Figuring out how the levels should work on ChinesePod has been a bit tricky. It was one of the first things that John Pasden tackled when he came on board. John drew up a detailed chart demarcating the levels and offering explanations. He has tested it and we are now committed to using it as our official guide to the levels. All the lessons you hear these days fall into the categories on that chart.
However, the chart is just a guideline. We still need to produce the lessons.. They take time, planning, and production – at this stage, 2 weeks or more from the inception of the idea to its publication. This is longer than in the past because we have much stricter quality control.
This takes me to the question of lower-intermediate or higher-elementary, whichever you wish to call them. John knows, as we all know, that there is a perceived gap for some of our most loyal elementary learners. So, let me assure you all: those gaps are being filled in. A number of podcasts are ready to be rolled out in the coming weeks that will target this level. We’re listening to you and giving you what you request.
In addition, I’ll upload the level chart that John designed.
Just so you know, Big Brain.
Ken Carroll
pretzellogic on 
Andrew Cockerham on 
Dave on
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Ken,
Does this mean there is no need to pursue the idea I had in this forum post.
http://www.chinesepod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=513
Hopefully it is clear what I was am getting at. I think a guide to high frequency intermediate language (the actual disscussion of the dialogue) would be a powerful leg-up to many of those on the wrong side of the gap. I brute-forced my way through, but had to rely on some of the skills I picked up from regualarly listening to Chinese that I mostly don’t understand (against all advice).
There is little point in me attempting to pursue this if Cpod are covering something similar, particularly I would have to enlist some help (I haven’t been listening to or mastered enough intermediate level to do a good job on this yet).
哈利路亚！ (hālìlùya)
Hi Ken,
This is exactly what I meant when I post yesterday in the forum (http://www.chinesepod.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=513). I’m trying to jump into the elementary level but I dont feel confident enough when start listening to the lessons. Today I’m only able to catch up some words, I dont know which could be the best method, maybe a lower intermediate as you mention, but be sure that i’m not the only student who is trying to go through the next level. On the other hand, I think it is the most important change, because it is supposed to be the level where someone starts to deal with the language on his own…
My key maybe others can use it.
Inpenetrable wall of Chinese how can I climb it?
Context that is how, the common thread running through many of the intermediate lessons is that a lot of the non-dialogue talk is about language, and meaning. This word, that word, you can say or you can say, let us list to the dialogue, for example say, this meaning that meaning etc. etc. What is more learning to speak about Chinese in Chinese just rocks! Get that into your head and you can find finger and toe holds and start to climb.
This evening I started to turn the hosepipe the other way and output a lot of this stuff to my language partner, it was wonderful each one was an instant win, I was talking about zi4 and ci4 and sheng1 in Chinese and pasting in some of the glue I have already learned from the Intermediate. There is a huge difference between knowing the individual words in even a simple phrase like ni3 ke3yi3 shou1 …. and being able to reel it off without think in conversation because you have heard and interacted with it.
Please think about this, maybe is less of a case of adjusting level etc. and more of a case of providing some lessons on how to talk about Chinese and word meaning etc. in Chinese.
That old chesnut “give a man a fish and he eats for a day, give him a fishing rod and he eats for a week” springs to mind. Of course that presumes that the rivers havn’t dried up because of Global warming etc. but I would hope there are many more Intermediate lessons to come.
John is doing the right thing, usually if he drops to English it is something specific to the lesson, much of the basic language discussion continues in Chinese.
Damn I shouldn’t type so fast that should have been zi4 and ci2, not zi4 and ci4
please forgive ni3 key3yi3 shuo1 not shou1 I don’t want to mislead anyone. (I type very, very fast and don’t proof read sorry again).
As mentioned by others, I think that a lot of the problems I had with the intermediate/beginner gap was due to the “chit chat”. I tried to slog my way through by translating syllable by syllable – unfortunately a dictionary cannot teach context, and I was left with some rather amusing translations of every day speech!
One thing that has helped me lately is going right back to the first 15 or so intermediate lessons and listening to them over and over again. I found that these lessons were somewhat less Chinese. In some of the lessons Ken was so kind as to translate what Jenny had said. After enough of this, I found myself able to follow along with the more recent intermediate lessons with relative ease! The key for me was in having those high frequency teaching phrases translated.
it can be said over and over and over again. To really learn a language you need to immesrse yourself – and although I know this to be true, it is easier said than done when the majority of input is coming through headphones! Last year I took a french immersion class – everything was taught in French, no english allowed. Although it was difficult, I gradually caught on to the high frequency phrases and found them coming out of my own mouth with ease! This was possible because I had a teacher that I could interact with – which of course is not the case here. This passive interaction necessitates more direct translations than would be necessary in a face to face interaction, or so I like to think.
