I’m not going to write a bloody essay or anything but yeah, it’s a studio classroom sort of deal but in Chinese and really quite low level. There’s even quizes n shit n some of them are in Chinese characters so I was like I CAN READ CHINESE! I CAN READ CHINESE! for a couple of seconds cuz I got an answer write. They have a bunch at the page one at the Zhongxiao and Fuxing SOGO, eighth floor. Recommended.
For me, LIC is a love-hate relationship.
I can’t stand the PinYin (please, no one start a debate over PinYin/ZhuYin).
I love the song.
I can’t stand the articles in English
I like the artwork and the picture dictionary.
I can’t stand the Beijing-like accent.
I like that some magazines have Traditional Characters…
…but I can’t stand that others have Simplified and Traditional.
I like the song.
I can’t stand some of the silly conversations between the characters on the video.
I wish the Chinese magazines were like LiveABC’s English-learning magazines. They have more readings in the target language on a range of interesting topics. LIC seems to be trying to cover too much.
Oh, the pacakge says that there is a CD Rom and a DVD included. There isn’t. There is a very good CD. I went down to the Live Interactive Chinese main office on Bade and wound up in a television studio instead of the main office of Live Interactive Chinese because somebody told me that the sixteenth floor was the twelfth floor, or maybe because they told me the twelfth floor was the sixteent floor, I forget, but anyway I finally found the place and discovered that the CD Rom and the DVD actually do exist but are quite crappy actually and what the DVD needed is PINYIN FREAKIN SUBTITLES - NTD49,000 consulting fee please, no deal, oh but wouldn’t I be interested in joining the fun loving gang down at Live Interactive English (teacher don’t ya know?) and so on and so forth etc. Anyway, nice lady and all and I do recommend the program.
Sorry icbninjenny we were posting at the same time. Anyway, yes, it’s hard to please everybody all the time, and there are things they could certainly improve upon, like they could say “san ye” instead of “page three” and every time the guy says plus I think he says PUS and stuff like that but…
You went to the office!? You’re dedicated.
The people who work on that magazine work hard, I know, but I wish they would take the successful elements of the English-learning magazines and apply them to the Chinese ones.
I get annoyed sometimes when I see the cool Japanese-learning books. The Chinese ones are so disappointing. Today I found a series of graded Japanese readers (short stories) for adults at Eslite.
My LIC is sitting on my bookshelf, but I’ve returned to studying out of kids textbooks. They have cute pictures, are Taiwan-centric, and how elements that native speakers and foreign learners have to learn (idioms, confusing characters, character combinations, tones), not to mention they have interesting short stories and give insight into local culture/morals.
No matter, IMO, they both sure beat learning from PAVC.
(BTW: Dragonbones: The books I got from you are FABULOUS! My grammar is still horrid, but is getting better thanks to those books.)
I was just hoping for DVDs with Pinyin subtitles. The nice lady lit up when I mentioned it so who knows? Maybe someday.
So what exactly IS this, a magazine with a CD in it, published monthly? Or a radio program, with an accompanying magazine? The OP left me a bit unclear. Sounds interesting, though. But I’d be worried about the market size and thus the product’s limited viability.
Glad you like them! Jia1you2 ~ 
BTW, my idea of ‘live interactive Chinese’ is walking to the wet market every day to chat with the merchants, getting conversation partners, and (even better) a local SO. Y’all be sure to supplement your grammar books and LIC 'zines with some of that, y’hear? 
[quote=“Dragonbones”]So what exactly IS this, a magazine with a CD in it, published monthly? Or a radio program, with an accompanying magazine? The OP left me a bit unclear. Sounds interesting, though. But I’d be worried about the market size and thus the product’s limited viability.
Glad you like them! Jia1you2 ~
BTW, my idea of ‘live interactive Chinese’ is walking to the wet market every day to chat with the merchants, getting conversation partners, and (even better) a local SO. Y’all be sure to supplement your grammar books and LIC 'zines with some of that, y’hear? [/quote]
The magazines are not monthly yet, but I think that’s the eventual plan. They are similar to the monthlies LiveABC puts out, but much more general and for low-level learners (which is from near-zero to low intermediate). They are not only sold in Taiwan, but sold around the world – that’s why there is a slight Beijing-ness to the audio and simplified character options.
Issues are available in most places books are sold – you’ll find the lot of them at Eslite (the Ren Ai/Dun Hua has them, I saw today).
They’re good learning tools, but I’m not necessarily promoting them as much as bob. (I’m sticking to traditional markets and my elementary school books.)
I only have one but I like it because there is a variety to the exercises and the pace clips right along in a form of the language that sounds quite like what I hear all the time. And sometimes, truth be told, it ain’t all that easy, precisely because they don’t slow it down at all for you. Those parts could be scaffolded up a little better probably. I serioulsy doubt that even advanced learners would understand the whole thing the first time they heard it. Anyway everything is written in Pinyin with a translation underneath so you can just read along, or ahead, and then listen.
It is just another thing to have in the arsenal, not a “replacement” for actual interaction but something that you can throw on when you want fully comprehensible input and a little mental exercise without the hassle of trying to talk to anyone. I hope they are successful as hell and there develops some real competition to develop material that sophisticated learners actually want.
I saw them at the local Eslite bookstore, not bad. Wish they had intermediate and upper intermediate, but they look good.