我觉得Echo开玩笑了，同时不开玩笑。她的语气不严重。 谁都不喜欢外国人批评，怎么说？，出生的国家。

My Chinese isn't good enough to express this, but I think Echo was making a joke and making a point at the same time. Nobody enjoys constant criticism of their home country. Calling someone "racist" is just a way to take a little jab. Especially with China, it's a reminder of a cultural backdrop, but a joke at the same time. But I should let Echo speak for herself.

开头的课时，David说"if X are stupid." 我听不懂， 如果谁很笨？然后Echo回答什么？麻烦你写一下。

谢谢

Yup. It's oh please... give me a break... come on!!

@bionara,

Fair enough, but it IS an elementary lesson. So we try to keep it accessible to people who have studied maybe between 3 months and 2 years? For some people this is the step up from Absolute Beginners....

We have some more intermediate stuff coming out shortly. Was actually hoping to publish a show earlier this week, but since Sinica is coming out later today it's getting pushed to next Monday.

Cheers,

--david

I mean higher level language skill..

For my part, whilst tentatively agreeing with you, I would really relish a Media Section in addition to the short stories and levels. In the Vocab. you will have an area of Media, say Diplomacy, Military, Terrorism, Gossip or Law and Order.

I dont know why, but Media in evety language is The Silent Shame. You can never say its the biggest learning barrier, you can never ask a teacher to teach it to you.

Every language program, whether the excellent Pao Pao C or University course will always teach the impratical flowery stuff, like poetry. Actually, I write poetry! I love the stuff ! I just want to get along, you know, to know whats going on and TO HEAR and SPEAK about the news/media to my friends. To feel empowered by this knowledge. Reading just doesnt cut it.

But you can never ask a teacher to teach you this most important of all language areas. It is The Silent Shame.

I will rewrite this comment in the more advanced sections, but you can never start too early with the media, the receptive aural understanding of which us paramount. Everything else is icing, not the cake, in this world of controversy and issues. Man is a Political Animal. All is is emboidery, a cultivated distraction, la la land.

Hey Jamie,

Yeah, the email is sitting in my inbox -- I kept procrastinating since it was quite long, so I'm sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner and privately. Although I'm happy to chat about this stuff.

Just to chip in anyway, we don't do Tang poetry to date largely because it doesn't seem easily teachable or useful for developing colloquial mastery. We also have a lot of colloquial readings more than extremely literary ones (the Lu Xun one is fairly straightforward for example -- compare to Kite or Diary!) Somewhat likewise with the news stuff. We could do something and getting people in the studio is easy enough, but I'm not sure how to make it really good.

Suggestions are welcome. Likewise if there is anyone actually IN Beijing who wants to come by our studio and try stuff out, we can experiment that way too. I do want to avoid just putting up random audio since I think quality is more important than quality, and it is easy to start just knocking bad content out if people are reduced to just reading the news.

It is a good question.

Best,

--david

if you've been in China a long time, and you speak the language, you will detest living there. Of course it makes you more irritable. So does being stared at, mocked on the street, etc. When you start hearing Waiters/Waitresses talk shit about you, standing 5 ft away from your table, you'll book tickets out of China.

Enjoy your brief stay in the illustrious Middle Kingdom--be sure to invest in a good set of earplugs. City Shop has the good Japanese import ones.

My suggestion with Media Readings is to just keep the News article pretty much the way it is and perhapsexplain some difficult language points and chat at the same time about the news issue being studied.

Actually this is all a student would need. Quantity is more important than quality by far. The news happens every day. The student has a lot to learn and quality will reduce comprehensible input volume.

I agree with bionara. The frequent and rapid switching between the languages is unhelpful. As an elementary learner, I need an introductory explanation of the situation, with some vocab preparation, and then the (uninterrupted) Chinese at a slightly slower delivery than natural speed. Followed by some repetition (at natural speed, perhaps) and translation. The best thing, I think, would be to follow the Chinese (without English interruption) in the transcript, but for that I have to subscribe, it seems :-( I might consider doing that if I felt the podcasts were better structured.

I kinda like the amount of English this lesson had. I feel there are many other lessons where there is more Chinese and there is the intermediate section.

The English really helps when im multitasking. When my mind starts to glaze over due to the amount of Chinese, the English will bring things back into context, and help me find my place if i had gotten "lost".

Thats the thing i like about the elementary lessons. You can still learn something while not busting your brain due to the effort of concentrating.

In your transcript section, I have found the node for listening to the separate pinyin/english sections very useful for personal practice in speaking (mimicry). Of late, the node does not seem to work; I hear nothing when I press it; the node arrow does turn dark, however.

Have you discontinued the node transmission? To me it's worth its weight.

Maybe there is a technical problem with my computer; but everything else works fine. Thank you.

Canderson_91