You’ve been asking for it, and we’ve been preparing it. The 500 lesson torrent file is now ready for download. We hope you downloaders have reasonably large hard drives, because this baby is bursting with 3.1 GB of pedagogical pleasure. In it you will find:
- 500 ChinesePod podcast lessons of all levels, spanning our entire history
- An index of all lessons, as well as a separate index to help you match the old names to the new names
- Filenames follow the new naming system, which makes them a snap to sort by level
To download a torrent file, you need a BitTorrent client. (I personally prefer BitComet, but Azureus is supposed to be pretty good as well.)
After your BitTorrent client is installed, your system should recognize the torrent filetype. Click on the link below and open the file with your BitTorrent client. That will get the download started.
ChinesePod 500 Lesson Torrent (3.1 GB)
Enjoy!
中文 Chinese
hanyu_xuesheng Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 2:59 pm
Thanks a lot for this easy way to download.
But - by downloading the standard way there are still some resources missing or defect. When will this be fixed?
chinesepod Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
hanyu_xuesheng,
We have regenerated all the defective/missing files. Those are the ones we used for the BT file. We also need to upload them all to the S3 server.
The thing is, while S3 is quite fast for our American users, it is unfortunately quite slow for us. It takes quite a long time for us to re-upload all those files (dialogues, show in 32, 64, 128). We have begun the process, but it won’t be completely finished until sometime in May. (We’re all about to go on a week-long May holiday, and we’ve been frantically uploading all the files for that week’s new episodes rather than uploading the regenerated old MP3s.)
-John
Hans - Nyon/Switzerland Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
No need for a torrent-only client, the downloader FlashGet handles torrent files perfectly …
chinesepod Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 5:21 pm
John,
All this, plus internal rhyme and some assonance thrown in, too
“because this baby is bursting with 3.1 GB of pedagogical pleasure”
This is a pedagogical first, but next time try to do it in iambic
pentameter.
Ken
Thierry Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 5:48 pm
This will be a great package.
But I keep getting the Not Found message from the server …
Am I the only one ?
Thierry
Bazza 白锐 Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 6:47 pm
Any chance of a dialogue only download like this?
kmk Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 7:14 pm
3.1 GB ?
真是BT啊
海宁 / Henning Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
kmk: Did you mean 变态? That would probably be a bit over the top…
imron Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
Everytime I click on the link, I get the page “Not Found
The requested URL /chinesepod001-500.torrent was not found on this server.” The address that it is trying to access is: http://221.130.189.46/chinesepod001-500.torrent
I’m in Beijing and using Firefox under Mac OSX.
Thierry Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
I keep getting a ‘file not found’ on the url you just posted. Am I the only one ? Is it overloaded ?
Jupiter Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 8:37 pm
这个中文学习的网站可真不错哦！
Lorean Says:
April 30th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
I personally recommend uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/).
I note to less tech-savy users: most sane bit-torrent clients will allow you to selectively download files from the torrent. In English, you do not need to download all 500 lessons; you can selectively choose to download the lessons you do not have, and exclude the rest.
kmk Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 4:50 am
Henning: Yes I tried to practice my new vocab.
This BT (变态 not BitTorrent) is so easy to use and memorize that I may rely too heavily on it.
http://forum.chinesepod.com/viewtopic.php?t=1639
Shaun Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 5:04 am
I’m glad to see you’ll again be offering a torrent. However, the link you listed doesn’t appear to work; it results in a 404.
excuter Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 7:58 am
Hi, Shaun
I must agree.
Hopefully it´s fixed after next week is it?
excuter
———————————————————————–
the way is the goal
John Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Hmmm, it’s strange that you’re getting a 404… I downloaded the torrent using that same link, and my computer is uploading it to other people now. Is it working for other people too? Any other 404s?
MarkT Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 2:41 pm
I get 404 also.
Shaun Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 6:15 pm
John, if you have a copy of the torrent file would you be willing to post it temporarily? At least until the above link gets fixed.
Gaole Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 7:16 pm
I am also getting a 404.
