#zhuzhu reviews

[zhuzhudushu]

Lingopie — Chinese Review ★★

So I did 3 months of Lingopie (stylized as Liñgöpie) so you don't have to (unless you want to lol).

I mention a Chrome extension, the Zhongwen dictionary, quite a bit in this review. It is here, I highly recommend it (click)! It's also available for Firefox (click).

What is Lingopie?

Lingopie is an app and desktop extension/website that allows you to watch tv shows and cartoons with interactive subtitles for language learning. It currently has Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. It claims to improve your language learning by 80% (compared to Duolingo which is around 20%).

Here is their website. (click)

Pricing: (March 2024)

3 months $36

1 year $71 "on sale" (normally $144)

Lifetime $199 "on sale" (normally $663)

Please note: I have never seen these full prices. It appears that the "sale" is permanent.

My Review / TL;DR Version

Extremely disappointed both in functionality and content for Chinese. Maybe this is a good program for other languages, but for Chinese there is extremely limited content with pinyin subtitles only available for the non-Netflix shows. All the best learning features are available for non-Netflix shows, yet those tended to have significantly worse translations than Netflix. I would not recommend this product for Chinese. While it had a few good features and I enjoyed it for 6-7 episodes of one show, it then had a glitch where an entire episode was subtitled wrong, so I gave up.

See below the cut for full breakdown.

Strengths:

Has access to Netflix shows and films including some popular ones (e.g. Meteor Garden, Dear Ex, Nezha Reborn)

This is nice and I enjoyed rewatching the ones I was familiar with and getting a better grasp of listening and vocab. I appreciate that they try to incorporate kid-friendly along with more serious/adult content with animated and live action tv shows and films. I also liked that it specified if the show was from Taiwan or China, and also included shows that had some Cantonese influence (e.g. Scissor Seven)

Allows you to have English and Chinese subtitles simultaneously or alone, and you can easily click them on an off while watching.

This is pretty standard for all video/subtitle based educational apps, but it was nice to easily click them on and off in case I wanted to double check my understanding, and to compare the direct translation of the words to the full translation of the sentence.

Allows you to pause automatically after each subtitle. Can also loop subtitles over and over. There are also AI-produced explanations of grammar.

This hands down was the best part about the entire experience for me, and why I ended up using Lingopie for 3 months. While it was sometimes clunky (see below), this made singling out specific lines/words for listening practice so easy. Once I got in the groove, I was able to get through episodes fairly quickly and was starting to be able to listen and hear new words in sentences later.

Click on the words in the subtitle to make flashcard sets

This was a nice feature, but I do wish the flashcards were a bit more functional, see below. It was easy enough to use and a quick way to remind yourself of the new words you learned before you jump into the next episode.

Weaknesses:

Pinyin subtitles available on desktop only, with no pinyin subtitles for Netflix shows (as of May 2024)

This is a HUGE flaw, and I was 100% dependent on using another chrome extension for hover-over dictionary while using Lingopie. I know they are working on pinyin subtitles for Netflix and mobile, but I used this for 3 months and it still was not implemented when I ended. To me, if I have to use another app in conjunction with this one in order to fully learn, then what's the point? Especially since I watched Taiwanese and Cantonese-influenced shows with very non-standard pronunciations, comparing standard pinyin to accented productions is necessary for me. Even with the pinyin subtitles for the non-Netflix shows, it left a lot to be desire because they're tiny above the Chinese characters, and sometimes difficult to read. More than once I thought a ǒ was ō because of how tiny it was.

