We’d love to hear your feedback about the Say It Right series.
Either leave a comment here, or if you’ve finished the whole course, please help us out by filling in the end of course survey embed on this page.
Thanks so much.
Can’t say it’s right…
I tried to watch it last night and found it was a premium feature only. Based on the thread regarding the new app and now this, it looks like cpod is really striving to get more premium subscribers.
This is an amazing series! I have just gone through the Tones 2 video and practice drill. I have not found clear explanations and exercises like these anywhere else! I an pleased that my premium subscription is going towards such exciting development of the ChinesePod program.
Now when I go through a lesson I can use this guidance to help me pronounce everything much more clearly than I did before.
Sorry, next comment is rather off this topic.
I would greatly appreciate itl if you were to do another series like this on learning characters. I have tried making up nemonics and learning all the components. I haven’t succeeded very well. I actually find that I am learning better by reading sentences in hanzi while I am listening helps me better in learning to recognise characters, but learning to write then without looking at an example is very far behind. Your help would be greatly appreciated. I expect others have the same problem.
4 Likes
Wow these are excellent, love the workshop style. First time I have heard this explanation of 3rd tone. Really well done! The scale and variety of resources on Chinesepod is fantastic and second to none. Thanks a lot.
2 Likes
This is excellent: just started on it, and it seems like an astonishingly well thought-out course. For an intermediate student like me, both really entertaining, and massively useful. I loved the thing about second tones and grace notes.
I’m so impressed by what you guys are doing. Thanks, and keep on keeping on.
2 Likes
The say it right are amazing series. When I started learning a year ago. My mandarin teacher (native speaker) couldn’t explain me tones. So I started to look for other resources on-line, asked my friends to help. I struggled with 3d tone nod now I know why!!! This is a great tip to just make it low without much falling and raising. I have one question though. In overview of 4 tones video you refer to previous video, which I can’t find. Because previous video is only 1,5 minute video where Fiona just says that there are 4 tones in mandarin. Please help me out with that.
1 Like
Halos just a quick remark. Video is YouTube powered , right? So for us who lives in mainland it is bit of struggle to watch it. I was only able to listen picture was frozen((
The video is hosted by wistia which is not currently blocked my China (that’s partly why we chose them). Try refreshing the page and checking your internet speed.
Do you happen to know which minute Fiona say that in the video? Perhaps I can go and find the other video she is talking about and link it.
I just finished the 6th video. two ‘techniques’ are very useful for me: the fading in and fading out of the 3d tone and the almost unperceivable ending of the ‘n’ in p.e. tian.
很有好处。 hen3 you3 hao3 chu4.
1 Like
Where is the video? is it in each page of the lesson? i can t see them…
Thanks a lot for reply. I think she mentioned in on 08:25 minute
I have a question gearing time rule. Two third change to second and a third.
Of course when you learn the word you learn it with tones for correct pronouncantion.
Fiona suggests to try words in a chunk . But in real life situation you say without preparation right , you can’t learn it in advance . So t won’t work.
I was kind of hoping that when you saying third tones in raw the intonation of the first once naturally rises up to prepare to the last really low sound. Cause you cant say several 3 d tones in a row naturally.
So I am a bit confused on how to make it work
1 Like
I’ve been enjoying the series very much. In the Pronunciation section, the video that talks about difficult vowel combos and i/u/ü freezes for me with about 10 minutes left, and returns with about 3 minutes left in the video. Not sure if it’s just me (watching on my phone), but wanted to check.
1 Like
The expert that is brought in to more precisely explain tones and the subtle pitches and emphasis within the tone is excellent. (Tones 2 lesson) I will continue to study this in detail. I’ve taken Chinese for some time in the classroom setting and now with Chinesepod as an augment to improve my tones. Please give my thanks to the producers of the series, and having the foresight to include the very knowledgeable and good techniques tone expert. The effort and precision for this series helps intermediate and beginning students alike.
1 Like
Hi Frederic,Fiona,Gwilym, meanwhile I finished the lesson 16/17 I/U/Ü and the very intricate iu,ui,un,ün, pronunciation.(And of course will repeat the whole series!) Very helpful to eventually translate the “wrong” or better “misleading” pinyin pronunciation. For a westerner the pinyin is not at all helpful to acquire the skill of speaking a proper and adequate 普通话. Frederic should invent a better transcription method to replace pinyin which apparently is rather an implement for input purposes. It opened my eyes when you, Fiona, told in the lesson 16 or17 that you yourself only learned pinyin in the last couples of years to type or find the 汉字in your computer, but having difficulties to find the appropriate pinyin for your native mandarin sound.It shows that the pinyin doesn’t represent at all the true pronunciation. At least for westerner ears.
Thank you again for this helpful series!
1 Like
Hey! I just started the Say it Right Series by doing the first lesson today, and I absolutely loved it! Was really helpful, and interesting and think the format really helps (I feel with pronunciation video is super useful). I’m really looking forward to continuing with the other lessons - So good that Cpod is working on things like this, please keep up the video lessons - I love them!
1 Like
Hi, I noticed that the video for Lesson 16 “The Difficult I/U/Ü Vowel Sounds” (both while watching it on the ChinesePod Web site as well for the downloaded video) stops playing from minute 14:34 and starts again at about minute 22:00. Is it possible that there is a problem with the video itself or is it that only me have this problem?
Which browser are you using? I just tried on Chrome and it seemed to word ok. Perhaps click second button on the video and switch between HTML and Flash to see if that’s the problem.
Thank you for your support! I was using Opera Browser on an Android tablet. I tried again on a PC with the MS Edge Browser and this time it worked fine! 