Alaric Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Hi John,
I have been unable to download it so far. I intalled BitComet for the purpose. When I try, BitComet comes back with: “Torrent file download failed.”
Alaric
Clever Dick Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
More problems here too. Downloading those Torrent programs comes at some risk. The BitComet had a nasty virus embedded in it. Got past my Norton security and ZoneAlarm Firewall without any problem. My computer is toast. Thanks BitComet for taking a byte out of my system !
404 Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 10:02 pm
I too get the 404. Please check the link!
Shaun Says:
May 1st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Use uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/). It works great.
Thierry Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 am
it is clearly not a matter of software. Getting a 404 means file does not exist for us. But how can it works for some of us and not some others ? Can it be a matter of location ?
chinesepod Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:48 am
To be honest, I don’t really fully understand how one hosts a torrent file. The tech team at the office handled that. It worked Monday afternoon, when I used it to download the torrent file myself, so I know the link is correct. Then this blog post went up. Now we are all on vacation.
Sorry for the inconvenience. As Thierry says, it should not be a software issue. It could possible be a regional issue, or maybe a hosting issue. We’ll fix it as soon as we can.
-John
Chad Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 3:54 am
Hi John-
Since the staffing is light this week, I think we can all be patient for it. At 3.1 GB, it’s better to get it right the first time, than to have everyone download a different 3 GB set later.
Danny Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 4:33 pm
Just for the record, I live in Spain and also get a 404 message. However, I really appreciate your effort. Thank you for the release. I hope to enjoy it in some days!.
Thierry Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:14 pm
Since the torrent file is just a tiny file with very few information about the file hosting location and things like that, if someone got access to the “.torrent” file, maybe she/he can put it somewhere else, more accessible and publish the link, then just have to hope the 3Gb file is not hosting in the same condition…
For the record, I’m trying to access from France.
But maybe the best is to wait for people to be back from vacation. Anyway, enjoy vacation ! You’re doing a great job here.
Hans - Nyon/Switzerland Says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 11:22 pm
When clicking on John’s above link for the torrent, the ensuing message says “Page cannot be found”.
To be sure, I used that link to initiate the download, so far I’ve managed to download 64% (over 2 giga). During the first two days, the download speed was at around 100 kb/s, but then trickled down to between 1-5 kb/s … that way it’s going to be a while …
Lantian Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
MISERY - Loves company.
I have to say I was quite happy to read John’s blurb “The thing is, while S3 is quite fast for our American users, it is unfortunately quite slow for us. It takes quite a long time for us to re-upload all those files”.
I was beginning to wonder if I was the only one (in China) with this burr under my saddle. I had beginnings of serious Shanghai/Beijing/HK broadband speed envy.
Haha…now people OUTSIDE of China can join in the misery…muhahaha. From what people have been describing, there is nothing wrong with the ‘hosting’ of the torrent file by the Cpod computer. It’s a bandwidth issue across the oceans.
The ‘404′ errors reflect network drops. Simply put, it’s the holidays here in China and depending on when people try to access the China net, there will be lack of access as the internet here is flooded by gamers on holiday in the internet bars and at home surfing the net.
I’m sure everything will ‘clear’ up on the Tuesday after the holidays. Monday’s everyone’s back at work and it will still be a bandwidth intensive day.
GEEK INFO:
221.130.189.46
is hosted in the Asia net, and I bet is some Cpod staff member’s computer in the factory.
*I’m calling out the geeks there and saying it was stupid to host a torrent file on an Asia-located box when most leaches will be from outside the area. Put it on the Amazon s3 boxes. Duh!!!
(Yah, I know, after a while there will be enough ‘hosts’ that it shouldn’t matter, but until then.)
