Ok, so as some users have pointed out there hasn’t been a clear place for users to ask general questions so we’ve added this category for you to do just that. Hopefully we will be able to find them easier here and get back to you quicker and without going off topic in the other discussions.
So ask away here and we’ll do our best to get you the answer right away. Eventually we’ll try to move answers into the help section, but to begin we’ll answer them here.
Rian
Q: How do I type in Chinese
So I’ll kick it off with an answer for Dianainchina. A biggie, so I’m going to cheat a bit.
If you’re using Windows you can use the IME (input method editors) software. It’s pretty simple to use, but if you don’t have it setup already and don’t have Office XP it does take a bit of initial setup. This is where I’m going to start to cheat. The Microsoft help page for this explains it better than I can.
http://www.microsoft.com/windo.....fault.mspx
The as far as using IME, I started typing out an explanation, but then found this guy had already said exactly what I had just typed only with screenshots and stuff:
http://newton.uor.edu/Departme....._write.htm
Now for our lovely Mac users — I’m not a Mac user, but I had Matt show me how he does it and it seems pretty simple. It seems that the stuff comes preinstalled, so that’s easy. Of course you’ll need a Chinese font, and you may need to install a language update here:
http://docs.info.apple.com/art.....num=120063
There’s a little button that looks like a flag on that top menu bar thingy. Click it and select your language input method. There are 3 input methods for Chinese. Matt uses ITABC. Then you just type using the pinyin spelling and a bunch of character options show up as you type. You just select the right ones as they show up. If there are real Mac users out there who can explain this better without using terms like “thingy” feel free to post!
Hope this helps… and post more questions here if you have them.
Rian or should we call you Spear Catcher?
As we take baby steps toward Web 2.0 wouldn’t it be so much easier to give Bazza and Marchey’s Creation its due and place it proudly up on the mast head like japanesepod101.com does ? They have a forum and a blog and they seem in the little bit of time I have looked to cover the same issues/topics as here but under one URL. ( I hope that last bit is accuracte AuntySue or Bazza please help me if not) .
I am sure there must be issues but damn if Bazza can’t cut and paste or innovate or use magic dust and stuff happens not overnight but quicker than that.
Mike in Jubei
Is time travel really possible through traversable Lorentzian wormhole?
About Chinese on Macs:
Well, you could’ve explained it quite well yourself without using “thingy”. Just leave it out. A menu bar is a menu bar. Very simple. No need to add “thingy”.
The link to Apple given above is outdated and should be removed to avoid confusion. It refers to OS X 10.1, a very early version of OS X which didn’t come with all laguages yet. 10.1 became obsolete in 2002, we are now at 10.4.6.
If you have a standard Mac OS installation of anything later than 10.1 - either what came on a new Mac or you did an OS installation yourself without changing the default settings - you have everything you need for Chinese and a ton of other languages. No need to install anything. Just go to System Preferences -> International and activate a Chinese input method. Notice that now you’ll have two input methods active, your original one (English or whatever your first language is and Chinese). As soon as more than one input method is active you will see them show up in the menu bar under their respective country flags. You can easily switch between your active input methods through the flag menu or simply with Cmd-Space. (The Command/Cmd key is the one with the little Apple on it.)
Tons of more information on all aspects of using Chinese on a Mac:
http://www.yale.edu/chinesemac/
Hmm, I was thinking more technical questions about how to use the site, but okay…
Mike — We’re really excited to see the ChinesePod forum grow and become such a great tool for ChinesePod learners and even Mandarin learners in general. I really dig the new logo too, good job Fu Da-Wei! We are trying to integrate this and other Web 2.0ish resources in the community section. Through the community section, users can get quick access to the forum and other 2.0 learning resources under one roof. Of course there is always some tweeking and experimenting to do, but such is the way when your blazing the path for next generation learning tools. That said, being the lowely intern, I don’t make any decisions but I do pass along the ideas I’m seeing in the forum, here, and in email.
Bazza — great questions. While the Traversable Lorentzian Wormhole is only theory at this point, the only proven way to travel time is by using a flux capacitor.
