Do bear in mind, Martin, that I’m intending to use SSI as a valuable component of a cocktail which you despise. Don’t worry, I’ve no intention of throwing out the baby with the bathwater.
I don’t despise your cocktail, mate. I like languages and think your cocktail sounds like a really fun and effective way to learn about the Chinese language if that’s your goal- and I’ve done the same in languages I don’t aspire to ever speak well for that very reason, such as Portuguese or Norwegian. My opinion above was only about whether I think it’s a feasible way to actually learn to speak Chinese.
And I quite genuinely only said what I did above out of a desire to save you some regret, because I really do think you will come to regret this. And yes, I know that sounds patronising, so I’ll add that I’m wrong about things at least as much as the next person and probably more. I hope that in this case you are right and I am wrong.
As I say, I gave you my sincere opinion and that’s all I can give.
Yes, thanks again, Martin. I do appreciate your commitment. I hope you’ll also agree that people learn in different ways, and that there’s no one way to learn a language. I believe it’s quite likely that SSI is the best existing method of acquiring spoken fluency in a language, provided that, as the course requires, the student ventures beyond the narrow confines of the course itself.
I don’t actually believe this is a question of right and wrong, more one of making sure, as far as possible, that within the scope of the SSI course, and without making any significant alterations in it, that as wide a range of learner tastes are catered. Someone on this forum asked why the written version of the Japanese language course was romanised and the Chinese wasn’t. I don’t know whether they wanted to eliminate the romanised version or vice versa, but it does seem to me that it would be more useful to offer the romanised version to beginners like myself (possibly more accurately a false beginner, but not much). This would widen the learning options to embrace more fully those learners who for whatever reason visualise language, including the mother tongue, in terms of its written form.
And yes, you are right in supposing that a learner such as myself may have other motivations than a purely oral command of the language, including a desire to understand how it works. And at my relatively advanced age I’m unlikely to spend much more time in China unless I unexpectedly come into some money, so it’s unlikely that I’ll ever achieve full fluency in the language before I finally give in my lunch ticket.
I don’t want to dig any deeper into the hole you and I seem to be digging for each other, but I suspect that we are not all that far apart anyway as regards the virtues of SSI. So yes, thanks again for your patience and commitment to helping.
There is no hole here. We can strongly disagree (on pretty much everything as it turns out 
) without there being a problem if we respect each other (and I think we do). I’ve been wrong enough times in my life to recognise that it might be me who’s wrong and not you.
Any method only has a fair shot at working if you approach it with enthusiasm and belief, so forget my doubts and go for it your way with 100% effort. I wish you all the best.
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With regards to the new app, brand and spanking are the appropriate terms, I believe 
It’s a big ‘hmmmmmm’ from me on the old course being substantially different - the only differences I’m aware of are the removal of several small mountains of problems in the old course - and (depending of course on which ‘old’ course we’re talking about!) it certainly all started with dramatically less visual support than we have now - as in absolutely none at all!
One of the differences I’m most conscious of is how hard we’ve worked to move towards trying to make every phrase as natural as possible - I didn’t believe that was at all necessary in the old days, and it was your insistence that convinced me it should be one of our goals, so diolch yn fawr iawn for that
Spanking AND branding? Bring it on! How do we access it?
Yes, we obviously are talking about different old courses. My current dilemma (if I have enough choice in the matter ) is whether I should restart to learn Chinese from the beginning via a new cleaned up course from which all the unintended blotches are removed and in which I can’t skip forward to the point I was at (more or less ) in the old, flawed course or… whether I should (if it’s possible ) go right back to the further reaches of the old course and carry on where I left off.
As for the other old course, I think we are talking about the Welsh course which preceded the Suite of courses which includes the Chinese and Italian and Japanese courses etc. Here I have a problem in that I came late to SSIW, only after completing the whole sequence of welsh courses publicly available in local colleges etc. As a result my recollection of the detail of the SSIW courses is not brilliant although I do remember the exhilaration of feeling that I was finally speaking the language confidently. However, I do not recall there being loads of truncated sentences such as “if finding what you want to find is not difficult…” And virtually NO complete sentences. Maybe my recollection of the course is faulty, but I’d need persuading otherwise. I have to say that I had no such problem with the little I did of the Italian course, but I think that’s because the language is familiar to me through other languages or through casual exposure to Italian itself and I felt reasonably confident about completing the sentences for myself. That’s not how I feel about the Chinese course.
Tbc - just arriving at Euston…
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But it may be that the new Welsh course is far ahead of the Chinese. I must try and keep up (and perhaps shut up until I’ve done the appropriate research).. Eniwe, diolch o galon i ti, Aran, am gymaint o help efo’r Gymraeg. Hebddot ti efo du cyrsiau a du ysbrydoliethh swn i byth wedi dyfalbarhau
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Dy dim du??? X 2.
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I think I didn’t draft many longer truncated sentences in the original Welsh - there were definitely plenty of short ones, though - and I do think we could in general do with more complete sentences, but we’re also working on some new listening content which will help address that (and I’m also hoping that it will help showcase patterns a little more than we’re managing at the moment).
The core of it, though, is definitely getting better and better, and we’re going to rebuild L3(equivalent) Welsh soon as a result.
It may be that the Chinese course isn’t yet dealing quite as well as the others with the jump to very different patterns of usage from European languages - I’ve certainly felt that about the first couple of iterations of Japanese, but I haven’t tried the Chinese yet.
The new app will let you skip between belts very easily, though, so that should help find the right point for you: www.saysomethingin.app
Chinese is not listed in the app.
That’s odd, I’m seeing it on my phone - are you in one of the native apps, or using the new trial app?
I think I’m in the new app, via SaySomethingin.app
I’ll try again.
Could be I’ve got Chinese open elsewhere(?)
Apparently i need a code to get onto the app (properly), yet it lists Armenian to Ukrainian missing out Chinese.
Ignoring the original app there are now two current apps, which are generally available, as I understand it.
The one that you are looking at when you head to SaySomethingIn.app is the under-development web browser app, which contains the free content.
The one that you want for Chinese (Mandarin), inter alia, is the app that is downloaded from the Apple store or Google Play, depending on your device’s operating system. You will need a subscription to access this content.
Hope this helps…
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This just sounds like a permissions setting in the new app - the paid-for courses like Chinese aren’t open access in the new app, for obvious reasons! Did you sign up with your normal email? If so, I’ll ask Tom to have a look for your account (on the new app) and get it set up with full access 