I’m no linguist!
anyway, that’s what worked for me. I guess I won’t know how well it worked until I get to Beijing in just over 2 weeks. eek!
Ken, Jenny, John and ChinesePod Staff:
Gasp! Gaps in the lessons? Tell me about it. There are a lot of gaps in all of the levels.
The way I see it, by making it Chinese on demand, it presents a situation where there is little to no continuity to the majority of the lessons. I feel, if the students dictiate the course of the lessons, then it is up to ChinesePod Staff to ensure that there is continuity which ties one lesson to another, thus enhancing the learning process. But as is, it’s hard to take what is introduced in one lesson and bring that to another lesson. So, the students suffer. In this case, learning from a controlled environment like Primsleur is more conducive to the learning of Chinese Mandarin, than ChinesePod. So, I hope some changes will be made in the 2nd year of ChinesePod. Evidentially, you will realize that controlled lessons still have it’s place in the learning process.
What is the difference between the Newbie level and the Elementary level? To me, they are one and the same level. And in these lessons, ChinesePod Staff is assuming that each student knows most of the words within the lesson, while only introducing a few phrases in the new vocabulary. I feel that within all fo the lessons, whether it be Newbie, Elementary, Immediate, Upper Immediate, Advanced, and Advanced ZH, that all the vocabulary be given English translations. After all, how does the ChinesePod Staff know whether or not their students know these words? They don’t, and most likely, we don’t either.
So, why not provide English translations for all of the phrases contained within the lesson curriculum? Previously, English translations were included in the Advanced pdf printouts, but with the inclusion of the Advance-zh lessons, all English has been elminated from the lessons? Why? Now it I’m having a hard time understanding these lessons, because I’m here to learn the vocabulary, but I’ve no clue as to what is being discussed, so how am I going to learn?
Quality Control: I’m glad that it takes long to produce a lesson plan now. After all, in the beginning it appeared that the lessons were drawn up by the hip without any fore thought, research, or correct, as well as some of the sole opinions offered by people being interviewed.
But as time processed, ChinesePod has improved, and as more expert staff has been brought aboard more native Chinese speakers in Aggie, and Connie, to work along with Jenny, etc. Also John Pasden, what a wonder addition he is to the staff. Thus, ChinesePod has improved 100% from its inception almost one year ago. Of course, mind you, Ken [no offence] ate some really big humble pie and took the advice of the ‘Tone Police, and sat out his bad pronounication and bad tones from of the conversational dialog.
I learn more from the conversations between Jenny, Aggie, John and Connie than I do from the lessons itself. Also, it would be nice, if the Staff included some of these phrases used in the conversations and included them into the pdf downloads.
So, on the eve of the first year anniversary of ChinesePod, I say Bloody Good Job! I wish continual success with ChinesePod. It’s a great concept and Ken, you definitely trail blazed the concept of Podcast learning into a worthy revenue stream.
Caution
I am not sure I agree with all Ian says.
I have learned a huge amount from the intermediate (and elementary) lessons in a most pleasurable and efficient way. The enjoyable experience of listening repeatedly to the podcasts drives home the vocabulary in a way that I believe is superior to many systems I have tried. My abililty to comprehend speech and indeed to speak has markedly improved in the relatively short time since I discovered Chinesepod.
The fact that there is little flow between the lessons does not worry me. Learning a language is not a systematic process of building up into more and more complexity. It seems to me that especially for Chinese, coming at the thing from as many angles as possible is the way to success. I mean that if you hear /come across a particular character or word often enough in different contexts, the pieces of the jigsaw that Chinese seems to be starts to fit together.
My point made on this site about the gap between elementary and intermediate is still valid though!
Please dont provide English translations for everything though. We must do some work ourselves to work it out.
Do give us some help with some of the metalanguage in the dialogues.
Good job!!
Put me in the same camp as Mike.
The problem with a bunch of lessons that flow down a path is: what happens if you don’t like or get bored of where they are taking you?
Also the lack of English forces you to struggle, but that develops skills. Some lessons on the meta-language (talking about Chinese in Chinese) would give people a leg-up though. I had to work out all the ‘for example say’ ‘you can say’ ‘this word’ that word etc. for myself now I am tying to get good at picking up the rest of the chat (actually maybe it is about time I paid a bit more attention to the dialogues
).
if you get stuck then hone some skills and use of webapps the first time I heard Ken say ‘cha bu duo’ I just had to go and find out what it means, not hard to hear and there are a bunch of places where you could just type that in an get an instant answer. Most words and phrases are harder to glean but it is surprising sometimes how far you go get. Somehow phrases and patterns you have to work a little for taste all the sweeter and strangly seem easier and more natural when yu say them.
