Chinesepod, but rather through Apple as i bought my subscription through that means.
If possible try this route too.

I got a lot out of the lessons in the past so i am very disappointed with Chinesepod now.
It cant be that hard to make some new content or find a chinese teacher.
Given the way that they are not responding to the negative feedback from customers, it is not surprising that the teachers left.

It amazes me that they can still make new promotional videos (like the animated one on the front page of the website) and still not attend to paying customer’s needs. Seriously, there’s been several promotional videos released since Fiona and the gang left.

Like everyone else I am really looking forward to hearing about the future of ChinesePod, including the new hosts. Fiona, Constance and Gwyllm were a great team and I will miss them. I totally get everyone’s frustration with the current situation. Having said that I do understand that it would take a while to find suitable replacements for Fi, Constance et al., and I am nowhere near running out of material to study. I feel that if I wasn’t getting my money’s worth from the existing content then I probably wouldn’t need ChinesePod at all. So the lack of new content for this short period isn’t that concerning, but it is important to me to know that the situation will be resolved and that ChinesePod will be around for the foreseeable future to continue to support my Chinese learning. I suppose I am saying that some people are being really harsh on the ChinesePod team, but equally the team could do more to reassure and inform those of us who really appreciate the value of ChinesePod for studying Chinese. 再见

In the Terms of Use it says:
“We reserve the sole right to either modify or discontinue the site, including any of the site’s features, at any time with or without notice to you. We will not be liable to you or any third party should we exercise such right. Any new features that augment or enhance the then-current services on this site shall also be subject to these Terms of Use.”

We appreciate the frustration that some advanced active users are feeling. We are happy that you have enjoyed the regularly posted lessons and are working to have new and additional lessons posted shortly. We do not want to predict when they will be released, as we are still producing the content.

While we agree with @YongHeDouJiangDaWang, @tatjanadzambazova and many others, that the content on the site is extensive and still very valuable. We have 100’s of thousands of users, and most people have plenty of material to keep them engaged and learning. However, if anyone feels they have paid for a service they are not getting, we will refund your payment.

We have a large team working behind the scenes in web development, content creation, and curriculum production. The improvement process is extensive and management is working hard to coordinate the rollout of enhancements and advancements. Coordinating a change of any kind on a website which has so many users and so much content is a major undertaking. We are attempting to improve the user experience while not interrupting the users. It is no small task.

We hope that we will introduce the new hosts and curriculum quickly enough to keep all our students satisfied, but we understand we may not be able to accomplish that. Please email marketing@chinesepod.com if you would like to further discuss.

Thank you for using ChinesePod.

I was surprised by al the negative comments. I am an intermediate learner and am new to Chinesepod. I think - so far - it is an excellent tool alongside my human Chinese teachers, with over 3000 lessons from Newbie to advanced.That is a heck of a lot of lessons and many need to be done several times to learn the sentence patterns and vocab etc. I am happy with my monthly fee. If speakers are that advanced that they no longer need all the lessons provided, perhaps set up face to face conversation classes. Or read Chinese newspapers etc online and discuss problem areas with a real-life teacher. At the end of the day not even Chinesepod, as excellent a tool as it is, can replace a real life teacher or mother tongue speaking friend, as, afer all, the goal of language acquisition is to communicate, be it as a translator, a teacher, or the need to be able to communicate with Mandarins speakers in your business (the latter is one of my needs). I think Chinesepod does a pretty good job of that.I especially find the audio tests very good and challenging.

From what I see people aren’t upset about Chinesepod as a product, they’re upset with the lack of substantive direction and communication by the company during this period of no new content.

Precisely, all we want is a straight answer and solid communication - nothing more.

If they are incapable of doing something so simple, how can we deem them capable of producing new content?

Thank you @user22374

And I don’t get a “thank you?” What’s up with that, ChinesePod?

Just imagine if a magazine said to its customers, “we are not releasing new content, but you can look at our vast array of archived materials.” I think they would, rightly, be put out of business.

Congratulations on ‘agreeing’ with the people who voiced their support, because you have backed the MINORITY OPINION. This sentiment is not shared by other customers, who are rightly agitated by the lack of communication or forewarning on your part. This is scandalous.

You have failed to answer two basic, recurrent questions, so I am going to ask them again here:

1. Will those of us who purchased an annual subscription be able to receive membership extensions?
2. If not and we have received no new content since subscribing, will we receive full refunds?

