SpanishPod ¿Qué pasa? - EXTRA! New Features and Publication Schedule Change

Well said, rodneyp. This might not be the last time it happens. FrenchPod was cut down from 5 to 3 a few months ago and now this week it has gone down to just 1 new lesson a week with emphasis on the lower levels.

Well, talking about money: My opinion about the subscription costs for SpanishPod has not changed at all after the recent changes: the basic subscription is a good deal; the features offered by the premium and praxis subscription are not worth the price. They have never been.

hear hear, thats how i see it marty,

On the one hand...I feel pretty much like zentec, ie happy with my experience to date and that , for me,  a reduction in the frequency of lesson production is no biggie, theres still plenty of content i havent listened to yet to fill the time while project x is developed. However I suspect that the new feature will arrive too late to be much use to me as a student although hopefully it will be entertaining. personally i get more out of the online discussion side of things  but im well aware that im in the minority 

we dont know details yet but I would caution praxis against putting in a lot of effort into somethinhg than can only be used online. certainly it might benefit the users who turn up here but, I suspect that, to the vast majority of users, spanishpod is more like a radio show than an interactive web experience. those users will be disappointed that their fix is less frequent. lets hope project x is a podcast based product. If so, presumably it wont be too long before we start to see some examples and the reduction in lessons will seem less onerous.

on the other hand i have to agree with rodney in that changing things around like this, even temporarily, looks like sharp practice, i imagine the praxis pass users will be hardest hit as it sounds like other pods are being even more severely pruned for the duration. It feels like users are being asked to accept a reduction in service in order to pay for something they could reasonably expect to have already been included in the price namely product development.

Perhaps praxis could offer to proportionately extend memberships to compensate for the slower delivery schedule, ensuring that users get the 250 ish lessons per annum that they signed up for. obviously, once the work is completed praxis will be fully entitled to ask more for their "improved product" but its difficult to see why existing users should be expected to finance something they didnt buy into.

it has to be said that this hasnt been handled well and i really feel for the team being put on the spot like this. If three lessons a week had always been the norm this wouldnt be an issue so perhaps spanishpod has always been overextended, i for one have been impressed by their relentless output over the past year. 

Dear All

I know that this has come as a shock to a lot of people, but we can assure you the last thing we want is to upset our users.
So, if you want one to one support for any of your subscription questions, please email our Customer Service team at support@praxislanguage.com.

We are reading all your comments and listening to you all. Thanks for your support and understanding.

Liliana

Liliana: Could you ask Ken Carroll or Hank Horkoff to join the discussion or at least state their point of view? In particular, it would be interesting to know more about their ideas about the short-term and long-term future of SpanishPod. (The last thing I read by Hank was that he wants to focus on the needs of enterprises. Are there still any plans for JapanesePod, ArabicPod, RussianPod, GermanPod?)

About linking the grammar guide and the lessons: I just included one straightforward way of integrating lessons and the grammar content via hyperlinks on this page. This is just to illustrate the idea.

I am frustrated.  I just changed my subscription from ChinesePod only to a Praxis pass.  With the changes in SpanishPod, FrenchPod, and ItalianPod, I feel a little cheated.  It sounds like Praxis has their language experts doing the work of a webmaster.  

¡Qué decepción!  How convenient that esta palabra works so well in English as well as in Spanish.  This time, alas, it's no falso amigo.

In the ¿Qué pasa? that discusses this change, JP implies that all is well because there are more than 400 old lessons we can go through.  Well, for those of us who are not at the newbie or elementary level, that assertion offers little comfort, since the majority of the old lessons are at the newbie and elementary levels.  Also, those of us who have been with SpanishPod for more than a year have very likely already been through most of the more advanced lessons.  SpanishPod's new arrangement seems to mean there will be much less for us, and thus less reason to stay involved with SpanishPod or to recommend it.

cyberdiva: Don't forget that those of us who have been with SpanishPod for more than 9 months might actually have enjoyed SpanishPod for free for quite some time. (At least I did before buying a basic subscription 9 months ago.)