Not enough content, especially cartoons/beginner level

The one above and this bullet are the main reasons why I don't recommend this app for Chinese specifically. Maybe other languages are fine, but there is simply not enough content for the price. I was hoping for more beginner/lower intermediate content like children's cartoons, however there are none for Chinese. All the animated options are more teenager/adult oriented. There also weren't many light-hearted or comedy options, meaning you would have to watch a lot of serious dramas, thrillers, and violent shows if you wanted to get your money's worth. For my personal taste, I don't want to have to pause every dialogue line for an adult thriller. That would ruin my experience of the show and the suspense. For the non-Netflix options, most shows were incomplete with only 1-5 episodes available out of 10+. They also tended to be lower quality productions, with significantly worse English translations. The majority of what is available outside of Netflix are short films (~5 mins) and cooking shows (10-20 mins) which aren't bad for beginners. I personally have no interest in cooking, though lol. Essentially, there is no TRUE beginner fictional content in Chinese available.

The dictionary is... rough

Again, I was fully dependent on the Zhongwen extension. While the English subtitles themselves are good, the individual definitions of words that you hover over are definitely rough. They weren't actually that helpful for breaking down meanings of things like slang and characters' names. For example, in Scissor Seven there were quite a few animal puns, e.g. 汪星人 which is internet slang for "dog" Lingopie translated as "Woofer" which was... awkward and strange. Without the Zhongwen extension I would have had no idea what this was actually referring to. It would been nice if it functioned more like the Zhongwen extension, where it would highlight individual characters or phrases/combos depending on your mouse placement. Particularly on the non-Netflix shows, the translations even in the English subtitles were incredibly rough and at times I couldn't understand the context in either language. There was also one instance of an entire episode (Netflix) that had incorrect subtitles, I suspect subtitles from a different episode? That was the final straw for me.

It chooses whether or not to highlight single words or phrases so you have no control over your flashcards

This made the flashcards not as functional to me. Sometimes, I wanted just the specific noun/verb in the sentence, but it would make me highlight the entire sentence. Other times, I wanted a really functional phase, but it would only let me highlight the individual words. I barely used the flashcard feature because of this.

Clunky interface (Chrome & Firefox)

I can't speak for mobile or Safari because I didn't use them. Since I was relying on the Zhongwen hover-dictionary, I only used Chrome. You can only use Chrome or Safari if you want Netflix shows. Sometimes the auto-pause after each subtitle would be too early or too late, meaning I would have to actually click things pretty persistently throughout each episode. Using the spacebar to pause/unpause hardly ever worked, and using the arrow keys to flip between subtitles also never worked for me. Sometimes the hover-definitions of words would linger even after I clicked away, and would not disappear until the next subtitle appeared. This was super annoying and would block a good portion of the screen. Sometimes I would have to click things 2-3 times before it registered in both Chrome and Firefox.

Overall, I think it's a great idea, but needs some pretty major improvements in order to be worth the price.

In my opinion, if they were to add significantly more shows, including kid's cartoons, and improved their subtitles, dictionary, & interface function, it would be worth the price.

Maybe in a few years as Lingopie grows, it will be worth it. But for now, it's not. For now, it's clunky and limited. If you were to watch it for an hour a day, you would probably get through all the shows that interested in you in about 3-6 months. It wouldn't take longer than a year to go through all of the Chinese content, as of right now. So why would you pay for a year or lifetime price for that?

(divider credit here)

[movizark-blog]

Tubelight (2017) Review!!

‘Tubelight’ is disappointing as it rests on a poor plot and lacks the power to enthrall and mesmerize despite some likable camaraderie between the Khan brothers. #Tubelight, #SalmanKhan, #SohailKhan, #ZhuZhu, #MohammedZeeshanAyyub, #MatinReyTangu, #OmPuri

Synopsis – Tubelight is the story of a man’s unshakable faith in himself and the love for his brother.

My Take – People close to me are quite aware of the fact that despite being a Bollywood lover, I am not what you would call a ‘fan’ of Salman Khan, of course it’s nothing personal, it’s just that I believe for a performer who has been active for 28 years (Yup, that long!), you carry a…

[zhuzhudushu]

Falou — Chinese Review ★1/2

So I paid for Falou (pronounced like Baloo from Jungle Book, but with an F, apparently) so you don't have to. Here is my review! You can also see a quicker summary on my resources page!

What is Falou?

It's an app that's designed to support your language learning journey through listening and speaking tasks.

