Well, you asked for it. 9 new videos were added to the Vocabulary pages bringing the total to 24. These videos show you the type of situations where the dialogues they represent may take place, thereby adding context to the lessons. As one listener put it, no academy awards will be won here, but hopefully their simplicity will still add some purpose.
The videos today feature Luise, Coco (and even yours truly in one!), who will also be speakers in our upcoming lessons. Expect more such videos to crop up over the next little while.
Graphics have been added to the Course Outline page showing which lessons have videos in them.
UPDATE: Another 18 videos have since been added – mainly to level 2. Also, the links in the Course Outline now directly play the video. Better get your popcorn ready!
Thanks Adam, it must be a lot of work but it adds to the enjoyment, as well as getting more samples of words we know spoken by different people in different ways. The body language and context is useful for people who don’t meet Mandarin speakers often. Short and simple, but It brings the whole thing to life.
There are a couple of high points though. You know, I’d thought that a conversation about what colours look good was, of necessity, a bit dry… until I watched the video, and discovered it’s romantic! 🙂 And full marks to those poor ladies freezing to death for us in hot steamy Taiwan, they had me fooled for a minute!
Thanks Parrot. I encouraged the girls (and guy) to add their own charm and twists to the situations so hopefully that will help ease the dryness. After reading some of the emails I’ve received, I can see how these videos can be an essential part of the learning process, so I’ll try and make sure future lessons have them available as well.
More good news. Thanks to a free program called isquint, I managed to get them onto my PDA as mp4 files for viewing while travelling the last few days.
The Chinese woman who sold me a Chinese Australian newspaper asked me how I learned Mandarin, so, I told her! (Thanks for that handy lesson.) She understood but doubted she’d heard correctly because she couldn’t imagine it, so I handed her my PDA playing the video. Then she saw how it can work, and echoed the li hai at the end, though I think she meant that comment for you, Adam. 🙂
hey… nice VDO