A few observations:

The number of weekly lessons now reflects, roughly, the size of the audience for each podcast and, by extension, the revenue generated:  Chinese/daily, Spanish/3xwk, Italian and French/1xwk. (I'm not including Englishpod because it is still in Beta phase)

It was absolutely predictable that the decision to cut lesson production to once weekly in Italian- and Frenchpods would alienate long-time listeners who, after all, have already listened to the 200 or so existing lessons and in fact have them in their computers and ipods.

On the other hand, marketing a package of 200+ lessons heavily weighted towards beginners with a jazzed up "grammar" component just might tap into a new segment of the language market. 

No one ever, ever learned a language by listening to ten-minute podcasts daily, even wildly good podcasts (as Praxis podcasts have at times been).  Ask any user who has made real progress here and they'll tell you about all the other efforts they are making to read, hear, speak and yes memorize the language.

The genius of Spanishpod and its sisters has always been the podcast itself.  That's why the basic subscription has been a bargain, the premium and praxis pass not so much.  The SPod team itself has never shown a lot of interest in the supporting materials as is evident by their rough draft quality and by the team's reluctance to correct errors even when they are pointed out by listeners.

Daily podcasts support an interactive site.  Less than daily output discourages visits and puts a damper on exchange among users and team.  Is the big brain not longer valued?  Or is it only valuable among Chinesepod users?

I'm just sayin'...

Hola martinillo.  No, I bought a basic subscription as soon as the 7-day free trial was over.  I'm just glad I didn't spring for a premium sub.  Like you, though, I felt the premium extras were WAY over-priced. 

Anna8, I strongly agree with what you've said (as has been the case so many times in the past as well).

anna8 says

No one ever, ever learned a language by listening to ten-minute podcasts daily, even wildly good podcasts (as Praxis podcasts have at times been).  Ask any user who has made real progress here and they'll tell you about all the other efforts they are making to read, hear, speak and yes memorize the language.

Great insight from these comments.  anna8, wow, I guess I really agree with your thoughts above and even though I have listened to all the podcasts to this point, it takes much more to learn how to actually speak the language.  That statement is on the money.

I think that whenever you have such a wide variety of skill levels, it takes a lot of resources to satisfy everyone equally.  I love the SpanishPod team and I find the podcasts themselves useful.  However, I do think the "premium" features need more work to justify that level of subscription.

I would suggest making a tool that helps users learn to speak more often.  An example would be a tool with a number of questions that the user would have to answer.  Then the user can click the "response" button, and hear what an actual response would be, and compare that with what the user originally said.  That way, the user is forced to think and answer in the language.

JP, Leo, Lili, and Esti (and Carmen and Marco) have done a great job to this point, and I hope that some of these suggestions and comments from users help to form a better SpanishPod in the future.

Muchas gracias!

cyberdiva: Thus, when you bought your subscription, there was no sign of "Cooking with Tabasco" nor of "La Clave", right? Isn't it strange that you take access to these shows for granted while you complain that fiercely about a reduction of the publication schedule of the lesson shows?

anna8: I think you are being unfair. As you know, the SpanishPod team has fixed a lot of typos and problems. True, they didn't fix all of the reported typos yet, but there is slow progress. (I just checked the PDFs of the first few newbie lessons which apparently have been (partly) fixed during the last 5 months.) Maybe our complaints and request for more correct materials is another reason for Praxis Language to put more emphasis on the existing materials than on the production of new shows.

I think three lessons a week is sufficient.  And I completely understand the focus on the newbie and elementary levels; both in a business sense and a teaching sense.

There is a huge library of old material and am glad to see that there is some organization of it.  However, while I appreciate them grouped in areas of use (travel, missing sandwiches), I would also like to be able to find them by grammatic topic (preterite, imperfect, subjunctive).  I think that's important.