I will remind you, I downloaded all the previous lessons under my old subscription; I renewed for new, up-to-date content. Stop hiding, start answering and you might very well cut the negativity out of the forum. Continue your current method of communicating (Read: None), and you are going to continue to foster ill will.

I hate having to tell you how to do your job, but sadly, the ChinesePod team looks like it needs serious help, as the excuses look like they are being scraped from the bottom of an aged barrel.

Dear Chinese Pod,

The customers are angry because you are stonewalling. Okay, you’re still looking for new hosts. Tell us what happened to the old hosts. Tell us what is the status of finding new hosts. Don’t just tell us everything is going to be hunkydory in the grand socialist or capitalist future. Then we can participate alongside you in the exciting change we keep hearing about.

I’m a new customer, therefore Chinese Pod is a feast. I miss Connie especially, but it’s hard to miss her when she’s all over currently existing product. So now I’ve found Pete and others I really like. There’s stuff on here that’s already radically improved my Chinese. One series I loved, as far as it went, is Say It Right. There’s little bits of Chinese I’ve picked up on one lesson or another that I now use daily and hear others use daily. It’s so much easier to listen and watch than to listen to phrases on MP3 or read in a book.

What’s important is to build brand trust. The problem is not just surviving this crisis, but keeping a loyal customer base into the future. It may not be apparent to you that you are damaging your reputation into the long future. Disgruntled customers won’t be back, or they won’t sign up for long periods, and they’ll tell others not to subscribe. Rule of thumb: each upset customer tells five others about their travail. Need I say this is bad? Improving your PR now will help stanch the bleeding.

I am a long time ChinesePod student dating back to 2008. I quit the subscription after about a year after it moved to Taipei. I felt at the time that the lessons did not serve my needs any longer. Jenny Zhu, now living in Vancouver, was the best Chinese teacher on staff along with her cohorts John Pasden, David Zhou, Vera, et. al. Their mandarin accent was perfect for me, not the case with the current hosts, no slight intended - it’s only a matter of preference. Recently I bought a .99 special for a month to see how Chinese Pod was doing. Although i enjoy the content which i downloaded for future practice, there is no incentive for me to continue beyond the 30 days. I suggest people also look to iMandarinpod for authentic Chinese lessons from Tianjin, China. Another excellent site that concentrates more on traditional culture, history and current events and media vocabulary. I wish Chinesepod well, I hope their future is bright and that the reorganization brings new talent and energies.

我同意。我觉得Jenny和John，David， et.al. 是最好的老师们。 可是我们不能回去过去的日子。最好就天天向上吧。

I’ve used ChinesePod on and off for many, many years now. I even had an account back when Ken was here. In my experience, the staff tend to be lukewarm about communicating in general. There was a lot of confusion surrounding the company’s move to Taiwan a few years ago, since they took their sweet time in announcing it and never really did make it all that clear. While I don’t agree with some of the hysterics in this thread, I agree ChinesePod very badly needs to beef up its communication skills. Three months is a pretty long time for a company to be essentially silent to its consumers. I’m wondering why hiring new hosts or releasing some kind of new content is taking so long. Surely there are a few teachers at ICLP willing to do the job.

It’s also not a good look for staff to only reply to those who agree with them in a thread, regardless of the tone of the dissenters.

You didn’t really expect anything other than marketing waffle in reply did you?

Thanks for clarifying that ChinesePod has moved into the “cash cow” （摇钱树）phase of its life cycle. As such it makes sense that you are not incurring the same 成本 as before. I presume the subscriber numbers have held up sufficiently that it makes sense to limit further investment. Or perhaps you are boosting the profit margins in anticipation of a sale? Maybe a Chinese private equity company will buy ChinesePod. Then we can stop complaining about “Taiwan Mandarin” and go back to complaining about off-limits topics.

These guys are pathetic!

That is what I thought in the past few days. From a business perspective, it makes perfect sense.
Thank you for the new word, 摇钱树。 Do you know where I can buy seeds for those?

Hey, it seems your extremely frustrated and feel ripped off. They did just offer to refund you your money if you feel your not getting the content you paid for. Is that not enough?

I asked for a refund, they refused!

earls, re: “I asked for a refund, they refused!” , was that within the last 28 days since they posted that they would give refunds? When did your refund request get refused?

