Hey everyone,
I joined Chinesepod a long time ago, and this website is where I got my start in learning Chinese. I was a member back in the days of Ken, John, and Jenny Zhu, and I have had a great experience through the whole time I had been a member. I had let my subscription lapse, mostly because life had taken me in different directions meaning I couldn’t focus as much on learning Chinese.
With the help of Chinesepod, I had some basic Chinese, and survival phrases under my belt after moving to China. After there for five years, my Chinese was ‘decent’ but far from professional. Since being back to my home country, I feel that my Chinese is slipping. I want to maintain, and possibly improve my skills, so this will be something I am going to focus on in 2018.
Today, I signed back up with a premium membership without even looking at the current situation at Chinesepod, and not even knowing who the current hosts are, but I am sure that Chinesepod is still going to offer a great product based on past experience.
To those new to learning Chinese, you are going to be in for a lot of work but it can be very rewarding. Understanding the language will open the door to the culture, because I feel that a lot of the culture is inaccessible without the language. That is how I feel anyway, but I certainly don’t want to pretend to have the last word on the subject.
As was pointed out to me, expect to spend a lot of time learning and reviewing. It was recommended to me that I focus on four areas; speaking, listening, reading, and writing. Chinese pod can help in all these areas. For those away from a Chinese speaking environment, there are tools available to improving speaking, but the lessons are top-notch. At least the old lessons were, and I am sure that the newer stuff is as well, I just cant vouch for the newer lesson since I haven’t studied any.
Anyhow, hello once again to old friends, and welcome to new ones. Expect to see me around the forum as time permits.