Click here to see the app!

Pricing:

Free: one language (extremely obnoxious ads)

$149 / year - no ads, multiple languages, and full courses all levels

(Note: if you deny the subscription 2-3x, they give you a year for $30. This is what I did, but ended up refunding it)

My Review / TLDR Version:

I would not recommend this app for anyone, especially not for Chinese. I might recommend it for HSK2 learners who are past the pinyin-memorizing stage and can read pinyin and basic characters without difficulty, but only for muscle memory practice. The voices are bot-like (Duolingo style), the sentences can be awkward, some of the audios were wrong, it grades you harshly forcing 100% accuracy to move on, then gives you no way to review the words you miss, and there is a massive jump from HSK2 vocab to HSK5 vocab, with no transition.

For full rant, see below:

I was going to split this into a pros/cons list, but honestly, I couldn't think of any pros. So here are the issues I have with it, broken down.

1. The Entire Learning Method

It is solely speech-based and takes points off for missed tones and makes you redo it over and over until you get 100% accuracy on each sentence. At intermediate level, it is totally normal to miss 1-2 tones per sentence, and even more at beginner level. Also, sometimes it doesn't recognize tones well and will count off for the simplest words like 了，好， etc. and so it tells you to review the easiest words in the sentence, while ignoring the new vocab.

Basically this is each "course":

"Conversation" - a bot talks to you and you respond, mimicking what you hear with reading both characters & pinyin. You must achieve 100% accuracy on all of it to move on to the next sentence.

"Writing" - you listen and build the sentence fill-in-the-blank style (or from Chinese keyboard with typing). You must achieve 100% accuracy on each one before moving on to the next sentence.

"Challenge" - you must verbally say what you hear from memory and you have one try before losing hearts (you have plenty of hearts to finish, but you must achieve a perfect score to get gold). If you mess up, it gives you the pinyin, and if you mess up again it gives you the characters too.

For beginner sentences like "I like tea" this might be fine. But once you you get into the "intermediate" section, sometimes you would have to say 2-3 sentences without a break. Especially with the challenge section, this is a near-impossible task even in one's native language unless you have genius-level working memory and attention.

Also, you can click on the words in your dialogue to see definitions, however you can't do that with the other person's dialogue. So if the person you're talking to uses a new word and you can't tell what the pinyin is?? You're shit outta luck.

2. There is no true intermediate.

At the beginning, it asks you you're level. You can chose nothing, understanding basic sentences, understanding basic conversation, and being comfortable speaking. I chose "basic conversation" and it started me with HSK5 level vocab, with 4+ new words per sentence. This was obviously frustrating. I had to delete the app and re-download it to choose "understand sentences" but then it was HSK 1-2 and so simple like "what do you like to eat?"

I even went to the highest level right before "intermediate" started, and it was painfully easy. It literally jumps from "would you like brown shoes?" (hardest beginner level) to "you have to press the blue button on the screen in order to download the regulatory file into the database" (first intermediate level).

That's absolutely preposterous.

3. There is no way to review words from the lessons

They do have a vocab section, however it is simply flashcards with audio and they only teach you 4 words per section. Also, I could not find any HSK5 level words in the vocabulary section that corresponded with the level that I struggled with that was supposedly intermediate. The vocab sets seem completely separate from the lessons.

At the end of each lesson, it tells you which words you struggled the most with (which, again, might not be any new vocab at all and for me was often the easiest words like 好) but then... there is no way to review these words in the app? Especially if you're paying money, they should be able to make personalized flashcards for you with new words per level. Really, each level should have a set of vocab to learn before you go in trying to use them in conversation. But no, the only way to review the vocab is to do the lesson over again.

4. The goal isn't functionality, it's to perfectly mimic a bot

This is the main reason I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The goal is to sound exactly like the bot does. This means perfect tones, no tone reductions/neutral tones, and awkward sentences structures. Using this app will not make you fluent in any way that's functional, in my opinion. It might be an okay supplement to practice speaking if you are already familiar with pinyin and tones well enough that you can tell if the bot is wrong. Because sometimes pronunciation and tones were wrong.

