Last updated Dec 31, 2008
Thanks for visiting and supporting Palm Discovery. If you are not reading this article from Palmdiscovery.com or Palmdiscovery.net, the website you are reading it from is copying and posting my content without consent. Please visit Palm Discovery for the original source of the material.
This is part two of a three part review on the Chinesepod language learning portal website.
Part 1 will discuss and explain what Chinesepod and Spanishpod is about and how it works. I will go over a video review of the website showing the services and features offered.
Part 2 will show via screenshots of pages in the Chinesepod website that are normally only available to premium subscription users to show what features are offered.
Part 3 will discuss my observations and suggestions as well as a review summary of the services offered.
Keep in mind that although the review is focused on Chinesepod, that Spanishpod will offer similar services and features except focused on teaching Spanish.
The following will be a series of screenshots of the pages I’ve visited in the video.
To provide you with a better view of the pages and features that I have visited and discussed in the review, I will now provide a few screenshots of the areas that are not normally visible or accessible. Please keep in mind that these are screenshots and they will not cover the entire page but only the main portion. To view a bigger image of the screenshot, click on the images.
Here is what the main home page looks like after you’re logged into your Chinesepod account. Since I had access to the Premium account, many of the links are colored. Depending on your account, most of these links will be disabled and greyed out.
Click on the images for a bigger picture
We will first look at the links located at the top right area, under Quick Links
Clicking on Vocabulary will bring us to this page listing all the vocabulary words labeled “all vocab”.
Vocabulary Manager Listing Page
Clicking on the Flashcards will bring up the following page.
Flash Cards
Concentration Game
Vocab Import and Export Page
Going back to the Home Page, we venture to the Pronunciation link which uses pinyin to aid in pronunciation of words. It is broken down into many different sections.
Pronunciation (Pinyin introduction)
The last section is Tones, which help describe and break down the composition of the the four tones of the language.
Pronunciation (Tones)
Again, going back to the Home Page, we will check out the Listening Test link. This is a listening test to determine your knowledge level.
Listening Test
Again, going back to the Home Page. Clicking on the Lessons tab will take you to a Lessons Listings Page. In this screenshot, I have chosen the Intermediate Lessons.
Clicking on the Conversations tab to the right of the Lessons tab will take you to the following page.
I will now focus on the individual lessons. I have chosen to select the Intermediate Level: Buying Batteries Podcast/Lesson. This is what the page will look like.
Specific Lesson Page (Intermediate: Buying Batteries – Discussion)
Now, clicking on the next tab to the right.
Specific Lesson Page (Intermediate: Buying Batteries – Dialogue)
The next tab bring up the following page.
Specific Lesson Page (Intermediate: Buying Batteries – Vocabulary Page)
And the next tab will show this following page.
Specific Lesson Page (Intermediate: Buying Batteries – Expansion Page)
Clicking on the last tab bring up this page.
Specific Lesson Page (Intermediate: Buying Batteries – Exercises)
Clicking on the “Start” will start the First Exercise.
Exercise 1: Matching
Here is the Second Exercise.
Exercise 2: Multiple Choice
And the Third Exercise
Exercise 3: Listen and Type
Now, we go back to the Home Page and finish off with the tab next to Lessons which is the Extra and here’s what you’ll see.
Extra Tab page
The Extra page will provide you with a listing of various categories of material, all mainly only mp3 podcasts. There are no pdf transcripts as they are really for listening and enjoyment. But don’t let that fool you! You’ll still learn a lot just by listening to these podcasts as well! At the left of the Extras tab, the News and Features are really Chinesepod’s news and announcements of things happening at Chinesepod. You may find something useful like being notified that Chinesepod are revamping their old podcasts and updating them with new material.
The next tab, Dear Amber is a weekly podcast featuring a girl named Amber that answers a lot of the questions posed by the Chinesepod members regarding everything to do with China and the Chinese culture. It’s quite entertaining as a lot of the questions are really good ones that most of us are a bit uneasy about asking, especially in person. So, check it out!
Movie Madness is another interesting podcast as the team at Chinesepod plays a short audio clip of a Hollywood movie with a twist (in Chinese of course) and they’ll discuss it. As an added incentive, the first person to submit the answer to which movie the audio clip was taken from will get a month’s Premium subscription! Don’t worry, they provide enough clues in the podcast so guessing the movie shouldn’t be too hard.
Qing Wen, is a podcast that answers a lot of the questions posed by the Practice Plan learners. You can definitely learn a lot of helpful information and phrases here. Qing Wen is only available to Premium subscribers.
There are more new features such as What’s The Story, Vocab Tour, and The Radical Show.
These are pretty much most of the pages that are normally only accessible for Premium Subscribers that I wanted to discuss and show to everyone so that they are aware of what’s available (and understand what they’re missing 
) so they can get a better idea of what Chinesepod/Frenchpod/Italianpod/Spanishpod offers. Again, although the format may be somewhat different amongst the various Praxis Language “pod” sites, the general features will be similar throughout the sites.
This concludes the second part of this Chinesepod review which went over various areas of the Chinesepod website. The next part of the review will discuss my observations and suggestions as well as the review summary of Chinesepod. See you there!
Thanks for visiting Palm Discovery
: archives categories software-review chinesepod spanishpod italianpod englishpod podcast language chinese-language spanish-language italian-language english-language learning