Rian
From The Lesson Plan Find the misspelled word
Go to the learning center and review the dialogue transcript. You can listen to the show again if you want. Add the useful vocabulary and phrases to your word ban, and then learn the sample sentences.
I guess it is in all of them so far
Mike in Jubei
Bazza,
The answer to your question is, “It depends.”
Mike,
I think you have a point. We make need to talk to Bazza about some form of integration.
Mike, are you trying to get on to te PWU’s good side now? Nice catch, thanks!
RIGHT-HAND CORNER - I was over at the japanese101 site today, they have a nice looking re-design of their site. In the right hand corner they have a little daily kanji box. I think it’s an interesting use of space, I don’t know that I’d learn 365 kanji/hanzi this way, but at least it’s something new to look at each day.
I think newbies would find the Intro To Cpod just as easily on a clearly marked top-level tag. Put something more interesting in that right-corner box! Many a daily “Jenny or Ken ‘ism”, a nice high-frequency phrase, an audio clip of a colloqial phrase, som’thing som’thn. Peace.
More general question, if I turn around is the corner still on the right?
Lantian — daily tidbit on the homepage, consider it suggested. As for your question, its a toughie, but I did some testing. When I turn around and look back at the screen it is still on the right. Same results when I look left or right.
Thanks Rian, that’s what I thought.
“When this baby hits 88mph you’re going to see some serious stuff.”
Hello,
I think that over the past few weeks our (Bazza and I) little forum has proven that a forum is still a powerfull tool in creating a community, creating a community spirit, solving problems (technical or other), etc. It does not suppress the need for other community building tools like a wiki and a blog. Everybody seems to agree on that, but the thread/forum like organisation of a forum is simply beyond improvement for certain specific needs.
It doesn’t really matter where the forum is hosted. We use phpBB and this is a wonderful piece of well maintained and safe software. Any hosting service that offers Mysql and PHP will do. But…I can understand that providing techincal support for a forum can be expressed in terms of man hours and therefore in terms of money. So I understand a certain ‘holding back’ before making a full commitment, it is in the end a business decision. The key IMO is to give part of the keys to the community. Bazza has done a wonderful job setting up the forum. And I’m sure that he would help migrating it too if you were to take it inside. Others like myself (I have played a very minor part in setting up the thing in the first week or so), Carl and Aric have agreed to moderate the forums, although this community is so well behaved that until now there hasn’t even been an hint towards the need for intervention. So what I’m trying to say is that in the equation the work involved is not that big a deal, especially as there are sufficient volunteers to take it on without any cost to CP.
I I hope that you decide to see how you can make this work for you. I think that a button on the home page of CP could be an important first step, but I would suggest setting up a forum on your own site. We could try to migrate the existing forum. That should be possible without too much hassle (although I have never done it
but trying is certainly totally riskfree. IMO a strong community around CP is an essential element for commercial success.
Marc
Anyone know where you can find some introductory yet interesting Chinese content to read and/or hear? Standard lessons are boring but most content for adults is too difficult for me to read or hear. I’m looking for a middle ground.
I think ChinesePod should take some interesting content and produce some useful audio and intructional content based on the content. Something maybe related to a Chinese Rolling Stone magazine article, a page from the Chinese Harry Potter, etc.
What’s the status of “Shanghai Buzzwords”? Was it replaced by “Word on the Street”? Whatever you do is fine, but I’m just curious if I missed something.
Buzzwords etc — http://www.chinesepod.com/blog/?p=271
Marcus, I’m still in the very very very begining stages of Chinese so I’m not sure, but when I was in Japan one thing that I did that kind of fits your suggestion were these movie scripts. You could buy a movie script with English on the left page and Japanese on the right page. I’d buy the scripts from movies I watch on a regular basis (like 16 candles… just kidding) and that kept my attention and since I had already memorized quotes like “I know it hurts, that’s why they call it a crush” half the battle was won!
Rian,
Thanks for your reply ( sorry I didn’t notice for a bit)…(BTW…had some GARBAGE ERROR messages tryiung to send message here)
Sven, Thanks for the link for Macs…I’m trying still with on-line hanzi links from the C-pod website.