Functionally, there is nothing wrong with missing 1-2 tones in a long sentence, especially for beginner/intermediate learners. Functionally, it is not realistic for most learners to build or produce sentences that have 4+ HSK5 level words in them without first breaking down those new words. Functionally, a conversation where you are pretending to be a retail worker or gas station employee isn't really relevant—most learners are not learning the language so they can go work at a Chinese gas station. There are way more functional conversations that could include vocab about cars and clothing.

Basically, run for the hills with this one. If you're a high level but want to review easy sentences to practice pronunciation and muscle memory, maybe this might benefit you. Other than that, avoid like the plague.

[zhuzhudushu]

Learn Chinese with a TV Series ★★★1/2

So I just finished Leila老师's new online course, and overall I think it was a good experience and I learned some new vocabulary and listening practice. See a shorter review on my resources page!

What is Learn Chinese with TV Series?

It's an online learning platform based on the first 5 episodes of 开端 Reset, a c-drama that released January 2022. The course is based on 700+ words of HSK 4+ vocabulary used in the series and includes PDF dictionaries with time stamps of the words in the show, grammar notes, various vocab and grammar activities, listening quizzes, and short scripts for shadowing practice. Leila_laoshi instagram here Description of the course here

Price: (as of 6/26/22)

Two Month access - $29 One Year access - $35

TL:DR Review

100% worth the price, but you absolutely need to be MINIMUM HSK 4 level to benefit from this course. Tbh I would probably recommend HSK 5. As someone who thought I was solid HSK 4, this was a struggle and there were many words that I didn't know that were not included in the PDF dictionaries (I mean like 25 per episode, if not double that). I feel like I retained... maybe 100 words, if I'm being generous, but it felt more functional and more fun than just memorizing straight from a textbook or flashcards. The most benefit for me was listening practice as this drama wasn't dubbed and had various accents, and the non-quiz style activities on her learning platform. If you like quiz-style learning, like c-dramas, and want more listening practice, this is for you.

Full Review Below:

I want to start by saying I do think this was worth the money and the time, and I definitely got benefit out of it. This is probably going to turn into mostly ranting because this course made me feel STUPID AF and that makes me frustrated. HOWEVER I do think this is a good course, and I did learn a lot.

That said, I won't do this again even if she offers more courses until I am done with HSK 5. I was hoping that this would boost me to HSK 5, but I don't think it did that unfortunately.

Pros:

Vocabulary lists with time stamps are helpful and color-coded based on HSK level (the old hsk system, obviously)

The vocabulary builder activities and quizlets were what I used the most and helped a lot with my learning

The lesson activities are split up into groups and took less than an hour each

The show isn't dubbed so it has real life speech in various accents (including Shanghai)

The plot of the show is exciting and engaging; the acting is good

Cons:

Most activities were quiz-style (which I personally hate) and only allow 3 attempts/wrong answers and you can't go back and start over (there are no grades, tho)

Re quiz learning: True/false and fill-in-the-blank quizzes were often misleading and it led to me performing poorly (see below for details)

Shadowing scripts were short (<5 mins)

The PDF dictionaries got progressively shorter meaning that I had to do WAY more work for Ep 4 & 5 than previous episodes (see below for details)

My biggest issue, and why I would not do another course until I am solidly HSK 5, is the last bullet. As HSK 4 (with some HSK5 studying), each episode, which are 40 mins a piece, took about 4 hours for me to go through. Keep in mind I was being excessively in-depth and would stop, repeat, and write down every single character/word I didn't know if it wasn't on the PDF dictionary. However, Episode 3 was easier and only took about 2 hours, and I was excited because I was learning and retaining and she listed most of the words I needed.