I just love how Chinesepod is developing and sharpening its focus….I’ve always loved the vitality & freshness of the content anyway…but to have more diverse offerings which will help the huge range of people out there trying to gain their personal toeholds is surely going to make it an even more powerful & accessible tool. I agree with the comments about the metalanguage…these are certainly some of the stumbling blocks for me… However, I’m not as dedicated as some students who persist with chat they can’t grasp yet…I just let it wash over me in the belief that eventually some light will dawn. I am always delighted when I do recognise some phrase or vocab item… but as for understanding the string of meaning ,it’s not happening for me yet. That’s why I love the expansion exercises for each lesson,thanks to the talented & hardworking team…seeing & hearing the phrases in different contexts. (…I’m a visual as well as an auditory learner…I’m persisting with learning the characters because I love that aspect of this beautiful language )…Short video clips at a higher level with grammar explanations like the cute flash tutorials at the beginning level & more links to simple songs /street-talk etc would be wonderful for my style of learning too…but that is asking too much I think at this stage of Chinesepod’s development. I’m very happy with what you are offering me right now -it’s great!
Would love to see The Cpod Levels Chart . Qing wen, zhunbei hao le mei you?
Lantian,
The levels chart will be online by the end of the week – along with some other (interesting, I hope) academic content.
Ken
Hey Ken – as someone who gets the most out of the elementary lessons, but can’t seem to crack the intermediate ones just yet, I’m very happy to hear that this particular gap is going to be addressed. I crave the conversation that’s present in the intermediate lessons, but still need a bit of the hand-holding that’s present in the elementary ones. I’d suggest that it might not be necessary to create a whole new category, as you did for upper-intermediate (zhong1 gao1). Perhaps just a mention at the beginning of the lesson that this is of the upper-elementary sort, so users are aware? Of course, I’ll be happy with whatever you folks decide.
I too am struggling to break into the Intermediate level and all the comments above seem to echo my love/hate relationship with the Intermediate lessons. Here are a few of my own observations and suggestions.
The wonderful thing about these intermediate lessons that the chinese explanations provide great practice for improving the listening skills of intermediate level students. It is also a rare opportunity to learn spoken chinese in a realatively unscripted format.
The problem with the Intermediate lessons is that the explanations in chinese are at a more advanced level than the content. I have no trouble with the content, but struggle with some of the vocabulary and idioms of the explanations. The other problem is there is a lack of support from the chinesepod site for learning how to listen to these explanations.
My suggestion is to provide some Introduction to Intermediate lessons. The idea is that you would have a set of lessons dedicated as an introduction to the intermediate level. At least one of the early Intermediate lessons already fits this category. Use these lessons to introduce the vocabulary, grammar and idioms of the expanations. I think 5 – 10 lessons of this type would be more than enough – I don’t want to distract you guys from the great topics you come up with.
I also think it would be particularly helpful to have some word-for-word transcripts of the some of the intermediate lessons. As other commenters mentioned, I am trying to learn learn these lessons one sylable at a time now and it is a lot of work. A hanzi transcript would huge help, and sufficient for anyone who has access to an online chinese-english dictionary.
I am another person trying to bridge the elementary/intermediate gap. One of the things that I have noticed is that there are some (a few) intermediate podcasts that I can begin to understand after repeated listening. For these, slowly the meaning of the conversation becomes clearer bit by bit. There are “islands” of comprehension that slowly move outwards and get bridged to take up the rest of the podcast over repeated listening, and I suspect that is the way that I will always learn these more difficult podcasts. Examples, for me of this are North and South (erroneously labelled as elementary) and the one about drinking hot water.
However the majority of the intermediates go over my head even after repeated listening, and there is no way that I can “break into” the meaning. No islands of comprehension. No first foothold on the mountain. So I wonder why that is? There are several obvious differences, the “easier ones” (to me) have more English and are earlier in the sequence (they are definitely getting harder over time). I also notice that the few that I understand have Ken in (I am not sure if this is a valid effect, but I think Ken does introduce more English and “slow down the pace” a little – this is not a negative comment it is good!). I also feel that Jenny is speaking slower in the earlier (easier) ones, but this may of course be subjective. So I would like more English “islands” in the intermediate ones (maybe there is a direct correlation between proportion of English and ease of learning?) It does not have to be both speaker, it works quite well when Jennie talks Chinese and Ken talks English. And slowing it down might help. I know that is probably difficult to achieve though.
I also agree with the idea of a vocab of meta-language statements, but this will only go so far. Much of the (more interesting) parts is in the informal chat afterwards. And random subjects is good.
BTW, please do not take my comments as just wanting Ken back! I really enjoy John’s approach and style too, and enjoy the elementary podcasts that he is on. I think their styles are both good but complementary. How about an intermediate lesson with Jenny, Ken AND John!
