This afternoon I met with a ChinesePod learner who offered some interesting feedback. She has been studying Mandarin for a couple of years but tends to get stuck all the time. The problem is the textbook. She has been stuck on her last lesson for several months without progressing.
Books can be like that, particularly if they’re dry and uninteresting. By contrast she said she now gets through every podcast lesson and is inspired to go to the Learning Center to consolidate them. I guess it ’s got to be easier to get through a podcast lesson - which is basically a conversation - than through a static grammar-based lesson in a textbook.
It seems the podcast has some natural advantages at this input stage.
Ken Carroll 凯恩
I agree with your student. I’ve been trying to learn Mandarin for over two years now, but with my busy work schedule in China, I find traditional lessons and during-the-week book study impractical and ineffective. Either that or I’m too dumb. I’ve been using Chinesepod for the last week, and I think that it will work much better for me (I now study in taxis and during lunch with my MP3 player). I’m considering a Premium account.
xiaming,
Delighted to hear this. Keep the feedback coming in terms of what works or doesn’t work for you. We’ll try to build it into the program. For us there’s no end point here - just permanenet beta, and permanenet improvement, but it al lhas to be based on your feedback.
Many years ago, I met a Chinese-American student that graduated from UC Berkeley with a BS Degree in Far Eastern Studies. She came to Taipei, Taiwan to participate in the Overseas Chinese Language and Studies program. She joined the staff as a counselor for the overseas Chinese from North America, and the UK.
To my surprise, she couldn’t understand the spoken Mandarin. She told me that she could read and write, but had difficulty understanding the spoken Chinese. But she has a BS Degree…go figure?
So, during her 5-6 weeks there, during staff meetings, she always sat next to me, so that translate for her what was been stated. When she heard her name announced…she would say, OK…that’s my name, what are they saying? She wasn’t completely in the dark, but she probably only understood about 33% of what was being spoken in the room.
So, yes…Learning Mandarin isn’t that easy. If only only concentrates on textbook: reading, writing and listening, but has no opportunity to speak, that person isn’t going to learn Mandarin. But, I found that it all depends on the individual.
New books
Sometimes a new book is in order, I burn-out on them every now and then and have to remind myself to get something new. It’s like talking to a grandparent (pardon) who repeats the same story over and over.
For English speakers who can sift thru some of the ‘academic prose’, the Chinese grammar books by Yip Po-Ching and Don Rimmington
http://www.amazon.com/gp/produ.....oding=UTF8
make the grammar explanations put out by the Beijing Language and Culture texts look like old Chinese-to-English instruction manuals found with the gadgets.