Learning Mandarin and Spanish by MP3 and Skype
Travel Blog • Julia Ross • 06.13.07 | 2:45 PM ET
Learning Chinese is a long road: After nine months of full-time study in Taipei, I’m still grappling with getting my tones right and suffer the occasional blank look from the clerk at my local 7-Eleven. While I’ve learned grammar and characters in the classroom, I’ve found another, less traditional source a big help with day-to-day conversation: Chinesepod.com. It’s the go-to site for most Mandarin students I know, offering free, daily podcasts that introduce dialogues on useful topics like how to break up with your boyfriend. Lessons, given by podcast “hosts” who banter like DJs, are downloadable in MP3 format, so you can drop them into your iPod and go; more devoted students can sign up for voice lessons via Skype.
This week’s Economist gives Chinesepod a well-deserved nod for transforming the “old technology” of classrooms and books into “language learning 2.0.”
Notes the magazine:
The customers are everywhere from Berkeley to Alaska and the Vatican. In the past, when language instruction—along with haircuts and massages—was a “non-tradable” sector of the economy, many people would not have found a native Mandarin speaker as a teacher in their town at all. Now they need only a broadband connection.
Non-Sinophiles, take heart: A sister site, Spanishsense.com, has recently come online, and additional languages are in the works.
Related on World Hum:
* Daisann McLane: ‘Learning Cantonese’ in Hong Kong
* Lust in Translation
* Lost in Translation
* The Universal Language of Karaoke
Photo by myuibe via Flickr, (Creative Commons).
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Chinese Tools 06.14.07 | 2:43 AM ET
Just to let you know another Chinese podcast (for beginners):
http://www.chinese-tools.com/learn/chinese
Hope your readers will like it…
mark 06.14.07 | 6:20 AM ET
mp3 langugae learning is already here. its just a matter of how the language is presented. If its presented in a logical interesting factor it will hae the edge over traditional methods, if its the same old same old it will be nothing special. http://www.mp3languagelearning.com looks like an innovative company in this regard.
lovely mp3 03.26.08 | 9:45 AM ET
bookmarked!
veronica 06.25.08 | 5:28 AM ET
Yes, learning and teaching Chinese by Skype is becoming more and more popular. eChineseLearning is one respected online Chinese learning school. They provide one-on-one online and live Chinese lessons with professional and native Chinese teachers. Every one who registered at site can take one free Chinese lesson for free which is one-on-one online and live .
You can free trial here:
http://www.echineselearning.com/?a_aid=blog