I recently joined as a premium subscriber. Although overall I am quite happy with what I have seen sofar, there are some smaller things that are rather annoying and that I would like you to improve upon if possible. Some examples:
1. Simplified characters. Although the option is offered I find that some characters have not been converted from traditional script. Almost every lesson has a few.
2. You offer a ‘floating’ flash audio player on the principal page, but not on the other pages that have audio material. As I try to write down in hanzi all the Chinese phrases I have to pauze the player from time to time, while being able to look -for reference- to that part of the page that has the transcript of the sentence that I am hearing. Now I find myself scrolling up and down all the time to achieve this.
3. I would love to see some better way of navigating the website. If I want to study say lesson 100, I use the course outline to get to this lesson. Is this the only way? I wonder if it could be possible to make some table of contents that would contain all of the lesson titles say in 3 columns that could link to the appropiate pages.
Thanks Marc! This is the kind of feedback I love to have.
1. You’re right about the simplified – everything is first typed in traditional then converted to simplified (should be easier than going the other way), but like you mentioned – there are still some characters that don’t get translated properly. I’ll try and go through earlier lessons and check which ones look off. You are welcome to email me specific examples if you wish.
2. I never thought about the floating audio player till you mentioned it. I’ll certainly look into it.
3. I’ve tried to create a logical structure within the URLs for pages. So if you prefer, you can manually type in page URLs (which should bring up your history if you maintain it it). Once you are in a page, that should also make it easier to visit other pages. For example, if you are on the complete transcript page for lesson 100 and you would like to visit the same page for lesson 50, you can manually change the lesson number on the URL to take you directly there rather than going to the course outline first.
As far as the table of contents goes – do you mean an actual page? And if so, how would it differ from the current course outline? Or do you mean a popup like the menu items?
I’m definitely open to these and other ideas on how to improve the content and navigation so keep the feedback coming. For more specific suggestions, you are welcome to email me as well using the Contact Us form.
1. It is not really a problem, I already gathered that the original script is in traditional characters as you are in Taiwan. But I thought that conversion from traditional to simplified was really straightforward (the reverse is not, I know), most free readers that are out there seem to do this quite well.
2. Floating would be nice if you can get hold of this sort of component, but I actually meant pop-up, as on the main page. If you could just provide this option with every occurence of the player, it would be a great improvement on the current situation.
3. I can see the structure now. I don’t know if this will work. I guess I need some more working-experience with the website. I will give you feedback later on.
I have made a couple of tweaks in response to points 2 and 3 above.
2. There is now a pop-up version of the player available in the Complete page like on the front page.
3. There is now a quick access window on the sidebar that lets you go directly to the Vocabulary and Complete pages for any lesson. I didn’t include the other pages since those vary from lesson to lesson.
Great! I like the quick access idea. You are very methodical in your lessons and often mention lesson numbers when you remind us of a word or structure that we have already met earlier in the course, so access through lesson number is very useful indeed.
BTW, you have reached my level now with your course, spot on. So I am going to make good use of this course from now on and I am curious to see how quickly my Chinese will improve in the coming months (and years). I am going to China in November so I really do need to get things moving 🙂
Thanks Marc. I’ve tried not to litter the lesson commentary with too many old lesson number references of late, since you can now find that out by directly clicking on words in the lesson transcript. Now that the difficulty level has increased, I expect there will be a lot more words that listeners will be clicking on for review.
@JC: Dat zou iets betekenen in de aard van “blijven gaan” “blijven geven” (Vlaams dialect). “Een extra inspanning doen”, dit is dus een manier om iemand aan te moedigen…
Je zou je vragen wel beter in het Engels stellen hier.
English: Please ask your questions in English next time 😉
Kirin, 欢迎回来 !
Kirin,很高興再次見到你, because your speaking is free of accents (at least I think so) and because you have been there since the beginning.
Great 🙂
Che_eder,你好
我也很高興再回到這裡與大家見面,你的中文有進步嗎?我相信你一定進步很多.
我們一起加油吧!
Hello,
I recently joined as a premium subscriber. Although overall I am quite happy with what I have seen sofar, there are some smaller things that are rather annoying and that I would like you to improve upon if possible. Some examples:
1. Simplified characters. Although the option is offered I find that some characters have not been converted from traditional script. Almost every lesson has a few.