Yes it was within the last 28 days.
My subscription goes until 28 December 2018.
ChinesePod please, please give me a refund!

earls,
You might want to try clicking on HelloChinesePod: on one of the original posts to send a message directly to the person / persons who promised the refund. I would suggest quoting the promise of a refund as explicitly promised here in writing on this forum 28 days ago.

(“However, if anyone feels they have paid for a service they are not getting, we will refund your payment.”)

Good luck with that, and thanks for keeping us all posted on the latest real experience.

My subscription is up on 28 December 2018.
ChinesePod please, please give me a refund!

I totally agree and so glad someone said this.

I sent a message to HelloChinesePod asking for a refund 6 days ago. Have not gotten any reply.

Just cancelled my subscription (apparently I have been paying for premium account since 2012).
I have outgrown my needs for Chinese Pod, so it was time anyways, but still enjoyed going through new lessons on the train.
Really appreciate the effort by the Chinese Pod team over the last four months to come out with new content, I can tell how much time and effort went into new lesson planning. Stellar job Chinese Pod!

Seriously ??? WHAT “new lesson planing” ?

Sarcasm my friend. Hence why I cancelled my subscription.

Sorry I’d missed it

Have you tried the “Contact” link at the bottom of the main page? I would try that first before whatever mailbox is behind the anonymous avatar.

earls, I was actually suggesting that you PM HelloChinesePod, not post on the forum, but based on the post below from alexyzye that probably won’t work either. Maybe try the “contact” link at the bottom of the main page. It’s really starting to look like nobody is home though. However, I did notice that somebody is addressing the fact that their iOS app doesn’t work with the current version of iOS. This is the second time, by my count, that they have not anticipated Apple’s requirements. Probably because they don’t have an in-house developer. In fact, it looks like ChinesePod is now just a brand, with no actual dedicated resources. Anyway, while you are waiting for fresh content, earls, check out podcasts from Slow Chinese and Learning Chinese Through Stories.

From what I heard from someone at the local pub, growing the 摇钱树 has something to do with joining a bitcoin mining group. Good luck with your 加密货币 farm! As to the strategy of CPod’s owners, as I just wrote elsewhere, ChinesePod now seems to be a brand and a lot of archived content, with no dedicated resources. It seems that newer users who joined since the content producers were disbanded in December are okay with things as they are, but certainly the “100s of thousands of users” from before then would understandably feel entitled to a price reduction since Chinese “Pod” is no longer an actual podcast. But I think management has decided to just wait and see what happens to the subscriber numbers and retention rates.

Thanks, but I have deceided to give up on ChinesePod. I have moved on to The Chairman’s Bao and other resources. I will never trust ChinesePod again!

Maybe sowing 摇头丸 is also connected to growing the 摇钱树… I guess either way is rather risky, so I will just stay with conventional fruit as this actually is how I make my living, sort of.

In that respect: Happy labour day to all who don’t own that kind of tree (Very clearly, Chinesepod cannot claim to be 光荣 these days…)

I eventually got someone from ChinesePod to reply to my post yesterday, and got my yearly subscription reset to start from now, i.e. extended by 3 months. Also got it upgraded for the year. Sometimes just got to ask again and again. I also tried the Contact link.
Let’s see how long before new content resumes.

Thank you for your patience!!

I’m a new subscriber to ChinesePod so I’m not aware of all the drama that is clearly upsetting some prior members. However, kudos to ChinesePod for not censoring the user complaints! Letting people vent openly is the mature and responsible thing to do.

Change is hard, and it looks like some members prefer to leave. That’s too bad, but as for me: This site, the mobile apps, the production quality - everything says that ChinesePod is committed to excellence and will continue to deliver value to subscribers. I look forward to the new cast & crew when their content is ready.

Hello! Welcome to ChinesePod! There was a little bit of drama a few months ago but we’ve already new content rolling out for months now and are excited looking at the future. Thank you for writing in! How long have you been studying Chinese??

Hi Grace.

I’ve been studying Chinese for about 4 years. I’m eager to progress past the Elementary level, and listening comprehension has been one of my biggest challenges. I’ve already improved a lot since joining ChinesePod! 非常好!

Hello all! I am curious about the velocity that new lessons are being posted. I’ve been a subscriber to ChinesePod for several years and have noticed that far fewer lessons are being posted each week. I understand that things may change with a new regime, but it would be nice to know what we can expect going forward. This is not really a complaint, but for longtime subscribers like myself, it might be good to establish clear expectations. Either way, I will continue to subscribe since I really appreciate everything on the site.

