commute-friendly study material -- beyond pimsleur

[rherschbach]

Hello,

I'm new to this forum and I hope you'll bear with me. Thanks for this great resource -- there's a ton of useful info here.

I've finished Pimsleur I,II and III and am looking for something else I can listen to in the car during my hour commute. Ideally, it would be something to help build vocabulary or boost listening comprehension. Can anyone recommend an intermediate-level tape/CD, a book with supplementary audio, or an online resource that can be downloaded to an mp3 player?

At the moment, I'm using the Schaum's vocabulary and grammar outlines, but obviously that's not going to work in the car.

any advice appreciated. and sorry if this question is tedious. regards,

rh

[Ole]

hello and welcome to CFC,

try chinesepod and watch the chinesepod-thread here.

hope it inspires,

Ole

[Shadowdh]

The chinese pod casts are very good... and they are improving all the time...

Also you could look at the inflight Chinese series which is a bit like Pimsleur I believe, I havent actually used it my self... but its audio based and might approach learning Chinese a bit differently with different vocab...

[stephanhodges]

Another option would be to download podcasts in Chinese, then make CD's for commuting (or use a direct MP3 player to radio connection). For example, the Voice of Tibet has a 15 minute daily chinese broadcast. The speech is a little bit slower and clearer than regular broadcasts. (But, I'm a beginner).

[rherschbach]

Hi,

Appreciate the suggestions -- they're very helpful. I'm going to check out the Voice of Tibet first, out of sheer curiosity, and then move to the Chinesepod material. again, thanks for responding. RH

[stephanhodges]

If you develop a list of good audio sources, consider posting it, or send it to me, and I will put it on my web site. Then, it could be put in the links section. Or, just add multiple links

[kudra]

http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ealac/zhang/dh/dh_audioclips.htm

18 lessons, about 1-2 hrs of audio per lesson

2nd year text used at columbia and yale.

http://classes.yale.edu/chns130/

has a bunch of associated supplementary material

and this thread might have other stuff

http://www.chinese-forums.com/showthread.php?p=53101#post53101

[stephanhodges]

I can't download the "David and Helen" lessons, it always says "The page cannot be displayed".

Are you accessing the site (http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ealac/zhang/dh/dh_audioclips.htm) from within the campus network, or from an outside location? I would like to get the audio. I am located in Saint Paul, Minnesota USA

[kudra]

stephanhodges

I'm using firefox, and left clicking on it starts some kind of plugin in the browser.

However if you right click on it and do

save link as

you can save the mp3 file to your desktop or where ever.

right clicking and doing something analogous to

save link as should work in other browsers as well.

I'm accessing from chicago, not on campus. I'm not a student there.

If you know how to use python, I have written a script that will download

all the files automatically, but that python script is at home and you'll have to wait until this evening for it if you want it.

[smalltownfart]

Or, if you are using Firefox, get the "FlashGot" extension. You need an external download manager like FlashGet (but basically any download manager will work), it collects the links into a batch job for the downloader and lets you get all the files from a entire page or directory with a couple of clicks.

[stephanhodges]

Thanks. But, it isn't a problem of how to do downloads, etc. I simply get a "server returned an invalid or unrecognized response." I can download from other sites around the world without any problems.

BTW, if you back up one level to http://www.columbia.edu/itc/ealac/zhang/dh/dh_audio/ then you can see all the mp3 files directly

<5 minutes later>

I just connected into home computer, and it downloads fine from there, so I think it's just a firewall problem from my work.

Thanks for suggestions.

[snarfer]

The New Practical Chinese Reader has about 24 CDs associated with the texts. If you read the text for each lesson you get the idea of what the speakers are talking about, and you can then listen to the audio material repeatedly until you understand each word. At least that's what I do.