Hi,
What is going on? I have seen that lessons are not posted anymore for a while…I have been diving into the pool of existing lessons but having a quick look at all the messages I just come to realize I am kind of stuck?! I am a member on and off since 2007, raged against the bugs and some missing function (esp being able to record and see how much % of pronunciation was such a good function). But still, I have suscribed for all year, which is a significant investment for me. I’m ok if you slow down to revamp, BUT 1) I would expect some more details on the plan, at least some deadline about being able to communicate formal plan 2) what is the fuss about New zealand? learning mandarin is mostly to be able to communicate while in China… please make sure your new settlements are not only for your own convenience and allow your customers to relate properly with Chinese culture on real time basis 3) learning a language is so much about understanding culture and mindset. John and Jenny did a terrific job in fueling constantly cultural insights/news. Please ensure you develop Cpod with this in mind. It is a real plus for all those who can’t be in Asia all the time.
Thanks in advance for your consideration. I am willing to be supportive and loyal to Cpd that has been so helpful for many years, it would be very sad if service was not up to what has been so far. And please reach out, there is nothing worse than having to stay in the blank. I’m not in the stage (yet) where I would get so emotional that I would pick my money and run asap… but please be aware that this yearly subscription is a real financial arbitrage… Hope I won’t have to wrap it up. Best,
Bereniceh, thank you for thoughtful comment.
We appreciate your dedication to ChinesePod and learning the Mandarin language. We know the lack of new lessons has been frustrating for many students, as it has been for us. There are a number of reasons that we have had this issue, and why we weren’t prepared to quickly replace the hosts. We will come back better than ever, but it is taking us extra time and effort to do so. We appreciate having good, longstanding customers like you, and appreciate your continuing to be an ambassador for us.
I wish we could tell you exactly when we will have the new programs ready to roll out, but unfortunately we can not. We are currently releasing new All the Way To Intermediate lessons each week. Other categories will be forthcoming, but we can not - as of yet - predict when.
I can not say what all the fuss is about New Zealand. We are currently under production in multiple studios around the world, including Los Angeles, New Zealand and China, with several potential hosts and a variety of programs. We are creating new curriculum for our entire range of learning tracks.
We agree that learning a language is also about understanding the culture. We are certainly keeping that in mind as we consider the new programming tracks.
We appreciate your understanding as we create an even better learning platform than one we already have. I am sure that you will be pleased once we have rolled out all our new initiatives, and only hope we can get them launched soon enough.
Many Thanks,
CP
Chill, people. I’ve seen companies go through reorgs over and over and there’s a chaos in between the old and the new, and it seems like things will never be the same again. Well, they won’t. Maybe things will get worse and the site will die, but it sounds like they’re trying to get new programs and presenters in place, and maybe the site will get better. Yes, we’re sad Fi and G and C left, and we don’t know the circumstances, and we feel betrayed. But these changes take time. And a little patience. No, I’m not a shill for the company. I’m a subscriber. Cheers, Russael
Hi ChinesePod,
I am sorry to say I cannot wait any longer and have cancelled my subscription. Paying for ongoing services when those services are not being provided just does not make sense any longer. Please let me know when you have restored service to the levels they were previously, and I will consider rejoining.
Chinese Pod,
Can you at least send out a message on when you are going to post new content? You have not had an upper intermediate or advanced course in over a month. I realize I can access older content, but since I have been a member since 2006, I have listened to almost all of them. I think you should give us one month free or two months if you won’t be able to post any new content for awhile longer. I will give you one more month, but if you don’t start posting any new content, I am going to have to cancel my subscription.
After 3 years of subscription I have decided to end my monthly subs. Sorry, but I have found these last months of nothing happening very disappointing and have found other resources to better suit my needs.
Good luck everyone!
Hello ChinesePod-Team,
I think there are enough old lessons for me to listen to, since I am a member for only a few months. But I find it a little bit hard or cumbersome to get to them. I have a suggestion. Could you maybe remove lessons that I marked studied from the recommended lessons tab? I would think it would be very usefull for me because I dont want to scroll through all the lessons over and over again to find older ones. And even better when the lessons are suggested to me I am able to reshuffle the suggestions or click away certain lessons I am not interested in or so.
