I still cannot pay through PayPal. No email from Glossika and only another link to the security questions from PayPal. Hopefully PayPal will answer my latest email in a more personal way. Although this is not a LingQ issue I’ll get back to you if I resolve the issue. It might help someone else.
It would seem that there is still hope for Mike’s videos to return → Mike Glossika:
‘‘We’re going to try to get the channel back. If not, all the details of those videos are still in my head, if not more developed and mature now.
When I do start a new channel I will 1) keep the Chinese and English viewers on separate channels 2) training (content) videos separate from personal on-screen discussion videos. And we need to mark the actual ownership of all material appropriately, and recommend everybody else doing the same.’’
lovelanguagesIII - thanks for the background.
Hurrah! I think PayPal have cancelled my account as I asked them to, because I have now been able to pay for Mike’s beginner Chinese products. I’ll get the links within 24 hours!
@Ginkgo58 Glad to hear it! Mike’s material has changed me :)) I am actually doing something little every day, even though I only use the C files. I am not a Beginner as such and so don’t need the vocabulary in his lessons (apart from the exotic names), but I find the listening very helpful and my spelling is getting back on track. Very pleased about having found Glossika.
Can anyone explain how youtube justified doing this?
ad steve: As far as I know they justified it with copyright issues. Mike said that he only used products he had the copyright for (it was basically only his own material anyway). I remember how youtube once deleted a video by laoshu where he simply presented a self-study book. He only talked about the book and showed some pages. That was enough for them to delete the video.
Why they went as far as to delete Mike’s entire account without informing him (that’s what he said on his website) of any alleged contraventions I don’t know.
I have seen almost all his videos: no violence, no sex talk, no hate talk…it must have been the “copyright thing”.
Having bought the Chinese basic 1 GSR and GMS packages, I find the GMS fast and the GSR very, very fast. I can cope with the GMS if I have my finger on the pause button. This allows me to stop every now and again. The GSR, however, I will leave until I can cope with the GMS without stopping. I am finding this system really useful. It helps me to speak complete sentences at normal speed. I try to copy the tone shape over the whole sentence.
I have typed up the whole of the first list of sentences and imported them into LingQ. This took quite some time, but helps me to clearly see the words I don’t know yet. Probably I won’t do this with the other 19 lists.
How are the rest of you that are using the material working with it?
I was even wondering if getting the German GSR (German from Chinese) would help me with both languages. I think I could understand almost all of the German without being able to understand the Chinese. Perhaps I can use this package to help me with both languages. Or perhaps it would be not very helpful to try something that might confuse me. Anyway, the price is only USD$5.99. I think I will try it.
Let’s hope Mike gets his videos going again soon.
ad Ginkgo58: I mostly just listen to the sentences. However, I also repeat them aloud. I bought some of his products for Chinese and Russian. I really like them a lot. They are similar to what I used for my working languages ages ago. It is a nice and practical supplement to my other study tools.
As for the speed, yes they speak fast, but after a while you’ll get used to it.
I also bought the printed books for some of his products and/or his pdf files. I normally read them without listening to the audio files.
Sometimes I read the sentences and listen to the audio at the same time, but that is more to practise recognizing characters.
The prices for his products are very low I think. I have paid much more for much less effective material (effective for my learning style).
Getting the GSR for German / Chinese sounds like a good idea. I have bought similar products (from other providers) for Mandarin - Japanese, Japanese - Russian, French - Japanese etc.
It is great because you can actually practise two foreign languages at the same time. However, I think you should have at least an advanced intermediate level in one of them.
Since Mike is supposed to also go to the polyglot gathering in Berlin, I look forward to talking to him in person about some of his future plans (in case he has time for that ;-)).
I have bought GMS-BASIC1-ENZH. After some tries, I find the sentences very boring, even more boring than the stupid lessons in some Chinese textbooks. What’s more, the PDFs are protected against “Copy and Paste”, so copying the sentence texts into LingQ or Anki is not possible.
ad nd71: (…) … After some tries, I find the sentences very boring, even more boring than the stupid lessons in some Chinese textbooks. (…)
I’ve heard that from a few other people on another language learning site. This kind of product certainly is not for everyone. I would not use it as a stand-alone product but I have found it to be extremely useful as a supplement. While the sentences might be or appear boring, I think they help you get used to typical patterns and they help me improve my pronunciation too.
I also read newspapers, magazines, watch tons of sitcoms and other videos on youtube in Chinese. But I still find his products very useful if you want to practise typical patterns and equip yourself with some really useful vocabulary.
What kind of sentences in particular do you find so boring? I’m just curious.
e.g. “Shakespeare was a writer and wrote many plays and poems.” / “莎士比亚是作家,写了很多戏剧和诗。”
ad nd71: Ok. I see what you mean. If I had just started studying Mandarin I would probably have wanted to learn other vocabulary first (I’m not suggesting that your level of Mandarin is lower than mine, however).
Personally, I find that sentence quite useful. I normally start out with other basic vocabulary when learning a new language and I also like using well written phrase books. But after that I prefer tackling other types of expressions and to me “writer” “plays” and “poems” are quite useful words.