Chinesepod IP in the USA
IP Address: 64.78.165.98
IP Location: United States
Website Status: active
hans_in_nyon Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 6:36 pm
Lantian - I can further increase your joy (Schadenfreude): download has come to a complete standstill, after having reached 82% (2.7 giga; my yesterday’s indication was wrong), however, most of it is still unusable since more than half of the downloaded files have only been partially downloaded.
iosonofabio Says:
May 3rd, 2007 at 8:56 pm
I get a 404 when I try to download the .torrent file. It’s not a problem of software, since the .torrent is being downloaded via browser and not via BT. Anyway, I use BitComet, a chinese software fot BT which is able, using a cache, to protect your hard disk from excessively stressing activity during the download. You can find the client at:
http://www.bitcomet.com/
When is the file going to be available, approximately? Thank you for your time and efforts
Fabio
Peter Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 6:16 am
Could somebody who managed to download the chinesepod001-500.torrent file post it somewhere? Thanks!
trevelyan Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 11:13 am
I’m getting the 404 here in Beijing as well, so I think it’s probably a technical problem with the link to the main torrent rather than an issue of trans-Pacific bandwidth.
Lantian Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 12:24 pm
Hi Trevelyan,
SHARED PAIN -I’m on the net pretty much too much all the time here and over these holidays the net in China hasn’t been too good. Simply too many people. I still think it’s a bandwidth problem, but for you it’s between Beijing and Shanghai! (Remember John himself did a test download)
FLASH HIT - One other bandwidth problem I haven’t heard people mention is the Flash expansion sentences. Pretty much 9/10 times now, my browser locks up when I go to the Expansion or even Vocabulary tab as the browser attempts to connect and transfer from AmazonS3…
QUAKE - I’m kinda reminiscing over the quake days when there was an alt In-China server source, blistering fast for me. If Cpod could put up a simple page with content uploads…
hans_in_nyon Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
There seems to be more than just one problem, sometimes it takes ages for a page to open, sometimes the opening page just says “Server problem …”
hans_in_nyon Says:
May 4th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Such as this one, gotten a couple of minutes ago …
Internal Server Error
The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.
Please contact the server administrator, webmaster@chinesepod.com and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.
More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.0.54 Server at blogs.chinesepod.com Port 80
Shaun Says:
May 5th, 2007 at 11:59 am
I finally got a copy of the torrent file to download. I temporarily posted a copy at http://xiaoniu.org/files/chinesepod001-500.torrent
It won’t help you much though. The tracker is also in Shanghai so starting the download may not be possible or may take a really, really long time (for the same reason why the torrent file cannot be downloaded). I’ve already waited over 40 minutes and the download still hasn’t started.
Lantian, I believe you called this one right.
Marcin Says:
May 5th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
At the meanwhile link is correct, but there are no seeds. Availability is 0% for last 24h
Smelly Says:
May 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
Same here. No seeds
Richard Sharpe Says:
May 6th, 2007 at 1:38 am
Well, if you have a need for lots of storage that is much safer than the standard external USB drive and is dead easy to expand, you could look at Data Robotic’s Drobo. That’s the product I have been working on for these last twelve months. Current max storage possible is 3TB (with the latest 1TB drives).
However, I guess that a few GB is not going to stress most people these days. A few TB might.
China Blogging - Living in China, studying Chinese, web design and development. » WCL: Some talented people making really neato stuff Says:
May 6th, 2007 at 4:08 am
[...] those of you who may have missed it, here is the 500 lesson torrent, available for [...]
Tim Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 12:38 pm
I have a question..
was going to look at bittorents through the link above to wikipedia. Then I realized something I have always run into in China.. YOU CANNOT ACCESS WIKIPEDIA HERE. I can’t be the only one who notices this, as I have never been able to access it on any computer I have used in China.
I guess China is still up to its old censorship ways.. and in a BIG way here Wikipedia being one of the best sources, if not the best source, to learn about just anything on the Web.. or am I missing something here and am the only one who can’t see the site in China. After all Chinesepod is linking to it on this very page.
If it is censored though, I am really surprised people don’t raise more of an uproar about it, there should be hundreds of blogs and website solely about this issue protesting such blatant short sidedness by the government, which would be down right wrong. If this is why Wikipedia cannot be accessed here, though I love China it really rubs into me how far this country and its people still have to go in shaking off the insanity and residue left over by the founders of CCP. Hopefully I am mistaken as the reason Wikipedia cannot be used here.
