Hi there,
I am trying to move onto Upper Intermediate lessons but find the leap from Intermediate too big. Has anyone compiled a list of “bridge” lessons, i.e. more advanced Intermediate and simpler Upper Intermediate?
Any suggestions welcomed!
Forget the bridge. Go straight to advanced. Pass go, collect 200 人民幣.
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Well, I could probably draw up a list of Intermediate lessons I find difficult (I’ve listened to ~450 of them, but only ~45 Uppers) but the reason for difficulty is often 1) A high density of obscure vocab (See for example “cobra pose”) or 2) Very formal language that I’m not used to (see “Introducing Business connections”). I’m not sure if either type will help much with the transition. But I can look through the ones I’ve studied and try to find ones I think are useful. About how many lessons do you want to study? (A good rule of thumb is that the newest ones, and the ones in the series tend to be harder. Moreover length of the lesson is often a good proxy for the difficulty of the dialogue)
Thanks, Colin, for your reply and proposal. That would be really useful. 20 would be great. At my level, I’m finding the jump to Chinese-only explanations harder going and the amount of new vocab in each Upper Intermediate lesson daunting.
I am looking for more Intermediate-Upper Intermediate bridge lessons like Leaving Europe: Brexit; Online Group Shopping; investing in Prestigious Property; AlphaGo versus Lee Sedol.
Coincidentally or not, ChinesePod levels seem to correspond with HSK vocabulary levels and Edsko’s collections of lessons were great for moving from Elementary/HSK 3 to Intermediate/HSK 4 and for my HSK 4 exam prep (see his posts in the Forum). The lessons above contain HSK 5 vocab, which I’m now moving onto.
I’m not sure if you know, but the following lessons are also listed as “bridge” lessons:
You’re Infuriating
Typhoon Warning
Too Much Pressure on Kids
Buying Cheap Shares
Culling Stray Dogs
Aside from those, I found these difficult but not too obscure:
Introducing Business Contacts
Three Time Champions
It’s hard to shed fat
Charity Cookies
A long bus ride
To “the God of drinking”
Fussy Eater
The weather is so odd
I don’t drink with Villains
Migraine (Voice actor isn’t the best here)
The Two child policy
Falling asleep at the movies
Oil in the middle east
And among the Upper Intermediates I’ve studies, I found these two easier, (but it might be because I knew some of the vocab already):
Spaghetti Expert
Fix my cold
Hi Colin,
For some reason, I didn’t get an alert that you had replied or I would have written to thank you. So thanks so much for these suggestions. I’ve done only some of the lessons you suggest, so there’s quite a lot “meat” for me to get going with.
Best regards,
Katherine