All the dialogues are way too unrealistic and unnatural. As a native speaker I bet there won’t be a single normal Chinese adult speaks like that.
The way they teach Chinese is like teaching spoken English like this:
“Gooo deee Morrr ninnng”, instead of “Good Morning”!
What lessons here would you recommend?
I think it is great to get feedback on the content in our library. Thanks.
我的老师说，应该慢点儿开始练习这样的句子。
听了这些句子，我觉得舒服。
你是不是觉得这么慢点二说美极了？
真抱歉，我 写错了。
慢点二–〉〉慢点儿
but it’s not just slowing down. It’s more like breaking down the coherence, including tones that makes a phrase a joint whole. For example, it’s like when you get used to the way of pronouncing “Gooo deee Morrr ninnng”, probably it will take much time than it ought to be to sound like a “pro”, since " Good morning" might already seem to be a complete different phrase now.
我 没有 明白 这 个 地方 “It’s more like breaking down the coherence, including tones that makes a phrase a joint whole.” 有点儿 难 啊！
虽然 查 了 词典， 还 没 清楚。可能 breaking down 的 意思 是 （动词 的 现在分词）崩壊, coherence （名词）首尾一貫（性） joint （形容词）共同 whole （名词）全体，是 吗？
不过，我 觉得 第 一 次 学习 汉语 的 时候 听 这 些 句子 是 一 个 方法。
我 在 音乐院 学习 萨克斯 的 时候，因为 我 演奏 得 不 好 所以 我 的 老师 常 常 说，每天 因该 慢 慢 地 练习 些 练习曲 和 协奏曲 什么的。
听说 汉语 发音 尤其 声调 对 外国人 有点儿 难。
虽然 这样 汉语 不 自然，但是 开始 学习 的 时候 应该 听 这样 的 发音。
真 抱歉，我 写 了 汉语， 不过 我 的 汉语 还 差 的 远 呢。
首先， 你的汉语说的很好啊。 语言就是要多说多练才能够提高。 何况即使是母语，有些人也掌握的不好，还需要不断学习，充实自己。所以请相信作为第二语言学习者，自己已经是很棒的了！=)
其次，回到我的上个帖子。你的理解是大致正确的。 我再详细解释一下： 当我说"It’s more like breaking down the coherence, including tones that makes a phrase a joint whole."，在这里 break down 是"打破，破坏，损毁“; coherence我用的不太好， 换成 consistency 或者 sense of wholeness 更加确切， 因为前者更强调内容上的连贯，而后者更体现我担心的语音语调上的整体感; joint是 “结合的” ,ie. united; whole 是 ”整体“。 因此，整句翻译大抵就是： “(这样的教法)反而更像是打破语言固有的连贯性，其中包括(破坏)使一个短语成为一个各部分相互结合的整体的语音语调。”
再三，你的音乐老师说的很对。“九层之台，起于垒土”， 积少成多，由易到难，这是学习的必经之路。但我就问一个问题： 练习曲或协奏曲对于当时身为初学者的你来讲，会有"不自然"的感觉吗？
The bottom line: As long as it’s unnatural, like I just pointed out at the very first post here, it is doomed, no matter it’s language or music or whatsoever. Imagine, if it’s one way of doing sth at the beginning, how can you fix it up by applying a sheer different way when you almost treat the unnatural as the natural? It’s too late to shift by then.
Good luck, my friend.
Elan
The point is that we want a lot of content to allow people to choose what they like. We do not all like the same things. Elan, if you are a native speaker of Chinese, perhaps you could create some content for us.
This time, I am going to try to answer to you in English. That’s my opinion. Even if it this lesson’s pronunciation is unnatural (for native speakers), it is effective for beginners to produce the sound for the first time, exagerating the Chinese tones, but I also recommend not to listen again and agaig to such contents…
but I also recommend to beginners not to listen again and again to such contents…
Fine, never mind then. Just pour out my heart without too much thinking. Nor do I see me myself a pro with a bunch of lessons or teaching materials whatsoever. - eye roll-
You win.
To sum up, although there are sth I personally doubt about, this is overall an AWESOME course for beginners!!! Go for it!