Tim Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 1:18 pm
second question..
I know you guys said if you are in China its slow.. but it seems no matter what bittorrent client I use to try and download this slow is equal to 0.0 kb/s here? maybe a 0.1 now and then.. looks like 3 gigs will be about 300 years?
Rich Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
“Seed it, just seed it…” *break dances*
(Anyone who works in America able to get the 3.1 gig file and share it with us, even though I’m over in China?)
kiwiboy Says:
May 7th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Oh and Tim, yeah, Wikipedia’s been blocked here in China pretty much forever, as far as I can tell. In S China (Shenzhen area) at least. Sucks huh? Damned Great Firewall of China….
Peter Says:
May 8th, 2007 at 6:48 am
This is just a guess, but the story of the torrent could be something like this:
1. Original torrent posted. People download.
2. Somebody/something deletes the .torrent file. That’s all the 404s people complained about.
3. Somebody recreates torrent file from scratch, probably using different torrent tracker as well. The link to torrent file works again, but there is no seed on this separate torrent (i.e. no download).
So if I’m right, there are two separate torrents, the first one at this time likely full of seeders and the second one that never had any data (plus the tracker was down d`earlier today).
Fortunately, the holidays in China should be over tomorrow, so the waiting for the lesson mp3s will end soon
Jingawee Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 12:13 am
I want it all, i want it all. Well, that’s the human instinct. Me very greedy too. Mmmhh, a huge bittorrent file. ( I rememeber in the past I made copies of so many software manuals: only used less than 5 % of it). I can only do one lesson at the same time.. I don’t want to spoil my time with those Torrent things. (maybe only to see how those things work).
When I see interesting lesson, then I download that, one by one: e.g. 初级96 Aesop’s Fables: The Tortoise and the Hare. For me a wise lesson:
一步一步爬
scoff Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 3:24 am
Shaun,
Thanks for posting a link the torrent file. The download from the blog was estimated at more than a day to download.
Rich Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 6:49 am
I got the whole 3.1 GB file in less than 15 hours, and I’m in China, so don’t give up hope.
Yet I am wondering why I don’t see more people in the peer list that have 100% of the file. I have seen people close to 100% and then they disappear. Are you guys not keeping the file in your torrent program? Or does it not show me people who have 100% now since I have 100%? Either way, it really doesn’t help others if you don’t leave your torrent program running and the ChinesePod file for uploading.
Currently I’m the only one online who has all the parts, so everyone must rely on me. I will keep my computer on for two more days, but after that I move to a new apartment and will be without a phone or broadband line.
If you have the file, seed it!
Rich
MarkT Says:
May 10th, 2007 at 10:49 am
I am using Azureus. It claims there are 12 seeds and 9 peers, 5 of which are connected to me. The Swarm Average Speed is 120kB/s. Not bad! :^)
There is an Easter Egg in the download. Has anyone else found it?
No lyrics in the MP3s :^( (Well, two do, but that is probably a mistake).
kiwiboy Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Rich, I dont see your machine as having a copy available….in fact I dont see any copies at all right now. Anybody know what’s up?
kiwiboy Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
I have about 50% downloaded the file now I get this error “WARNING : Problem connecting to tracker (http://smileyg.vicp.net:6969/announce): None: address ’smileyg.vicp.net’ not found: (11001, ‘getaddrinfo failed’)” from BitTorrent. Anybody know why the tracker would suddenly become unreachable? Anyone who has the full file, is it possible to set up a new tracker or something? I’m not that familiar with the details of setting up Torrents. All help appreciated
MarkT Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 2:21 pm
If you are using Azureus, try this Azureus Magnet link:
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:EQ2PGZYWB37WOOLWF75UWBYCTVDOT27I
Let me know if it works. I copied it out of my seed and it is supposed to connect peers currently downloading when the tracker is down, if I understand it correctly.