2. You offer a ‘floating’ flash audio player on the principal page, but not on the other pages that have audio material. As I try to write down in hanzi all the Chinese phrases I have to pauze the player from time to time, while being able to look -for reference- to that part of the page that has the transcript of the sentence that I am hearing. Now I find myself scrolling up and down all the time to achieve this.
3. I would love to see some better way of navigating the website. If I want to study say lesson 100, I use the course outline to get to this lesson. Is this the only way? I wonder if it could be possible to make some table of contents that would contain all of the lesson titles say in 3 columns that could link to the appropiate pages.
Thank you for looking into this.
Marc
Thanks Marc! This is the kind of feedback I love to have.
1. You’re right about the simplified – everything is first typed in traditional then converted to simplified (should be easier than going the other way), but like you mentioned – there are still some characters that don’t get translated properly. I’ll try and go through earlier lessons and check which ones look off. You are welcome to email me specific examples if you wish.
2. I never thought about the floating audio player till you mentioned it. I’ll certainly look into it.
3. I’ve tried to create a logical structure within the URLs for pages. So if you prefer, you can manually type in page URLs (which should bring up your history if you maintain it it). Once you are in a page, that should also make it easier to visit other pages. For example, if you are on the complete transcript page for lesson 100 and you would like to visit the same page for lesson 50, you can manually change the lesson number on the URL to take you directly there rather than going to the course outline first.
As far as the table of contents goes – do you mean an actual page? And if so, how would it differ from the current course outline? Or do you mean a popup like the menu items?
I’m definitely open to these and other ideas on how to improve the content and navigation so keep the feedback coming. For more specific suggestions, you are welcome to email me as well using the Contact Us form.
Best regards,
-Adam
Adam,
Thank you for the quick reaction.
1. It is not really a problem, I already gathered that the original script is in traditional characters as you are in Taiwan. But I thought that conversion from traditional to simplified was really straightforward (the reverse is not, I know), most free readers that are out there seem to do this quite well.
2. Floating would be nice if you can get hold of this sort of component, but I actually meant pop-up, as on the main page. If you could just provide this option with every occurence of the player, it would be a great improvement on the current situation.
3. I can see the structure now. I don’t know if this will work. I guess I need some more working-experience with the website. I will give you feedback later on.
Keep up the good work!
Marc
Hello Marc,
I have made a couple of tweaks in response to points 2 and 3 above.
2. There is now a pop-up version of the player available in the Complete page like on the front page.
3. There is now a quick access window on the sidebar that lets you go directly to the Vocabulary and Complete pages for any lesson. I didn’t include the other pages since those vary from lesson to lesson.
Do these help?
Hello Adam,
Great! I like the quick access idea. You are very methodical in your lessons and often mention lesson numbers when you remind us of a word or structure that we have already met earlier in the course, so access through lesson number is very useful indeed.
BTW, you have reached my level now with your course, spot on. So I am going to make good use of this course from now on and I am curious to see how quickly my Chinese will improve in the coming months (and years). I am going to China in November so I really do need to get things moving 🙂
Marc in Belgium
Thanks Marc. I’ve tried not to litter the lesson commentary with too many old lesson number references of late, since you can now find that out by directly clicking on words in the lesson transcript. Now that the difficulty level has increased, I expect there will be a lot more words that listeners will be clicking on for review.
Hello Adam,
the quick access is a very helpful feature, thank you. Keep up the good work!
Hello Adam,
The simplified script shows 我们在第一二级已经教了很多生字. (Page two, middle section). I believe the “一” character is not needed there.
Hi Salvador,
Actually, this is how the speaker says “level 1 and 2.” The “and” isn’t needed, so that becomes “In level 1, 2…”
Goedendag iedereen. Weet iemand soms hoe 加油 in het nederlands vertaalt kan worden. Danku wel.
@JC: Dat zou iets betekenen in de aard van “blijven gaan” “blijven geven” (Vlaams dialect). “Een extra inspanning doen”, dit is dus een manier om iemand aan te moedigen…
Je zou je vragen wel beter in het Engels stellen hier.
English: Please ask your questions in English next time 😉
Thanks for your help Jonatan! 🙂
Hello Adam,
On the Course Outline page, “ji2” (级) is displayed in traditional form. I was wondering if you could fix it.
Thanks,
Rodrick
I forgot to add ji2 is displayed as traditional while in simplified. My apologies.
Thanks – should be fixed now.