"Hi kaide xuesheng,

Great to hear from you. I am Elsha and am the Academic director. Have you by any chance listened to our new current affair series? What level are you studying now? We are currently revamping our production structure for all levels and one of which is Chinese for hospitality industry. As we know our users come from a wide variety of experience and background, if you have interests in certain subjects, please let us know! With our new series and curriculum for different industries, you will be meeting some new hosts and hostesses very soon! We are very excited to bring you more interesting and useful lessons.

Allow me one more question: Do you find video format a “must” for new lessons? Are high frequency (really professional recording) audio lessons as good? I have to admit that we are split between both, and so any user feedback is appreciated. We hope to hearing from all of our Chinesepod learners!

Hi Elsha,

Thanks for posting and I’m looking forward to meeting the new hosts and hostesses.

I just wanted to reply to your question about video format lessons. While I wouldn’t say the video format lessons are a “must” I do find the video lessons really helpful and when I’m browsing for a new lesson I do prefer to choose video lessons. For me, being able to see the speaker, watch their facial expressions and how they interact with their co-hosts really helps me understand the dialogue in a way which I find it harder to do with audio alone. For me the video lessons hosted by Fiona, either with Gwyllm or Constance, were the perfect format and really engaging.

However, I do understand that it is probably more work to produce the video lessons and that if you concentrated on high quality audio lessons you could probably produce them with higher frequency. So yes, I would really like to see more video lessons, but would also be happy with more audio lessons if it means they can be produced with higher frequency. Ideally then I think there should continue to be a mixture of audio and video lessons.

If it helps I have been learning Chinese for more than 1 year and I am an elementary learner. I have now completed about 80 elementary lessons on ChinesePod so I will me looking to consolidate my elementary level knowledge and perhaps start trying some pre-intermediate lessons soon.

Simon

Hi!

My personal opinion is exactly the opposite of Simon… I have never watched a single video lesson. For me, the great value of Chinesepod is that I can use it to study Chinese in otherwise non-productive or only semi-productive times (driving, walking, cooking…). When I started with Cpod I did not have time at all to sit down and study, so the possibility of having Chinese “fed” to me on the go was what saved me big time back then. I used to commute to work by bike and subway and I never took off my headphones…

Soooo, I personally would prefer Chinesepod to be exactly that tool:

1. Frequent, short, self explanatory lessons (clear enough to learn from them without looking at the transcript)
2. New vocabulary clearly explained
3. expansion sentences that are numerous, but rather short, maybe even only “chunks” or 固定搭配 of four to eight characters in total。
4. Covering current topics.

I think the recent podcasts on Africa, smart bakery etc. were great (although in fact I still had to rely on the transcripts). Did they come with video? I don’t even know… Keep 'em coming.

I decided, that as far as I hve enough material new for me to train, I’ goung to keep my subscription. If I used the whole library and o new lessons, I will quit. Let’s see.

MisterXia,

Almost exactly my thoughts. I currently spend almost 2 hours a day behind the wheel, and I typically divide that time among ChinesePod, Glossika, and Ximalaya, with ChinesePod getting at least 50% of my time. (And with an occasional “English break” listening to the Sinica podcast).

When I’m not commuting, I work with tutors. I’ll send them the ChinesePod dialogues I’m studying, and we’ll work through those. I agree 100% about the importance of the expansion sentences - and that the shorter they are, the more useful they are. Long expansion sentences may be good for reading, but are pretty much useless for building fluency.

I certainly agree about the value of audio material when travelling or driving. I usually study a new lesson at home in the evening. As I said, I prefer the video lessons but I study audio ones too. I go through the dialogues, and type them out as part of the study process. I go through the vocabulary, grammar, expansion and exercises. I download the dialogue audio and then I listen to all the dialogues on loop or shuffle when I’m driving.

Hi Simon, Elijah, Tanya, and MisterXia,

Thank you VERY much for your replies. We are truly happy to hear that audio learning is still a welcomed option. With your detailed explication on your learning experience, we can imagine vividly to whom we are speaking. I will ensure that lessons of all levels are regularly produced.

And as MisterXia has pointed out, the current affairs audios will be turned into videos but with a twist, which we hope to keep as a surprise until the videos are published! The video content will enhance and broaden the audio content, and not just to repeat it. Likewise, we will work the other way around: turning some video lessons into audio lessons.