One caution I have though is that while enhancing the study efforts on the web site is a good idea, don't lose sight of what brought me here in the first place; the podcasts.  My Spanish study time is where-ever and when-ever I can get it, and it usually is far removed from a computer. 

Goddam we're good.  Polite, empathetic, erudite, considerate, even when outraged. i dont know how or why the people who post on this site are not the ususal trolls one enounters on the internet but i just thought id say, for the record, its nice to know you all. ( ive had beer :-)

ive just noticed that people have been rating this lesson. how cool is that?

Martinillo, I'm sure there are many fans of both features you've mentioned, but I'm not one of them.  I watched one Cooking with Tabasco, didn't care for it, and never watched another.  As for La Clave, I've got a pretty good understanding of grammar, and good reference works to turn to when I need help.  So I don't take access to those features for granted.  I don't even take notice of them.  What I care about are the lessons, plus fun extras like Del Taco Al Tango.   I was foolish enough to take it for granted that the frequency of Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, and Advanced lessons that attracted me to begin with would continue and would eventually be augmented by the Advanced Media lessons that were advertised but have never materialized. 

This reminds me of jars of spaghetti sauce, here in the US, which don't go up in price, but shrink in size instead. The lasagna recipe on the pasta box calls for a 32 oz. jar of spaghetti sauce, but all the jars of spaghetti sauce are 28 oz... ¡Qué pena!

It is quite disappointing when something you love - like I do Spanish and Chinese Pod - has to show its crass commercial side. At least, now there won't be any more excuses for the sloppy study guides.

Some great comments in here.

Anna8, as always right on the mark, couldn't agree more.  Cyberdiva too, well said. 

Donperigo, the good behavior you see here on a consistent basis is directly related to the fact that the company has paid to get in.  A typical troll would last a few days, and then probably not pay the price to subscribe and keep his key.

Language learning involves many different elements. 

There is no perfect course or book or website.  There isn't one single method that can bring a person to fluency and the ability to speak. 

Most newcomers to a language however don't realise this.  The initial urge to buy a course online or at their local bookstore is very exciting and brings on questions like "will I be able to speak after I do this".  I think from a business standpoint this site needs to attract those people, keep the subscriptions coming in.  Sell the package as your one stop to learn the language.  And people buy it.

It's always about the bottom line, and we all know that.

For me, the podcast is valuable, but it's only one of the tools that I use on a daily basis.  I look forward to every new upper-intermediate, advanced, and del taco al tango as I put them at the top of my ipod and listen to them over and over again during my workday.  Sure, I'll have a listen to the other ones on the computer now and again and pick up some vocabulary, but I won't save them.  I have no need for any of the other bells and whistles either.

So for the low price I pay for the basic subscription, I could never complain.  But before I was pretty confident that I'd get at least one good lesson per week worth saving to the ipod, now it might be one every two weeks depending if I like it or not.  There are some that I don't like so I won't save them. 

So like others, I'm disappointed as I'm assured to get less content here that I can use.

You can never satisfy everyone, but the beauty of publishing daily is that more for everyone is offered.  Now with less published, and a system that is already weighted towards newbie/elementary I can see long waits for the advanced stuff that I need. 

cyberdiva

I was foolish enough to take it for granted that the frequency of Intermediate, Upper Intermediate, and Advanced lessons that attracted me to begin with would continue and would eventually be augmented by the Advanced Media lessons that were advertised but have never materialized. 

that is one thing I would love to see.

Once in a while, grab a news story, or a published speach and tear it apart. Examine the meanings and the grammar and the unique, (or mundane) usage. 

As has been noted, that is where the advanced students study all the time and run into their little toe stubbing problems.

Concerning value of the premium features: I would have never bought them either for one of the European languages. They were designed for Chinesepod and there they are worth the extra money, because mouse-over shows pinyin and help me to exposure to the characters. The transfer to the European languages was not diligently conceptualized, just a direct technical reuse. Maybe this is the bottom-line weakness of Praxis: that the spin-offs are always sort of orphans.