In episode 4, though, this changed. Her first two dictionaries have 150+ words, but Episode 4 and 5 have 70 and 100 words, respectively. However, the episode's vocab difficulty didn't go down with it. The PDF dictionaries left out a lot of words. In Ep 5 for example, I had to write down 44 more words than what she had listed, including words like 实质 (HSK 6), 台阶 (HSK5), 持续 (HSK 5), 毕竟 (HSK 5) and I could keep going... Basically, I needed a 144 word dictionary, which would reflect the first two episode's dictionaries. It was disheartening and made the episode way longer than it needed to be.

With the activities, for the most part I liked them and when I retained vocabulary well, it was nice to get to apply it and get things right. But they are quiz style, and I'm not a fan of that for the same reasons why I hate Duolingo: sometimes my answer isn't wrong, but it's not what they were looking for. This happened a lot, especially in Ep 4's activities where they gave you a bunch of characters and you had to build a sentence independently. I even sent my answer to Chinese friends and they were like "well your answer is right, but it could also be this" and of course that was the right answer... I HATE THAT it's why I stopped Duolingo over a year ago. I don't like being told I'm wrong when I'm not wrong.

There were also quite a few listening practice true/false questions I got wrong because what the character said in the dialogue was not accurate information. It was a listening practice, so I thought we were supposed to give the answer we heard, even if that answer was not factual (there's a lot of investigative scenes and interrogations where characters lie, etc). Sometimes these t/f questions wanted the Truth, and sometimes they wanted What You Hear.

There were also quite a few fill-in-the-blank sentences where there were so many blanks it felt impossible to fill them them in without context (which wasn't given). There were also some sentences with missing punctuation so it seemed like one long sentence, when it was actually 2 phrases and needed a comma/period, which led me to misunderstand and get quite a few wrong. Also a lot of the blanks had answers that were vocabulary NOT from the pdf dictionaries which was annoying because they weren't words I had specifically studied.

As a perfectionist who wants to feel good about assignments and get good "grades", these issues made quiz-style learning frustrating... If this were graded, I would've failed this course because of these quizzes. (I'm not exaggerating, I got 33/50 (66%) on the Episode 5 vocab section and I cheated on the last 5)

Basically, all the quiz-style learning did was make me feel like shit for not retaining 150 words per episode, which isn't humanly possible anyway.

So there are definitely some bumps both in the dictionaries and in the quizzes, but overall the listening practice (minus t/f questions) were wonderful and the best part of the lessons in my opinion. The lessons (not quizzes) going over grammar and functional phrases were also really great! These were the most enjoyable parts for me, along with when I would re-watch the episode without English subtitles and practice my listening. It was 10x more fun than a textbook, book, flashcards/Anki and for the most part the drama's plot was engaging.

Another major bonus, and why I don't regret this course and why I would consider doing it again once I'm a higher level is that I feel that my auditory recognition is significantly better now. I did this course because I wanted some listening practice, but mostly because I wanted to bump my knowledge up to really be HSK 5. I don't think I did that at all (I maybe learned 100 words from this course that I actually retained). However...

My ability to recognize tones in sentences, hear where one syllables ends and the next one starts, recognizing non-standard consonants are way better now. I wasn't expecting this, but even over a week after finishing this course I feel that my ability to keep up when listening to sentences is still improved.

Is it worth the price?

If you are HSK 5+, absolutely, yes. For the most part it's fun and the price is very fair, if not under-priced, for the amount of content. If you are not easily frustrated with making mistakes and quiz-style learning and willing to do extra work, it's worth it for HSK 4 as well.

How long did it take you?

I started the first week of May and finished the last week of June. I did one lesson per week and watched each episodes twice all the way through (with a week break because I went to the beach).

Would I do it again?

Not until I am done with HSK 5, no.

[zhuzhudushu]

Rocket Languages Chinese Review ★★★

I did trial for 3 days of Rocket Languages Chinese. You can see a shorter review on my Resources Page!

What is Rocket Languages?

An app designed to be a "quick" way to get fluent (isn't that what they all say lol) and uses a well-rounded approach with self-paced modules on speaking, listening, writing and reading, with additional cultural lessons.