And noted Elijah: Shorter and simpler (and more!) sentences in the expansion section.

Last but not least Tanya, new lessons are in the publishing pipeline now! As one of our "How to say lesson 加油 (go for it)！” goes, we are adding oil (加油）, adding oil （加油).

Hi Elsha!

I am an intermediate learner who married into a Taiwanese family. I study to be able to talk about everyday topics with my in-laws. I have about 2 hours commute everyday and always put on Chinesepod podcasts to make the most of the otherwise wasted time. So while I love watching the videos when I have free time, I really appreciate the ability to download plain, clear audio that spends plenty of time going over new vocab and grammar b/c I can’t look at videos or transcripts while driving. Even if you continue to go in a video direction, please continue to make just the audio downloadable for those video lessons for the sake of us commuters. Thank you

Also love the transcripts, expansion sentences, grammar notes that link to Qing Wen episodes for further understanding, and quizzes. When I have time, I write the lesson dialogues out by hand to practice reading & writing characters.

Hi Lele, thanks for writing! Lovely to hear your way of learning and practicing. We will definitely work on audio lessons for intermediate levels.

As for me, both video and audio have their value. Currently, at a newbie level, I start by watching one of the ATWTI videos and really love seeing those two ladies talking to me and smiling and somehow making the prospect of learning Chinese doable. It’s a psychological boost for my learning.

I then download the audio for that lesson, and move to one of the “expansion” newbie audio lessons suggested in it. I work through all the tabs (lesson, vocab, grammar, exercises, expansion), download the audio, and put it all together with the ATWTI lessons and maybe a lesson from a few days ago into a playlist of about 45 minutes (with several repetitions of the dialogue and vocabulary files), that I use that day either in my daily walks or during commuting.

Once I finish all the ATWTI lessons I am planning to go again through the list in descending order and choose the expansion audio lessons suggested I didn’t listen to the first time, and maybe try some of the elementary ones.

As for the new content, I had planned today, Sunday (since I had a bit more time than usual), to include in my daily routine one of the new “enjoyable characters” lessons I had seen on the website, and was quite disappointed to see it was only for traditional characters, since I’m learning simplified. I think it would be a good idea to release simultaneously lessons in these series for both T and S characters, if that’s at all feasible for the CP team.

Hi MayHaNN,

Thanks so much for replying to me regarding your learning pattern and video/audio preference. I really you can come in with more comments and questions when you are listening and reviewing the ATWTI series. Making your own sentences using the lesson materials is a great way to play and reinforce memory of these beginning words and phrases. Send us some sentences to share!

I just want to make sure the 66 character lesson you mentioned is on “出口，入口，人行道，下次见”. These are all simplified and traditional characters, except 见 which is only simplified. If I am missing something, please let me know!

Cheers,
Elsha

Hi Elsha, thanks for your answer. I was referring to the series of videos called “https://chinesepod.com/lessons/66-enjoyable-characters-with-joy-1”, which, at least as it is described, includes only traditional characters: "In this series, we are gonna show you 66 traditional characters that you see every day! ".

I guess I still don’t know enough about Chinese to be able to differentiate between traditional and simplified for characters I haven’t encountered before, so I just went by the description of the series and decided not to watch them because of the reference to traditional. But maybe there are less differences than I thought.

Ha, I was just about to point out the fact that, for a Newbie, the difference between simplified and traditional is overwhelming. It’s easy for experienced people to see that there’s only ONE character that’s traditional rather than simplified, but a Newbie would have absolutely no way of knowing that.

It’s like what happened to a Chinese friend of mine studying at an American university: She wrote a paper, and lost a huge amount of points for a couple of “spelling errors.” Her problem? Sometimes she used British spelling without realizing it. She talked to the teacher about it, and the teacher told her that she needs to simply look up the word to see what the American spelling is.

The teacher had no idea that for a non-native speaker, that means looking up EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. in the whole document. How is a non-native speaker supposed to know which words have British vs. American spellings?

Hi Elsha I am in the Intermediate wannabe Upper Intermediate commuters group, with emphasis on the audio. I haven’t found a CP video that’s high yield for me. Agree that longer expansion sentences are difficult to learn during commute and easier to “zone out” on, while shorter ones are more memorable for those of us who are already driving distracted. I’ve turned back to the John/Jenny episodes circa 2009 for the best material for me so far. The current events series are hard for me just listening, better if I am sitting at the computer which is not often for CP. Thanks for your help.

