Rocket Chinese Premium Plus tracks

Hi, I've noticed a problem with the upgrade that I never seemed to have experienced with the Premium version and it's on the issue of loading. To clearly illustrate, I've never had any problems when I want to backtrack on the conversation in a given lesson (for example, when I am already listening to 14 minutes of a given track but click the cursor on let's say, 3:29) in the Premium version. The Premium Plus is way different and I find it hard to navigate given that each time I place my cursor, there's a bit of a lag going on and it doesn't necessarily go to where I want it. Also, each time I un-pause the track (after pausing to practice my tones), it has seemed like that the track continues by itself because some parts have been skipped. This in turn, makes me backtrack and the initial dilemma that I've had is repeated. The change in teams has also been quite surprising. While Tao's speed in speaking can be both a disadvantage and advantage, not having Dave is a big change given that he's more "listener/student friendly". Other than that, I highly enjoyed (and continuously enjoy) the lessons especially the writing & culture aspects. Maybe a bit more emphasis on grammar/structure? ;) Thanks a lot guys! :)

Hi cj_222! Thank you for your post and your feedback on the course! I can certainly see your frustration with going to the right place in the audio track. My advice would be to download the audio lesson to your computer if you can and listen to it that way. Then, you shouldn't have a problem pausing and being where you want to be. That said, what you're describing shouldn't be happening and I will certainly pass your message on to our Tech Support Team to see what they can do. I will also pass on the Chinese speaker feedback onto our Product Development Team. I hope this helps! All the best for your Chinese learning! :D

Yes it's obvious that Davids style was (is) much missed Please can tou redo the lessons with him again AND get rid of Tao Thanks Howard

I would have to disagree and recommend that Tao stays -- much better to listen to two natives and learn from them. Keep the natives for any future installments!!

sorry I have to disagree. Tao's voice is terrible whilst I agree 2 native speakers is sometimes better than 1, I feel like an outsider now listening to experts wheras with Dave I knew I had a fellow learner. I downloaded the new courses several times only to realsie Tao's voice is natural. It is similar to a geordie or scouser teaching english! Watch the travel programmes on CCTV and you hear really beautiful male voices Tao is like gravel and way too fast. I am a learner not an expert brushing up on my already attained knowledge. Sorry but I will not buy any more courses with gravel voice. And Lisa too awful for words!

I might agree with you about Lisa, but I haven't listened to enough to decide yet. Even though you think Tao's voice is "gravel", there are bound to be many other Chinese that sound similar to him. They are doing us a favor by having regular Chinese speak in the program, and not just the Chinese with smooth, clear voices aka Chinese Morgan Freeman (Lin?) :D

Yes but i have paid good money for a perfect course I dont want gravel voices I can get that anywhere I am trying to learn Chimese I want BBC Chinese not gutter talk Howard

Hi just started using the new 2011 version, may i ask in the interactive audio portion after pressing the play button on each sample conversation no audio is coming out? thanks Mike

Ni hao Miguel, Hmmm... that doesn't sound good. I will let our tech department know as there may be something going wrong there! They're pretty quick, so keep checking over the next few days. If nothing gets resolved, please send us an email at support@rocketlanguages.com. Thanks! Lin Ping

Dear Lin (and others who bought the latest version) Who are the speakers and actors? I dont want to listen to Lisa and Tao sorry but i just don't like them Lisa i can live with 'cos I can edit her out with my own voice But Tao sounds like my granddad! I really loved the first course perfect balance between Dave and yourself; I agree for some converstaions we need 2 natives but at least Dave joined in He gave ME confidence to try. Lisa doesn't inspire! Kind regards Howard

Hi Howard, As I said earlier and in the other post, thank you for your feedback. We do believe in making the best products that we can, but can't incorporate all the requests that we receive. We have good and feedback about all our language teams and it is too costly and time-consuming to re-record the entire course. We have chosen to focus ourselves in other areas. As always, thanks for the feedback. Lin Ping :)

Lin - I am an American and my wife is Shanghainese. We bought a place in Shanghai 7 years ago, so I have been going there every year since. Finally last year I decided to try and learn Manderin instead of relying on my wife to translating everything. I'm disappointed to hear so many people complain about Tao. David was great for the beginning lessons, But if people want to learn Chinese, they better get used to listening to Tao. We have a lot of friends in Shanghai, and they all sound like Tao. My advice is to practice and practice more on listening you you and Tao if they want to actually understand the Language. As I said, dave was great for the rudiments, but if all you did was listen to Dave, and went to China, you wouldn't understand anybody. Finally, you should put a bulletin board on this site, When we are not ins Shanghai, we rent out the condo for business, and personal Travlers for short terms. This way they can have a nice apartment instead of staying in hotels. If anyone is interested, they can visit our website: jjbshanghai.webs.com Thank you.

