I listened to the link- this guy’s tones are definitely suspect! (I should know.) Despite that, I think the shows have some value. The problem is that it all feels a bit random. I’m not sure you could base a program of study on it, but it is a decent supplment.

I came across this site today which teaches Chinese. http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/24.....295026.htm

It’s a good effort, there are verbatim transcripts, there is a script. I’m sure they are sincere in their effort, but I hope Cpod never becomes like this! If people really want to hear someone with poor pronunciation reading a script, listen to Cam, bless his effort. If one wants a script that is so unrealistic, listen to this dialogue. They teach you how to ask someone to hold the door for you at the supermarket. Haha…have they ever gone shopping in China. Maybe their staff only shops at Guo Mao.

Anyway, Cpod–please stay the course. D

This article might be of interest to you: “Neuroscientists have discovered why children excel at learning languages”
http://www.acfnewsource.org/sc.....guage.html

I work in a neuroscience lab (though not on language, or humans, so this is my gist from other people’s seminars) and the general assumption these days seems to be that a child’s brain is physically more “plastic” or flexible than an adult’s, partly because they are still in the process of streamlining all of those neural connections. It’s a bit of an exchange, since as you get older, you also become more capable of understanding abstraction.

That said, we also believed for at least a decade that we don’t grow new neurons in adulthood, which is not true. So consider that assumption a work in progress, though it does make sense experientially.

My personal experience in teaching my Chinese coworkers English pronounciation is that they simply can’t hear the difference. But neither can I when I speak Chinese — really it’s only through coaching that I say chi and qi differently, not because I can actually hear the difference between the ch and q sounds. (And I bring this up whenever they complain about English vowels sounding too much alike…)

An interesting topic.

I was watching t.v. this morning (in China) and there was a English-speaking competition where the competitors were doing skits and such and judges would rate them. For the most part everyone had a pretty significant Chinese accent while speaking English. I’m assuming these contestants were already the ‘best’ of the best from probably a very large pool of candidates, so why is this?

There is quite a lot of English-language learning material here with native-English speakers, so what is it that makes the ‘accent’ such a hurdle? I imagine that their situation is very similar to learners of Chinese, so what is it that makes the ‘path to good pronunciation’ so difficult? It seems easier if you’re in the target-language environment for many years—but it’s not always the case, it seems also if it’s not in your teens or 20s then the results seem to plummet quickly? It’s the old nature-nurture discussion, but I’d like to hear peoples own personal experiences. Maybe in your efforts to learn other languages besides Chinese?

上边我用英语问， 为什么中国人的英语发音不太好，他们有很多老外的叫英语书，mp3.，也英语电影，所以他们应该容易能学，对不对？ 为什么我问这这话？应为我觉得老外学汉语肯定也有一样的challenge. 我也想一想我自己的学中文的方法是好还是不好。现在我爱用中文拨棵，但是很多人对说Ken and Jenny 的中文发音有的时候不标准。我觉得‘听’ 和 ”说“ 不一样，不过“发音”是什么？这么学好？ 大家 “What do you think?”

http://www.frappr.com/chinesepod#

And Annie:

http://www.frappr.com/?a=myfrappr&id=381907

Baaza….check out Frappr.