Lantian Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
OLYMPIC SPEEDS - Looks like there’s pain all around now, outside of Shanghai, in Shanghai, outside China. One of my worn-out refrains has been to post things on an internal China server (in this torrent case, the file need to be on a non-China server.) Anyway, I had a brain f..lash. Maybe Cpod has a few adsl lines they share, or a big LAN line they pay a lot for.
But I say this, go talk to the telecom guys and tell them you need special routing across the pond, because you are helping to improve relations and preparations FOR THE OLYMPICS!
(It IS technically possible, a couple changes on national routing tables and load balancing preference settings and you’ll be faster than the Flash or Spidey.)
kiwiboy Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 2:26 pm
Thanks. I just changed to Azureus and used the link that Shaun posted a few days ago. No problems now….guess it was some quirk of BitTorrent then…anyways, in a few hours the files should be mine.
Rich Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 5:29 pm
Kiwiboy,
I have been online for over 3 days straight with it, but I have only uploaded 6GB, about 200% of what I downloaded. My computer hasn’t had any downtime. I don’t really know how your computer finds me and how that works, and I’m starting to get I can’t see other seeders… to me it just says this (in uTorrent):
Status: Seeding
Seeds: 0(9)
I’m guessing out of 9 people in the swam, there is no one seeding??? Why am I not included in that number? It says my upload spead is around 55kB/s and I have uploaded 6GB. How can I see who else is seeding this? Is seedings just leaving it in your Torrent software after downloading it? I haven’t changed any settings.
-Rich
MarkT Says:
May 11th, 2007 at 11:05 pm
I have a similar issue in Azureus. Today I have:
Status: Seeding
Seeds 0(5) Peers: 0(8)
Tracker Status: Connection Error (UnknownHostException:smileyg.vicp.net)
Which means, there are 5 seeders and 8 downloaders out there. I am connected to no seeds (which makes sense, I have the files), but no peers are using my bandwidth.
Would someone try this Azureus Magnet link?
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:EQ2PGZYWB37WOOLWF75UWBYCTVDOT27I
I copied it out of my seed and it is supposed to connect peers currently downloading when the tracker is down, so maybe it will help people connect to me.
DSL333 Says:
May 13th, 2007 at 12:25 am
I’m getting the 404 webpage not found error.
Based in London, England and using IE7.0
exuter Says:
May 13th, 2007 at 11:18 pm
I still get the error message here but I found a source whith the Torrentfinder Page. I still don´t have the full file but somehow it
went to the finished sektion and somehow I still have one connection in the swarm. I made a screenshot maybe it´s usefull so could anybody tell me how to post it, cause copying it simply into it don´t seem to work.
Gaole Says:
May 15th, 2007 at 7:07 am
Been stuck at 87% for days. How many have actually downloaded the entire file?
MarkT Says:
May 15th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
Gaole, I’ve currently got 10 peers connected to my seed, and have uploaded 15GB to others, so there are plenty out there downloading. I recommend Azureus. Here’s a Magnet link to my peers (can work when tracker is unavailable, which this one is…often):
magnet:?xt=urn:btih:EQ2PGZYWB37WOOLWF75UWBYCTVDOT27I
Gaole Says:
May 16th, 2007 at 8:20 am
MarkT,
Thanks so much!
Juju72 Says:
May 16th, 2007 at 8:32 pm
I found it on Isohunt.com doing a search for ‘chinesepod’ …. seems to be downloading fine so far. Will try that magnet link thing if it stalls
exuter Says:
May 17th, 2007 at 3:48 am
the new link(
http://tracker.chinesepod.com:8000/announce )
worked perfekt got it all complete now thanks
excuter
Tim Says:
May 18th, 2007 at 1:06 pm
AH! Finally got it downloaded and on to my ipod.. but this seems different then the files I downloaded directly from lesson..
On those push the middle ipod button twice and walla! You have the Text of the chinese dialogue. Not from the torrent files though???
Chad Says:
May 19th, 2007 at 3:06 am
MarkT wrote:
There is an Easter Egg in the download. Has anyone else found it?
Oh, that Bob!