So many good comments already that there's not much to add, but...

I can't emphasize enough that the strength of Spanishpod is the podcasts... sounds obvious, but that is what makes it unique.  A lively, enjoyable, sometimes interactive discussion.  Grammar can be found anywhere, and for me books are most useful in that regard as you can quickly look up what you want.  So, I hope that Spanishpod will stay focused on the pods, and keep making them at an advanced level, too.

I would love to see a subscriptions plan in between the Basic and the Premium plans.  One in which the users would have access to the PDF files and the Lesson Audio Reviews but not the rest of the premium services.

stevestr: I recently noticed that the PDF files are no longer available for basic subscribers on the individual lesson pages, but I think this is a bug since they are still available from the 10-items-per-page lists. And the subscription comparison chart still includes PDF transcripts for the basic subscription. Or was there an announcement to the contrary?

Martinilo

I hope that it is a bug.  The subcsripion information shows that the PDF are available for basic subscribes.

I have a basic subscription, and I've had no problem accessing the PDF files.  Perhaps whatever Martinillo experienced was just a momentary glitch.

cyberdiva: Yes, I assume it is a momentary problem. When you go to a lesson page, e.g. this one, then there appears to be no link to the lesson's PDF on that page, or am I'm missing something? As mentioned above, there are other links to the PDF and it also appears in the personal RSS feed, thus, this is not a big deal.

The disappointment of people show that your content is top class and people care. As a praxis subscriber I understand that I will get less lessons for the money I have paid.

However I understand that the changes are temporary and that you will be shifting the gears very soon to the same old number of lessons, with a full updated set of lessons and a better served site.

Is there a time frame for these changes to end, as we as subscribers are very thirsty for your lessons which represent to us a change from our routine every day life. Ienjoy the Praxis way and hope it leads to more lessons to cover the cutback.

Thanks for getting the iPhone site up and running again! 

Im with russhuntlety and donperigo.......Spanishpodes es el mejor todavia and im going for a beer jajaja:) rebelde

i cant see a PDF link on this page, i did wonder where they'd gone but since i almost never look at the PDFs id forgotten about this bug?

heres an idea, just a discussion point , not a request or or even suggestion..

i suspect that most of us would agree that while the exercise tab may be useful to the beginner / elementry user it offers very little benefit to the intermediate/ advanced user. (personally  i rarely look at the expansion tab and never , ever listen to the sound samples) If the tutors didnt have to create stuff that many of us dont take advantage of perhaps that would free up some time for project x.

however it may be that it doesnt take much time and effort to create new exercises so discontinuing them might not free up much time. or it may be that users love the expansion tab, i often see people pointing out typos etc so they must be checking it out. im guessing that a thorough examination of how all users "actually" use the site might possibly reveal a lot of effort going into creating product that simply gathers dust on the site. it would be easy to check the number of page views and find out for sure.

I wonder, if given the choice, whether the majority of users would prefer to shed "features" or podcasts.

DonPerigo,

The PDF's are only for the regular lesson material not for Del Taco al Tango or Pa' que sepas.

I really like having the PDF's, but I could certainly let go of the expansion and other exercises.

Lily, you commented about SpanishPod (i.e. Praxis)  not wanting to devalue the subscriptions.  Well, when Praxis decided to change the publication schedule to 3 a week, That's exactly what happened.  And in my opinion, the subscriptions for the more advanced students have been devalued significantly more than the rest.  And to make matters worse, long time subcribers are the ones being punished the most. 

I think it's already been well stated how and why more advanced students are suffering the most - the short version is less advanced material delivered less frequently.  So let me talk about how long time subscribers, which by default makes us very loyal customers, are being punished.

Using myself as an example, I've been on this site since Praxis took over Spanish Sense.  (Anybody here remember them?)  As a result, having an archive of 400+ lessons is not a benefit for me; telling me to use the archive of lessons to fill the gap is pretty much useless,   I've practically heard them all - I've been around since day one when you guys first introduced yourselves to the world, so to speak.  So now I'm being short-changed all the way around - less advanced lessons and no lessons in the archive to pull from. 