Best wishes, and thanks
The Gap – I think there are now plenty of newbie and elementary podcasts with vocabulary and short everyday phrases, but they are lacking explicit conversational lexis. By this I mean the simple conversational blips that I kinda ignore while listening to the intermediate chattings, but which I’m sure for elementaries sounds like unknown vocabulary racing quickly by. Example:
(What it must seem like to an newbie or elementary)
érqiě nà dànshì nà bǐjiào jiǎndān háishì jiùshì hǎo liǎo hǎo de zhōngwén lǐmiàn yīxià xiàcì zhè liǎng ge zì suǒyǐ zhè ge kěyǐ shuō ránhòu zuìhòu zài yīnwéi
而且那但是那比较简单还是就是好了好的中文里面一下下次这两个字所以这个可以说然后最后在因为
(When what it really is. A sampling from the Chicken Wing podcast)
而且 érqiě , also
那但是 nà dànshì, so but
那比较简单 nà bǐjiào jiǎndān, so it’s kinda easy
还是 háishì , also
就是 jiùshì, just so
好了 hǎo le, Okay
好的 hǎo de, Okay
中文里面 zhōngwén lǐmiàn, in Chinese
一下 yīxià , a little
下次 xiàcì , next
这两个字 zhè liǎng ge zì , these two letters/words
所以这个 suǒyǐ zhè ge , so this
可以说 kěyǐ shuō , you could say
然后 ránhòu , after that
最后在 zuìhòu zài , finally
因为 yīnwéi , because
I’m not proposing to learn these clumps in isolation or as grammatical transition phrases, etc., but I think they are lacking and not frequently embedded in the elementary scripts, so it’s kinda hard to expect someone that’s only listening to Cpod to make the jump in comprehension in intermediate chats. These conversational chunks are in the intermediate dialogue scripts but then how is one suppossed to understand the chatting segments? I’d say a similar problem exists for the ‘gap’ between the intermediate and advanced. It’ll be interesting to see TheChart.
My BigChart – I thought I’d pre-empt TheChart. Especially since I don’t feel like studying or writing hanzi, aka I’m doing a Ken.
Level One (Newbie)
-Super high frequency lexis that one will hear in typical Chinese daily life.
Ex: 吃了没有？
Level Two (Elementary)
-High frequency conversational lexis. Lexis that is necessary to expand a thought and keep a conversation flowing.
Ex: 这个很好。所以给我两个。
Level Three (Intermediate)
-Conversations and repeated use and explicit explanation of conversational lexis
Ex: 我不觉得，而且不同意。
Level Three-Plus (High-intermediate)
-Conversations and introduction of more difficult lexis and less frequent patterns necessary for sophisticated Chinese expression
Ex: 难道你觉得这个方法好吗？ 请你帮我解决。
Level Four (Advanced)
-Typical conversations in a range of subjects, occassional explicit explanation of idioms, phrases and style
Ex: 等等等
Section A
-Podcasts on specific language topics, such as: pinyin, pronunciation, composition, writing, hanzi
Lantian
Thanks, for extracting these kind of words. I will be interested to see how CPod express themselves on this subject. This is what I mentioned on the forum why I am forcing myself to spend the time to work through the Intermediates Lessons and not just hear and yell bingo when I hear words I know. Instead to absorb such that ranhou is not “after that” but its just ranhou. Just like we can all at the Elementary level can “我要….” and not think about what wo yao means. Moving up in levels means having as a first step words like you have posted completely absorbed as part of your thinking process as they are in Chinese. yes ? At least that is what I think. So how to do it?
This is my first language after English (other than four years 1966-70 with Mrs. Ramely in Latin) I don’t think my brain is fast enough to translate in real time from Chinese to English instead you have to think in Chinese. Yes?
So far Ken hasn’t posted on this topic and I hope he will . We Elementary Poddies can easily say “我要….” but what helps us get to the next level? John or others who are fluent or near fluent surely or Shirley can’t be hearing in Chinese—- translate to English and then think of the response in English then respond in Chinese. Yes.?
John has even mentioned that it is a big step but I have not yet seen what this big step really means. So this is my idea what it means to go from Elementary to Intermediate. Its not a bigger vocabulary. I wold be happy if I could use every word given in the Newbie and Elementary lessons with “my eyes closed” I beleive its thinking as much as possible in Chinese. If I can get off in the elevator and without thinking say “zao” The big step is to reflexively just keep talking in Chinese. “How did you sleep, have you had breakfast, going to work early.” All the while hearing the answers in Chinese and reacting not thinking. Yes?
Being the geek/nerd that I am I have to try to understand what the next step is so I can attack it logically. So to me its confirming this is correct , figuring out what is the imput and then figuring out how to implement it so as to make it happen.
Mike in Jubei
Mike (in Jubei)
In order to get to think in it, you have to use it and use it again …
At the very least you have to hear it and hear it again and again..
At least that’s my experience
Mike in Ewshot