I don’t want to get stuck with the first 500 most common words which probably would not include expressions as in the sentence you mentioned.
Don’t get me wrong, please, I can readily see that such sentences sound boring to some people. I use products like the ones Mike offers in a specific way, however. I don’t just listen to these sentences and try to memorize them, I always try to elaborate on the sample sentences.
So, when I hear “plays” and “poems” or “writer”, I try to come up with other, similar sentences. Given the fact that these sentences mainly help me familiarize myself with certain speech patterns my approach has worked quite well so far.
Nevertheless, I know many people who find such “vocabulary builders” boring. There are many different ways of achieving the same goal, so we need to find tools that suit our own learning style best. At least with Mike’s products you won’t have spent too much money in case you find his approach does not work for you.
Are you not at all interested in this kind of study tool or is it just the type of sentences you don’t like? I bought similar books (but with many more example sentences) during my stays in China and Taiwan. If you are interested, I could give you the titles of these books. They are mainly written for Chinese speakers trying to learn English, which probably makes for even more natural Chinese sentences. They come with a book and mp3 files. Some of them you may be able to buy on the Internet.
@Ginko58: I just follow the directions/schedule given in the intro. Works just fine! I just finished the last unit. I only have some review days left. But I think I’m going for another round before I start with Basic II, to master the material even better. I don´t believe you can really over-learn something.
@nd71: I can’t really understand a remark like that. The point of the course is fluency in speech. It is supposed to work like physical exercise (and it does in fact), if you follow it’s directions. Each day I notice my improvements. I could only imagine being bored by this if the course was too easy or if someone doesn’t have the right motivation. Saying it’s boring sounds like an athlete saying it’s boring to train. So then why would one start in the first place?
@Lion:
Maybe I am not motivated enough, or I am for sure no language learning masochist. I am doing language learning for fun, and I try to make enjoyable. I don’t “train” to participate in a language learning competition. Each to their own.
@nd71: Well of course you should suit yourself. I didn’t mention any kind of competition. There are many people who enjoy and play golf for fun. How is trying to put some effort in improving your golf swing masochistic? Anyhow, that is all besides the point. I was just quoting Campbell in my own words: that learning a language is like learning to dance. And that you have to practice dancing instead of reading about it. The Glossika website has a very elaborate product description. You could most likely have avoided your product dissatisfaction, instead of complaining here.
Just like lovelanguagesIII, I think that writer, poem and play are actually pretty useful vocabulary. I could add to that, that it even reviews certain chinese characters from previous sentences. And to elaborate even more on this, all these (example) sentences are designed in such a flexible way, that you can just replace many words. So in effect this is actually a very painless way of getting down the structure of the language, without spending a lot of time on long grammar explanations. It’s even unnecessary to try to remember all the vocabulary. It’s all built in.
@lovelanguagesIII: I would be very interested in more products like this! Please tell us more!
ad Lion:
This one has about 4,000 sentences. It comes with mp3 files, traditional characters and Taiwanese accent (American English):
http://new.17buy.com.tw/books/books_view.php?books_id=442
ISBN 978-986-8667-8-5
This one has about 8,000 sentences, again with mp3 files, traditional characters and Taiwanese accent:
https://tw.buy.yahoo.com/gdsale/gdqta_detail.asp?pdtid=6100784&id=8908284&grp=5&qtatype=4&discount=8
ISBN 978-986-6481-83-3
I also bought a version with simplified characters (the sound files are the same though):
http://www.xhsd.cn/book/TblBookAction.jsp?cmd=read&Plucode=754044854
ISBN 978-7-5404-4854-7
The only criticism I have is that sometimes the recording does not correspond a 100 % to the written text. It is no big deal, just an extra “and” or a slightly different wording of the sentence. The meaning is always the same.
But it can be a bit of a nuisance if you are trying to practise recognizing characters by reading and listening to the recording at the same time.
This book has also 8,000 sentences, same features as the ones above:
http://www.17buy.com.tw/product-detail.php?cid=1&sid=64&id=416
ISBN 978-986-6481-99-4
You can either try and buy these books online (not only from the sites I took the pics from; I just quickly searched for a book cover on the Internet) or get a friend to buy them locally and send them to you. That’s what I sometimes do.
I also have another book with about 4,000 sentences where the audio files were only in English. I asked a Chinese friend to record the Chinese sentences for me and paid him for his service. That worked out really fine.
I can’t give you any more detailed information about that book because another friend borrowed it from me and I don’t remember the exact title.
I hope this post helps. 加油 
I have a book in russian with 30 000 something, conversation-building sentences with translation. You can find it on amazon. I think its made by some kind of US military department. Only problem is that the text is so small, I can´t really read anything in it, or I fall asleep tryin’.
I got that too. It’s not bad - but the examples are maybe a little dated?
Whatever do you do with such books? I remember watching the Glossika video where he discusses them and thinking “man does that sound boring.” Perhaps I’m missing out on something?