Not that Praxis management will care, but by using my example and the comments made by other users, it should be fairly easy to see that the value of the subscriptions are impacted, and the depth of the impact varies across the board.

I'd also like to hear how Praxis came to the conclusion that there was an "overwhelming demand" for whatever changes you all have been tasked to make for "project X". 

I don't remember seeing any polls being taken, unless they came to that conclusion somehow from the UserVoices page. 

Not that management will change their mind at this point (management never does, even if they find out they were wrong), but perhaps you could suggest to them that they actually poll the user community to find out what we really want, and as DonPerigo suggested, which features of SpanishPod we really use (and want) the most, so you all can figure out where your efforts should be placed. 

There's lots of free polling software on the net, and we can all publicly see what we're voting for. 

Oh well, I get the feeling we can say whatever we want, but Praxis is going to do whatever they want anyway. 

martinillo, I clicked on the link you provided, and there was a pdf file available on that page.  Perhaps they fixed it between the time you posted your message and I saw it.

donperigo, I think many of us voted for podcasts over features when we chose a basic subscription rather than a premium one.  I know that's what prompted my decision.  When I joined, the podcasts were free, but to get the pdf transcripts one had to buy a subscription.  I knew that I definitely wanted the transcripts, but I had no interest in the other features--the exercises, etc.--so I bought the basic subscription, and a year later I renewed it.  For me, the podcasts, the transcripts, and these discussions are the only things that are essential.

rodneyp, what a terrific posting!  It expresses my feelings as well, but much better than I could have done.  ¡Muchísimas gracias!

cyberdiva: I double-checked with Internet Explorer and FireFox on Windows XP, and Safari and FireFox on MacOS X 10.4. I wasn't able to see the PDF link with any of these browsers. Where does it appear for you?

No pdf links anywhere from here with my praxis pass.

cobre and martinillo: I use Firefox 3 on Windows XP Pro with SP2.  I continue to see the pdf links on each lesson page.  They're in the section "Lesson Review Downloads" right under the lesson graphic on the left.  I checked four different lessons, for example Ingrid Betancourt, and the link was there.  Ditto for the others, at different levels (Intermediate and Newbie).

No problem with PDFs for me. Click on Lesson tab and each lesson that appears has a PDF button under the picture (second icon from the left). It also appears with each bookmarked lesson on My Lessons. But if I go to the individual lesson page itself, I don't see it.

I'm using Opera on Vista.

cyberdiva: Fascinating, I'm using Firefox 3.0.10 on Windows XP Pro with SP3 and the link is missing. But as jeraldina says, this is not a big problem (nonetheless it should be fixed).

This is really weird.  I'm not sure what jeraldina means by the "individual lesson page."  I thought that was what I linked to in my previous message.  At any rate, I just tried the same thing with Opera 9.64 (on Win XP Pro), and I had the same results as with Firefox 3.0.10--i.e., the links to the pdfs are there.  Ah, the mysteries of life!

I may be the only elementary-level learner to respond here.  This is how I see it.  I have a lot to learn.  There is a huge archive of lessons for me to choose from.  And every week it expands.  I need a lot of repetition.  To review old lessons is a good thing.  So, for me, the value of my subscription from last year to this year has increased by quite a lot.

I use by subscription mainly for the podcasts, the same as everyone else has mentioned.  I rarely seem to find time to sit at my computer and practice the lesson using the expansion, etc.  And when I do, I often find myself irritated when there is an error.  I do like access to the site by iPhone and Study Arcade.  I love the match game.

