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ChinesePod dialogues per HSK level (HSK 1, 2 and 3)

#1

First of all, let me say I love ChinesePod. I use it all the time and I think it’s great. However, for those of us that are studying for the HSK exams it’s unfortunate that the dialogues are not indexed by HSK level. Of course, ChinesePod dialogues can be done in any order; so I figured, if one is studying for a HSK level, might as well pick dialogues that contribute to the vocabulary requirements for that HSK level!

Coming up with a list of dialogues per HSK level is a non-trivial task; ideally such a list would satisfy a number of requirements:

  • It should cover as much of each HSK level as possible
  • It should use as few dialogues as possible to achieve that coverage
  • It should use dialogues that use as little non-HSK vocabulary as possible

Some additional design goals are

  • Use only vocabulary that actually appears in the dialogue. (Initially I attempted to use only the dialogue’s “key” vocabulary, but that excluded too many HSK words; now I use also words from a dialogue’s “supplemental” vocabulary, but only if it actually appears in the dialogue).
  • If we have to pick a lesson with vocabulary outside the HSK level we’re studying, then vocabulary that is in another HSK level is preferable to vocabulary that is not included at any HSK level, and vocabulary at a lower HSK level is preferable to vocabulary at a higher HSK level.
  • Dialogues on different kinds of topics

Satisfying any one of these requirements is easy, but satisfying all of them all is a difficult balancing act. It’s almost impossible to do by hand, so I wrote a piece of software to help me with it; it’s available from GitHub if you’re curious. The software talks to the ChinesePod server; many thanks for the ChinesePod’s CTO for giving me access to ChinesePod’s API.

The construction of the list is still not fully automated, because there are still many decisions that require some thought; for instance, if the HSK curriculum includes 冬 and 夏 then it’s okay to pick a ChinesePod dialogue that includes 冬天 and 夏天 instead, but if the curriculum includes 东 and 西 then including a dialogue with 东西 is not okay. So it becomes a computer aided process, but not an automated process.

Anyway, the list of dialogues I constructed can be found on my website at http://www.edsko.net/2015/10/17/ChinesePod-HSK/ ; I was going to include them here but apparently as a new forum user I can only include two links in a forum post.

For each HSK level I record how much of the HSK curriculum is covered by the dialogues (and which words are not covered), how many dialogues are included, and the percentage of HSK vocabulary against the total vocabulary used in the dialogues (i.e., a value of 100% means the dialogues used only HSK vocabulary; a percentage of 50% means the ratio HSK vocabulary to non-HSK vocabulary is 1:1, etc.). (HSK words are not covered either if there are no dialogues that include them, or if they are only covered in dialogues with a very low HSK to non-HSK vocabulary ratio.)

Happy studying!

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ChinesePod dialogues for HSK 4
ChinesePod dialogue list for HSK 5
What's an acceptable score on the level test to move up?
#2

Writing a project which uses the ChinesePod API is great. What really amazes me: You’re using Haskell, I never see people using Haskell for real projects.

#3

@edsko This is a really cool method of sorting the lessons and very useful for those who are doing the HSK. Makes learning the vocab a lot more interesting when you find relevant dialogues.

#4

Apart from that:
I’m so glad that Chinesepod just doesn’t focus on HSK vocabulary. For me plain HSK vocabs is not kind of a vivid language learning process but ChinesePod is.

#5

@sven100 That’s funny, I see those people all the time – though come to think of it, that might have something to do with the fact that I write Haskell for a living and work for a Haskell consultancy company :slight_smile:

And yes, I’m not suggesting ChinesePod stick to the HSK vocabulary. But if someone is studying for the HSK then having a list of dialogues targeted at the HSK vocabulary is quite useful.

#6

@edsko Thank you for letting us use the results of your hard work in making these lists.

Just one question: I can’t work out how to get from your Pleco link to actually having the vocab in Pleco. Would you mind giving a step-by-step procedure? I am using Pleco on my iPod. Thanks again for this.

#7

@dorothycowling Pleco’s import procedure is a little awkward. It’s explained in detail in Pleco’s manual; see https://www.pleco.com/ipmanual/flashtut.html#importingotherflashcardlists . Let me know if you have any difficulty. (The manual says you should first package the file up into a .zip file; this is not necessary. The file is UTF8 encoded and Pleco will recognize this just fine.)

(The easiest thing, I think, is to use Dropbox. First, backup your current flashcard database (Flashcards, Import/Export, Backup Database. This is a useful thing to do anyway. Then Pleco will create a directory Apps/Pleco Chinese Dictionary in your Dropbox account, and store some files there. Put the file from my website there as well. Then Import/Export again, Import Cards, skip step 1, just click on Import, then File, then select the file you just uploaded to Dropbox. and click Begin Import. Like I said, it’s a little awkward :confused: ).

#8

@edsko. Thank you for so generously sharing your hard work with others.

I’ve been using HSK vocab levels as a way to structure my Mandarin learning. So your selection of CPod lessons is very powerful as the lessons you’ve pulled out show and explain with great relevance how to use all this HSK vocab.