That would be a great feature for the website, thanks. Keep it up, I am looking forward to your new hosts and shows.
yes, I’ve seen that also. But during this time you must provide extra work to the customer in order to keep the same level of satisfaction. And most of the time - when it’s correctly done - the customer even don’t see this reorgs.
When it’s correctly done. That’s the point. And the customer often - in my case- doesn’t pay a subscribtion. They are afraid of the reorgs, they just don’t buy anything.
Robin,
Thank you very much for writing us. We have been looking at a variety of ways to resolve this very issue and appreciate your suggested solution. We created the All the Way to Intermediate series with a progressive order in mind. We are interested in making the learning path easier to follow.
We are glad you are enjoying ChinesePod! Happy Studying!
Yup, you’re absolutely right. The way they have gone about it indicates they’re not in control of the transition, and we’re not getting full value. But hopefully the ship will right. I made my comment because the tone was getting so negative.
“The way they have gone about it indicates they’re not in control of the transition”
This is one of the reasons why some people have gotten so upset, there’s no clear communication as to what is actually going on so people aren’t certain what happened and where things are going. I’m not annoyed by them having to find and transition into a new team, the issue is the lack of explanations and updates.
As far as I know, Fionna and gwilym are married (couple?) and Constance has been their good friend before chinese pod. Its not surprising they left, presumably to do something similar, nor that they left together. People move on, nothing scandalous.
With that being said, it’s bad business plannjng that Chinese pod didn’t have a better contingency plan for new hosts, especially as I suspect Fiona and all likely gave many weeks notice and they likely pre-recorded several weeks worth of content. The communication has also been an example HOW NOT to handle these types of things as they’ve killed a lot of good will.
Honestly, a monkey with a mallet up its arse would do a better job at handling this situation than the ChinesePod team, but I totally agree!
Why are there still no new Intermediate lessons?
Is this forum and website still being maintained?
Hey I’m Grace! I’ll be helping with the forum, is there something that I can do for you?
Hello Grace, what is your position at Chinesepod?
Hello Drestro, I am the new community manager and I am here to help!
I listen to your app in the car while driving and need to jump back frequently to hear what they said. Using the Apple Watch I like to use that as a remote but that doesn’t work. I would like perhaps a swipe gesture on the interface to jump forward and back while driving so it’s safe and make it work with the Apple Watch now playing. Also 5 seconds is not enough. I would like to be able to choose how many seconds in the preferences. For me 10 seconds is good. Maybe even 15. Any news on when the new lessons are coming? New teachers? Hopefully a new app. By the way it would be good for sales if you fix the keywords in App Store for iPhone. Most people would type learn Chinese. If you think about the keywords people will type then your app will come up more often and you will get more listeners. I think the name ChinesePod should be changed make it friendly for the App Store search engine and what people actually search for when you look for a Chinese language app. Just trying to help.
Please update us on what’s going on with when the new exciting changes are coming. Thanks
Why not we all support them while they are going through a major transition. I appreciate this company and have faith that it will come back better than ever. I think they did a great job in the past and I believe they will in the future. Yes it would be nice if we could get better updates as to the progress but in the meantime we need to be patient. Wow if there are no more lessons for anyone subscribed then they must be a super advanced Chinese speaker by now and should show some gratitude to Cpod for teaching us all these years. patience and gratitude. I just came back and signed up for the premium membership because I’m somewhere like upper elementary level right now so there’s a ton of lessons to listen to. I too am looking forward to new lessons and some great changes to Chinese pod. I hope the application will be greatly improved. the new hosts will have big shoes to fil as Fiona, Gwil and Constance were great
It would be nice if the app had swipe gestures so I can skip backward and forward with the swipe of my finger. I do that with my podcast app called iCatcher. 5 seconds is not enough for me. Please make it 10 or give me a choice. Thanks