Hi John B First we should be learning Beijing Hua not Shanghainese. There is a huge difference in the two dialects jusat like geordie and glasweigian in the UK melbourne and sydney in Oz etc. also Shanghainese has entirely different words and dialetcs etc I have been working in China for over 12 years in various places and Tao's voice is NOT common. In fact the only time i hear this is when they have a bad cold. I will have to accept Tao's voice and learn to live with it however I will not buy any more rocket products without try-b4-buy next. As I said before I am paying money for this product so I DO want it perfect and since we are learning Mandarin it should be based on the PRC "standard pronunciation". i.e. Beijing dialect/voice. Also u should not use this bulletin board to advertise your product that is a define no-no! Howard

Howard - Thanks for your reply. I'm not learning Shanghainese, I'm learning Mandarin - Shanghainese is classified as a separate language. They do speak Mandarin a bit different than the Bejingese. I know since I'm always being criticized by my wife when I prounounce the sh's and r's, but it's just a local acccent. I'm from NY, and now live in Texas, so we have some English differences as well. My wife is fluent in Mandarin as all Chinese are (supposed to be) she also speakes Shanghainese, but I decided to learn Mandarin since everyone can speak it. As far as Tao's voice is concerned, my point was if you can learn to understand him you will be a lot better off if you go to China, than if you listen to Dave - I like Dave as well. I don't work for Rocket Chinese - if you don't want to buy thier product that's fine - it's your money. I've used Rosetta Stone, Fluenz and Rocket. They all have their plusses and minus's. I've learned something from all of them. Sorry about the link to our condo, I was just suggesting they put up a bullitin board where people can advertise products, or exchange traveling information for Chinese travelers. Thanks,

Dear JB Thank for the info and I do agree from all the courses RC is "probably" the best in terms of value for money and course contents. I think we agree to disagree on certain elements and I am NOT anti anybody least of all your good self. I am working in Macau at present and we have 7 versions of Chinese and of course 8 versions of English (me being the extra number) so you are absolutely correct when we should be aware of all dialects and sounds etc. I would like to see peoples experience with other courses too. I tried Pimsleur which is great for review BUT their insistence on NO dialogues being available made their course nealy unusable until I found a "site" whereby the owner had posted all the dialogues. However he was subsequently, I beleive, threatened with legal action and so on. Thumbs down to Pimsleur for that. Their vocab was limited and dated and very expensive. Chinese pod from your Shanghai was good at start then they became too big (IMHO) and cliquee. There are some good free sites which have good stuff I'll try and dig them out for the benefit of others. FWIW, I cut and paste all the dialogues into learning sheets and use microsofts "ruby text" notation above the chinese characters for the pin yin (in other words I don't use the RC pin yin). I also rewite Lisa's text into as direct as is readable then colour nouns, verbs (sorry action words these days) ands so on. I also edit the mp3 using audacity (sometimes to get rid of Lisa's "now" and extra silence). With audacity, you can also slow down the spoken ...... Keep the info rolling Maybe need to start a seperate post for this kind of stuff Howard

Howard - Thanks for the reply - I hear Macau is like the Las Vegas of the far east. When I was a kid in NY all of the fireworks we bought (illegally) were made in Macau. I also re-write the discussions (by hand) and make it more readable by breaking up the pin yin into all of the separate words. This is how they do it on Rosetta Stone, and I think it is easier to read and practice. I try and get in about 2 hours a day of practice, languages don't come easy to me. John B

It is great to see the number of, and varying opinions of, the Premium plus. This demonstrates the fact that you can't please everybody. I acknowledge that Tao's voice is not BBC quality, but it is typical of a male Chinese voice so you should make the effort to get used to it. The change of speed is most welcome since the student should be more proficient by the time they take Premium plus. Premium Plus gets my vote. BarryH

I'm very happy when I on this page and I can know how to say in Chinese and the basic word so it's very good to lean Chinese

I agree with Howard about getting rid of Tao. He is too hard to understand. I can live with Lisa. And I liked the interaction between David and Lin. They were also easy to understand and listen to.