#9

Now that I’m using skritter I think I will go through the lessons using this HSK order to slowly build up my reading/writing skills. I’ve decided that this year I am going to really focus on my writing/reading skills to help improve my mandarin.

Thanks again for all the hard work sorting through the lessons to do this HSK listing!

#10

@436865276 and @Matt_T, glad you find the list helpful. Hopefully I’ll find some time to construct a list for HSK4 soon(ish).

#11

Yes, please for an HSK 4 list! I’m only just starting on HSK 3 Ele/Intermediate but I’m sure it’ll be useful for a whole lot of other people.

#12

This is a very creative solution for imposing a different level of organization on the large library of CPod material. I wonder if CPod could incorporate it into a future build of the website. I’m not studying for the HSK, but I can still see the value of this approach. What I would like is a function where I could dump in a block of text (for example, a feature article in the newspaper) and have all of the CPod lessons that are likely to help reinforce the vocabulary in the reading listed in order of (likely) relevance.

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About flashcards and HSK
#13

List for HSK 4 now complete; see ChinesePod dialogues for HSK 4.

#14

What I would like is a function where I could dump in a block of text (for example, a feature article in the newspaper) and have all of the CPod lessons that are likely to help reinforce the vocabulary in the reading listed in order of (likely) relevance.

I think this is harder than it sounds. I’ve constructed these lists with the help of a program I wrote specifically for this purpose (https://github.com/edsko/ChinesePodAPI) and while that helps, there is still quite a lot of human input involved; when a word is covered by two dialogues, how do we decide which one to pick? Maybe one covers more “useless” vocabulary (for your specific purpose) than the other, but maybe it also covers more useless vocabulary (two words out of your text, for instance); exploring all options to find the optimal solution is not possible (the program would take far too long to compute). Moreover, how we decide which word is useless? This too involves quite a bit of human feedback (see the detailed discussion I have about marking words as useless in my blog post about the list for HSK 4).

#15

@edsko, I regularly use your HSK lists - most helpful for developing HSK vocab while picking up grammar, sentence construction, etc. gems in the Chinesepod lessons which feature the relevant terms.

But, help! your link hasn’t been working for a couple of days. Any chance you could fix it?

Many thanks in advance,
Katherine

#16

Hi Katherine,

It seems there is a problem with my server :angry: I’ve contacted the admins, but meanwhile, here’s the list:

HSK 1 (92% coverage, 39 dialogues, 51% HSK vocabulary)

For the HSK1 list I gave preference to Newbie dialogues over Elementary dialogues, and included no dialogues of a higher than Elementary level.

The following HSK 1 words are not covered by this list: 读, 些, 医院, 饭店, 米饭, 商店, 电脑, 中午, 电影, 后面, 电视, 苹果. Some words were covered in a slightly different form: 什么时候 instead of 时候, 你的 instead of 的, 多少 instead of 少, 下个月 instead of 月; 看见 is covered by the combination of 看 and 听不见, and finally 上 and 下 are both covered in various combinations (下午, 一下, 上海, 晚上, 上午, etc.).

HSK 2 (94% coverage, 58 dialogues, 38% HSK vocabulary)

For the HSK 2 list I consider all HSK 1 vocabulary known (but not the non-HSK vocabulary that was covered in the dialogues we picked for the HSK 1 vocabulary). For this list I gave preference to Newbie and Elementary levels, and included one Intermediate level dialogue.

The following HSK 2 words are not covered by this list: 公共汽车 (though 公交车 is included instead), 妻子, 铅笔, 正在, 打篮球, 跑步, 帮助, 事情, 着, 高 (though 高兴 is included). Some words were covered in a slightly different form: 足球 and 踢 as two separate words instead of 踢足球, 外卖 (and 老外) instead of 外, 晴天 and 阴天 instead of 晴 and 阴, 问题 instead of 题, 出去 instead of 出, 每天 instead of 每.

HSK 3 (93% coverage, 108 dialogues, 29% HSK vocabulary)

For the HSK 3 level I consider all HSK 1 and HSK 2 vocabulary known (though not the additional vocabulary covered by the above dialogues). I have used dialogues at Newbie, Elementary and Intermediate level; none of higher level.

Hope that helps :slight_smile:

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#17

Hi edsko,
Thanks so much. Very generous! I would add emoticons with large bunches of flowers but have no idea how to do it…but you get the picture.

Would it be possible to have the HSK4 list too as I’m between the 2 levels?

Your selection is such a useful way to navigate the rich and vast ChinesePod library.

Kind regards,
Katherine
P.S. I tried to reply earlier but made the mistake of replying to the no-reply email.

#18

I had kind of been hoping edsko.net would not be down for so long, but since it’s still not up… here you go: ChinesePod dialogues for HSK 4 .

#19

Super THANKS, edso!
:rose::rose::rose:

#20

Sorry, I of course meant “edsko”

Best regards,
Katherine