ARE YOU HIP? - Could you guys make a marketing campaign and/or commercials like this, you know have an ‘old school’ teacher next to a hip hipster Cpod teacher. I just love these Mac commercials, all it would take is a good script, white background, videocam and publishing it to YouTube.
http://www.apple.com/getamac/ads/
I am just happy after watching these ads.
One of my favorite (albeit irreverent) sites is Fark.com. They have a graded membership policy too. The upper tier members get a special avatar/emblem by their name. The idea is that peer presure will subtley encourage others to upgrade. Might want to consider something like that.
Question: How do I set up a custom RSS feed?
Answer: The brand new My Course feature! It’s a dandy. All you do is populate a course by going to the Podcast Archive and clicking “Add to My Course” for the ones you want. Then you go to the Learning Center, click on the My Course tab, and choose “current.” Below you will see an RSS Feed button and a PDF export button. Click the RSS feed, copy the URL, and paste it into iTunes > Advanced > subscribe to podcast …
I noticed on Englishpod.com they are using difficulty level abbreviations before the title of lesson. I wish you start doing that on Chinesepod.com so it makes easier to recognize difficulty level of lessons downloaded to Ipod via Itunes. Example UI2=upper Intermediate
Richard, the current conventions were designed a while ago when there were less podcasts and I agree they need to be revised. I’m working on it, so stay tuned…
Hi,
I wanted to add my embryonic blog to you list of blogs, but as I’m using blogspot the only syndication protocol seems to be atom. Any plans to support links to this kind of feed?
Thanks.
Is there a way that I can set up ‘my courses’ so that vocabulary will be reinforced over the course of the lessons. I put my self at the intermediate stage having had 2 years of university Mandarin. However, that was 5 years ago and my vocabulary has really atrophied. I have found it a challenge to keep up my Mandarin. Adult ed courses are plentiful for beginners but are not at all satisfying once you have had a year or two of intense study—but that isn’t enough to feel particularly competent and independent. I am delighted to have found chinesepod, and hope there will be more upper intermediate resources. Thanks.
Anyone,
This is a technical podcast/RSS feed question:
Is there a way to subscribe AND download ALL PODCASTS into ONE feed without using the my course function/subscription? Right now, there is the archive feed (first 100 only), the latest 100 (only), and the main podcast feed which only downloads 10 podcasts plus the beginner guide. I’m trying to avoid having all these different feeds for the same podcast. Kudos to the options you’ve given listeners, but I personally like one feed with everything in it.
- hypnotic pistachio
Question: I’m having trouble adding my “embryonic blog” to the blogroll.
Answer: We’ve had a bit of trouble adding a few blogs to the blogroll, but have managed to get some of them up with a little tinkering. I don’t think it is to do with the protocol because I believe we have already added one or two from blogspot. — *sheepishly* I am going to have to admit that I don’t have a doctorate in syndication protocol, so we haven’t completely solved the mystery as to why some feeds seem to not want to be added. Brendan, please send me your RSS link via chinesepod@gmail.com and I will try to add it from the back end. Anyone who DOES hold a PhD in RSS please feel free to step in here… Thanks!
Question: Can I set up My Course so that the lessons reinforce the vocab?
Answer: We try to set up out lessons so that they can be consumed individually. While this is great for learners who want to customize their experience and grab lessons on the fly, there are some structural drawbacks. There are some very interesting ideas in the conceptual stage here being tossed around that might help you acheive what you’re looking for, but for now all I can recommend is maybe searching for themes and reoccuring vocab and designing a course that reflects your needs. As the number of podcasts grow, the more repetition there will be and the more options you will have for designing these courses.
Question: Is there a way to subscribe to one RSS feed that will download ALL the podcasts.
Answer: Unfortunatly no, iTunes has a 100 episode limit. If you want to keep them all in one place I may suggest you download the BitTorrents and put the podcasts into the library.