In truth, I have been practicing my Spanish (other than the podcasts) elsewhere.  I use Skype and GTalk to have language exchanges with native speakers that I have found via other web sites.  I think this is a short-coming of this site that probably needs to be addressed if your goal is to be an all-around language-learning site.  And, maybe, this is a feature that would re-value this site to those higher-level learners who are now rightly complaining that their subscriptions have been adversely affected by the new changes.  Though, what they really want is their podcasts to, at least, remain the same.  To lose any of these higher-level subcribers would deminish the value to the rest of us.  They lead us and guide us in many ways that the team is not able to.

When deciding to renew my subscription recently, I wondered if I needed to continue my subscription with SpanishPod.  Considering that I have archived all of them in iTunes,  I don't really need to go to the web site for the archived podcasts.  But I did renew.  I couldn't see myself not getting the new podcasts, having access to the new conversations, getting Leo's cooking lessons, etc. 

The SpanishPod team is great.  I love you all.  You make me laugh.  I know that you are working to improve this site.  And you are trying to do so from the imput you have received.  Keep up the good work.

And to all of you in this conversation, thank you.  I really appreciated seeing your comments in English, so that I could understand what you were trying to say.

Saludos

kikuyu

thanx , i just reread my message, duh, obviously no pdf here :-)

in truth i had checked other pages and am unable to see links to pdfs

DonPerigo,

On the page that you can view ten lessons at a time, underneath each lesson player are 5 icons. The PDF icon is the second from the left.

On a lesson specific page it is located underneath the player where it says Lesson Review Downloads:

kikuyu, DonPerigo and others,

Mine is as you described for the 10-lesson page, but on the lesson-specific page, I have only four options listed, the Lesson Transcript PDF is missing. Hmmm!

buenas suerte amigos!

dtang said:

I would suggest making a tool that helps users learn to speak more often.  An example would be a tool with a number of questions that the user would have to answer.  Then the user can click the "response" button, and hear what an actual response would be, and compare that with what the user originally said.  That way, the user is forced to think and answer in the language.

I tried hard, but I cannot resist: here is an example of what this could look like for translations from English to Spanish. :)

Thinking about dtang's suggestion, this is actually rather easy to implement within SpanishPod (i.e. it is only a technical problem, no content has to be added or modified for this):

Just allow users to hide the Spanish lines in the expanion section by default. Currently this is only possible with the English lines, but dtang's suggestion shows that it makes sense to also hide the Spanish lines by default.

Thank you JP, Lilly, Esti, Leo. I have listen to most of the podcast in the past year and it has greatly increased my confidence in Spanish. I think the SpanishPod method is different from traditional language school and that's why it works so well. What it is a focus on a realistic and normal paced dialog with grammar and vocabulary discussion follow only to help you to understand the dialog. Also it is distributed via podcast so that I can listen to them daily or at least several times a week, but on a free schedule that I choose. The shows are entertaining that I'm looking forward to them. The quantity is as least as important as the quality. I guess I can learn a lot if I feed myself telenovela everyday. But that stuff is unwatchable for me. So I'm really glad to find SpanishPod which gives me a regular and sustained interest.

The announced change does not bode well for me. I'm nearly at intermediate level. I realize majority of learners are beginners and they may prefer a more structured teaching to get them going. And beginner classes are probably where the profit is. Note I'm not against you making money, especially when this help people to learn. I just want to say I appreciate the current method very much. It is non-traditional and innovate. I hope to see it continues and expands.

tungwaiyip says
2 hours ago

  I guess I can learn a lot if I feed myself telenovela everyday. But that stuff is unwatchable for me. So I'm really glad to find SpanishPod which gives me a regular and sustained interest.

Amén.

De vez me enciendo a unas de las telenovelas, pero  en cuando me escuchar a uno en inglés para más de un minuto es dificil, con el español puedo quedarme allí un poco más pero luego huir. Las noticias, a veces las películas, y spanishpod (gracias a dios o el equipo, quizás ambos.)

Amen.

I turn the telenovelas on occasionally but listening to one in English for more than a minute  is hard, with Spanish I can hang in there a few more but then I run away. The news, and sometimes movies, and spanishpod. (thank god or the crew, maybe both.)