BTW @大岩君 (not sure if it’s appropriate or not. No offense, for sure.)， I do wish you well. And I mean it. =)
@Steve, I am 100% willing to help out, but it seems like I’m kind of picky at myself so that probably I don’t think uploading sth which could be totally misleading a good idea… Anyway, the pleasure is mine. =] Thanks for your attention.
Although I think it’s good to give the learner a chance to distinguish between the similar (and not so similar) sounds of a new languages, I don’t think a lesson spoken unnaturally slowly is the best solution.
divingbell618,
练习曲或协奏曲对于当时身为初学者的你来讲，会有"不自然"的感觉吗？
这 个 句子 的 意思 还 不 清楚，真 抱歉，
不过 慢 点儿 演奏 了 名曲 尤其 协奏曲 发现 了 各 曲 的 新 世界。 名曲（技术 要求 很 高 的 萨克斯 曲）在 很 快 的 音乐句子 里 好像 人们 在 唱歌，所以 快 点儿 演奏 的 时 在 心 里 好像 唱 歌。
我 觉得 最 难 的 事 是 慢点儿 演奏 快 的 曲 演 得 很 好 的。
慢点儿 说 得 清楚 跟 最 美 的 演奏 一样。
听说 对 外国人而言 最 难 的 事 是 汉语 发音 尤其 声调 。 虽然 听说 这样 的汉语 句子 不 自然 （我 觉得 自然），但是 开始 学习 的 时候， 初学者 应该 听 这样 的 发音 就 会习惯这些 声调， 然后 可以听 各种 各样 的 会话。
Ｉ am very sorry for not having answered divingbell618’s question very well.
Hey divingbell,
As far helping out goes it’s pretty easy. You don’t even have to do boring beginner stuff, even just a short personal diary every week would be incredibly helpful to Chinese learners. Then writing it in traditional and simplified Chinese would also probably help.
I personally agree with you to a certain extent, I don’t think speaking super slowly in any language is great for the learner, however I do think that some people would want that kind of content, especially in a language where the tones are so important and it’s difficult for our ears to hear them well.
Anyway, welcome to Lingq! 
for me as an absolute beginner in Chinese this dialog has been useful, although I understand that it is unnatural. And yet, it is good that there is all sorts of content on LingQ,
This collection is actually stuff from chinesepod.com which is a good web resource for learning Chinese at any level
I wish I had known about this collection ((and the existence of LingQ) when I first started learning Chinese last year at 50! Most ‘beginner’ material I could find was too hard and too fast, and made me feel foolish. My brain couldn’t hear the difference between say, 2nd and 4th tones, even though logically I knew that 2nd tone rose and 4th tone fell.
Pimsleur was also useless in the beginning, since my brain couldn’t distinguish exactly what it was that I was hearing, so I couldn’t look up words.
For some of us, if we mimic whole sentences without having a good understanding of each syllable first, then we learn to speak with poor pronunciation and tones.
This collection is exactly what the absolute beginner needs!
I have joined LingQ to supplement my university studies - and am especially looking forward to gaining conversational skills.
For English speaking Mandarin beginners, I highly recommend the (free) FSI Mandarin “resource module on pronunciation and romanization.” This will systematically give the basics in order to proceed in Mandarin. Imo, this is by far the best way to start on tones and pronunciation. After going through this FSI module, then Pimsleur will be another great benefit because you start to hear the tones and pronunciation without relying on pinyin and tone marks (and you will understand what’s going on). After that, then I think it’s a good idea to start on vocabulary acquisition and listening to more rapid speech because, while you may able to say stuff at this point and be understood, it won’t be enough to have a meaningful conversation (and one probably will still sound fairly robotic and listening comprehension will probably still be at a low level). I find beginner course dialogue like the one above – ni hao ma? – wo hen hao – as an unproductive way to get started because I think better to focus just on the tones and the pronunciation before moving on to even basic communication. After going through the FSI module and Pimsleur (1, & 2 if one wants – I did all 3 but that’s overkill), one should then be able to understand basic sentences at close to natural speed and heavily slowed down textbook dialogues like the one above will be unnecessary.
I recommend learning from dialogues, from context. Tones improve gradually over time. They cannot be learned up front. Every new word we learn has a tone that we have to get used to. with enough input and attention and listening to interesting content and interaction in the language,we gradually improve, in my view.