Understood Jason, and thanks for your input. It is so encouraging of you to bring up the point that the lessons produced almost a decade ago are used! We will do our best to cover a range within a level. We understand that “Intermediate” is arbitrary, as within this level, there is still a range to refer to. Let us work on it, and we hope to really “tune to your channel”.

Newbie here. I’ll also chime in in favor of audio. I listen while driving. I do the extra material when not driving and when it’s available, but generally I have other learning methods I use for when I am not driving. I find that lessons made for video aren’t as effective when I only listen to them, so I prefer audio only. For now, there are plenty of newbie audio lessons, but new never hurts, especially if it includes more current topics that weren’t covered previously.

Hi Mellyagain,

Thanks for writing in. What topics you have in mind? We would love to explore something new together!

Elsha

One thing that I’ve seen mentioned here and I agree would be helpful is electronic payment like with wechat or alipay. Also, I don’t know if any of the older lessons are out of date, since I’ve heard 10 years has brought about much change in China. Maybe most of my current level (newbie) is basic enough to change less, though. I’ll be thinking about this question the next few days, as I’m currently in China!

Yes Mellyagain,

I know that the IT team is working on many things including payment options. IT enabled services and conveniences are truly driving a lot of changes in and out of Chinesepod!

@ewilc773 made a great post in the comments of a recent intermediate lesson about Cpod levels / HSK levels / and international language standards.

One of the points he made is that Cpod levels were originally designed around spoken Chinese word frequencies, while the HSK seems to be more drawing more from written word frequency lists. From the comment by @ewilc773 :

"The ChinesePod method and levels were established seveal years before the HSK levels of 1 through 6 existed (those came out around 2010), but there is a rough correspondence, since both look to the European Common Framework. The level divisions were deliberately designed for spoken Chinese only, and some of that work is publicly available at AllSet Learning’s Grammar Wiki.

The corpus was taken, not from the most commonly used characters in general, but from studies on what words are actually commonly spoken. This makes it quite different from the HSK, which has a much greater emphasis on written Chinese - loaded with words that are often printed, and rarely spoken.

Like I said, ChinesePod had its system all laid out years ago, but in 2018 there have been a lot of cooks in the kitchen, mixing up all kinds of random ingredients for any level, without the strict guidelines of previous ChinesePod generations. It has turned into a regrettably confusing and frustrating situation."

There were originally 6 Cpod levels, now a pre-intermediate level has been added to help as a bridge . The Cpod library is deep with thousands of super useful lessons ( I think it’ more like 3000 lessons rather than 4000 as always stated, I think lessons #3000-#4000 were skipped? ) I agree language is a continuous spectrum, so level divisions are arbitrary, But some kind of standard may be helpful.

@ewilc773 's comment is a great jumping off point for thoughts/discussion on the truly innovative ’ learn to speak Chinese --> on your terms --> like a native ’ aka the Cpod Method:

There’s lots of test prep materials out there. There’s lots of reading stuff out there. But, when it comes to helping people “Speak like a native,” the options are far more limited, and quite frankly, frequently awful. Only the old ChinesePod will tell you the exact words a Chinese couple yell at each other when they’re breaking up.

Spot on research and insightful post! Thanks for sharing. The historical bit was missing from my understanding of how the coursework developed. It is satisfying to know and see the developer’s rationale.

I’ve found a lot of solace for an overburdened curiosity and learning help at various times at the All Set site. Their link to the HSK system using grammar points has specifically been helpful to me. Here it is: AllSet Learning’s grammar point lists, by Level

Hi Iamdazhou and Stevinsjs,

Your reply sounded like you have attended the conference call between myself and Ken (one of the original founders of CP) recently, It’s absolutely fascinating! Your learning success is a true testimony to the content developed (and evolved) over the years! Yes, language is an ever evolving thing, and since CSL is still a rather new academic subject and is taking its time to evolve, we are mindful that we need to continue to evolve by adopting new methodologies and content for our users.

While we are proud that CP is a standalone learning system that provides a through-way learning journey, we are now urgently working on how to make new introductions and content more explicit and easy to recognise, use, and be accepted by regular users. Your suggestions and comments are very welcome, and your continuous engagement in the forum really helps us a lot. Thank you so much!