Price: (March 2022, no discounts)

Free Trial – 5 days (limited module access) Level 1 - $150 (you can also buy Level 2 and 3 individually for this price, but you have to hunt it down in their FAQ) Levels 1 & 2 – $300 All Levels (1-3) – $450 Each Level has 7 modules and a "survival kit" extra module. Total: 23 modules, 366 hours

TL;DR Review:

WAY better than Pimsleur, but nowhere near as good as Yoyo. Definitely not worth the price, but might be if you have a significant discount. Decently well-rounded, but like Pimsleur, the beginning lessons are stilted, and to me the lessons felt like they were talking at me instead of teaching. If you are anywhere above HSK3, probably only Level 3 will be worth your time. If you're going to pay this kind of money, I'd recommend Yoyo Chinese instead.

Full Review Below:

It's hard to give a super in-depth analysis for 3 days of messing around with it, but in general I just can't help but see how it's so much weaker than Yoyo Chinese!

The lessons feel stilted, the dialogue even in Level 3 feels a tad robotic (though, 10x better than Pimsleur) and I felt that even in English, the "teachers" were talking AT me instead of teaching me. The levels are also 15-40 minutes each (just the audio parts alone) so it's definitely a lot more time to dedicate to each level than Pimsleur or Yoyo, and it's difficult for me to stay engaged when something is audio only without visuals and actually seeing the teacher (another reason why I prefer Yoyo).

But for me, 30 minutes is a LOT of listening when you're a level 0 beginner and it's mostly English and extremely repetitive. I also don't see where they describe pinyin or tones, either. Basically they take the same route as Pimsleur and they're like "don't worry just repeat it exactly as you hear it and you'll get there!" But they do at least give you all four tones in isolation, which is more than Pimsleur did.

They do have "Bonus: Write it!" sections where you type pinyin with the tones, but they don't go into any detail about how "x" is different from "sh" in English, etc.

One thing I will say is the vocabulary seems very functional from the get-go! For example, 你的汉语很棒 is taught in Module 3 of Level 1, and even Yoyo Chinese hasn't taught 棒 (that I remember...) so I think for functional colloquial words, Rocket Chinese is doing a good job. But again, like Pimsleur, they don't teach 中文，they teach another word! Which is funny because I've literally never heard a native speaker use 普通话 or 汉语！They all say 中文，but that's not in Pimsleur or Rocket for some reason lol (Yoyo, on the other hand, teaches all 3)

Overall, not a bad supplement, or maybe even main source of self-teaching, but I don't think it's worth the price. It's better than quiz-style apps like Duolingo, but because this one doesn't have videos, it feels like self-studying without a teacher, and you would definitely have to pace everything yourself and motivate yourself, as it's 90% reading and listening with massive bodies of text.

In my opinion, you'd be better off paying $300 for Yoyo's lifetime access and get x3 the amount of videos all with live native speakers and videos instead of just audio alone, lol.

[zhuzhudushu]

Taglist?

Since I have quite a following here (literally just logged in to 99+ notes!!! You guys are awesome! thanks so much <3) I figured I'd extend an invitation for a taglist!

I typically post a few different types of Chinese educational posts.

聊天的词 – vocab I collect from texting with native chinese speakers

Yoyo Chinese / General Vocab lists

Videos with Chinese/English subtitles

App & Product Reviews

If you are interested in joining a taglist for these (meaning: I would tag you whenever I post one/all of these topics) let me know!

Reply in the tags/comments or message me to be added the taglist for one, multiple, or all of these!

Thank you again for engaging so much with my stuff <3

~ 朱朱 Zhuzhu 🐷

[zhuzhudushu]

Hello, I hope you are having a nice day! I was wondering if you have ever done the HSK courses on Coursera and, if so, whether or not you found them helpful.

I have not!!

Everything I've used I've reviewed under my #zhuzhu reviews tag OR it's on my resources page here!

But I shall post this in the tags and if anyone who sees this has done Coursera, please respond <3