I’m experiencing some difficulty editting my vocabulary list. Clicking on the delete button results in the computer blinking, but there is no effect on the stored words. Is there a way I can just dump the whole bin and start over? In case it matters, I’m using a MacBookPro with OSX10.4.6. Thanks!
P.S. Everytime I go to this site I get the notice: A GARBAGE ERROR has occured!
Go to the Contact section and notify to me!
Cynthia: We are working on this problem in the WordBank. Some other users have recently mentioned it and there is a thread on the forum about it: http://wushu.be/ChinesePod/vie.....highlight=
The Garbage Error has to do with our SPAM catcher. I think AuntySue joked somewhere aksing if it was a refletion of the quality of her posts, which it of course is not but it made me laugh. Our SPAM catcher is giving us troubles and we are looking for a new system. At the moment we are moderating every comment.
I recently downloaded the batch of episodes using BitTorrent. While this is a great idea, it would be great if this could be complemented by a batch download of the basic PDF transcripts. Is there any intention of batching this up in future?
Alan
Cpod 2.0 - If you all could make the Cpod homepage look like this, it would be preeeettty nice. http://tech.yahoo.com/
Where can I find out about any programing [such as Buzz Words] that is added over the weekend? Does the fact that I don’t have any email alert mean that nothing currently is being programmed?
thanks…looking forward to Monday’s lesson!
Cynthia
Alan — RE: batch PDFs
You can download PDFs in bulk by populating a course in My Course and then clicking “current” and then clicking the PDF zip file. I know some of you would like something something similar to the RSS bittorrent downloads for PDFs, but it look like for now this option doesn’t fit in the model. However, as long as you guys keep requesting it I will keep bringing it up in the meetings.
Lantian, I’d never been to that site before, it’s kind of cool eh? Maybe ChinesePod can incorporte some of those ideas the next time the site gets redesigned
Cynthia — RE: weekend material
We are working on a new idea for Saturday’s, but at the moment we don’t have anything in print. A new video hotpot was released this Saturday, so be sure to check that out! Hopefully we will get something regular going again this Saturday.
Question: Can we add an RSS feed for the upper intermediate lessons?
Answer: There are currently only 2 upper intermediate lessons, but that shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll bring it up in the next meeting and hopefully it will be up soon.
Are there any plans to have a lower intermediate level or a upper elementary?
Bazza, we don’t plan on breaking down the lesson levels and further in the near future.
Rian … there’s no “Community” tab when you’re in the “Weblog” secton; it mysterious drops from the CSS bar.
And thanx for fixing the Vocab thingie! Seems okay now.
Fu Da-Wei
Yes, you may notice a few things happening with the Community tab. It’s because we are working on something new that I think you and other forum users are going to like. Keep an eye on it in the next few weeks…
Question: can we get the Japanese ChinesePod shows on BitTorrent?
Answer: for those of you who didn’t know, we experimented with a Japanese version of ChinesePod. Unfortunatly the project didn’t get the response we hoped for and we had to retire it, but we have now released all those shows and pdfs as a BitTorrent file. It can be found in the podcast archive sidebar. Enjoy!
Over in the comments section, there’s been a change in the font/placement of names of who posted. I kinda liked the old style, seemed easier to read, flowed better. Like a handwritten letter, I’m used to a name at the end. That’s my vote.
Okay, this is a really basic question, but it’s driving me crazy that I can’t figure it out. Recent lessons are automatically downloaded to my iTunes library when I log on, but what about when I want download archived lessons? I can only figure out how to play them off the website and not get them in my library (my “save as” and dragging attempts failed). I think this is so basic that it must be the reason I can’t find the answer on your site or iPod support. Please help!
Lantian and Kate and future questioners,
I’ve started a new thread for Q&A: http://www.chinesepod.com/blog/?p=301
Hi,
When I drilled down into the Chinesepod lesson on my ipod, I used to have the Hanzi and Pinyin transcript for the conversation. I find this very useful when I am out and about and don’t have the PDF files with me.
I had mentioned this in an earlier comment and this feature was restored but it has disappeared again. Can we please have that back?
Thanks