I’m happy to announce that CLO now has its own YouTube channel.

There are several videos there from various dialogues in the course. Here’s one of the early ones:

Version 1.21 of our CLO app is now available for download. Changes include a couple of bug fixes:
- The audio now plays even when your device goes to sleep.
- Couple of MP3s from lesson 31 were not playing before. This should now be fixed.

After some delays getting going, I’m proud to announce that the Spanish version of CLO is officially live at: www.chinocastellano.com. You can also subscribe to the iTunes feed or general feed.

Version 1.2 of our CLO app is now available for download. Changes include more lessons (all of level one) and character stroke-order animations for new characters in each lesson. The videos that we included in the original version will be replaced with characters for future versions. Enjoy!

We will be making some changes to the theme / look of the main CLO site, as well as revamping the signup / login process. You may have noticed that the site now requires you to sign in with your email address, rather than your username. We plan to phase out the use of usernames to make the signup / login process easier. If you notice any issues come up in the process, do let me know.

I’m happy to announced the general release of the new version of the CLO site for all premium subscribers at www.newclo.com.

As the format on the old site is quite different from the new one, I’ll keep both online for the time being, so users can choose which one they like better, as all premium subscribers will have access to both sites.

If you’re not a premium subscriber yet, you can try a demo of the new site here.

Some of the main differences include:

1. More emphasis on progress. Results from activities you have completed will be saved, so you can mark your progress and see what lesson you left off at.
2. When playing audio, you can now activate a lesson bar that stays on screen at all times. This way you can pause the audio without losing your place on the transcript.
3. Separate text size options that don’t affect the rest of your browser.
4. Additional activities such as Dialogue A/B patterns to practice and record dialogues.
5. Ability to tag lessons, so you can easily find related lessons.
6. Ability to link your account with Facebook, so you can login easily. At the moment we don’t post anything to your Facebook wall, although we could add such a feature in the future, if you wanted to share your progress with friends.

7. Since we stopped creating new lessons, one of my goals was to give users more tools to add their own content from other sources. You now have the ability to import articles and feeds from other sources. These can either be private or shared with others. Why would you want to do this?

8. You can use the integrated dictionary on the left sidebar to look up new words that may not have been taught in our course (since they are from your own content).
9. You can save new words into your own vocabulary section, and then use the site’s flashcard tools to practice them.

We also have our own internal rating system to highlight the top users on the site (you can see this on the main page when you login). Later, we might add bonus features for top ranked users.

If you’re not a premium subscriber yet, you’re welcome to create free account or login with your Facebook credentials to try out the first four lessons for free. I’ve been working on this project for a long time, and I thank the many subscribers who have provided me with valuable feedback along the way. Please continue to send me whatever feedback you have, as I expect more improvements to be made in the future.

I’m happy to announce that the app version of our CLO course is now available for iPhone and iPod Touch users on the app store. You can download it for free, to try out the first 3 lessons of the course. Additional lessons can be purchased from inside the app.

This current version lets you purchase up to the first 20 lessons of our course. We will be adding more lessons as there is demand for them. Each lesson includes the following:

- Full audio of lesson with volume and scrub controls
- Complete transcript with Chinese characters
- Vocabulary quiz
- Vocabulary flashcards
- Video recap

There is full support for pinyin, simplified and traditional characters. Try it out and let me know what you think. We also plan an iPad version, that will be available as a free update in the future.

Today marks the 4 year anniversary of Chinese Learn Online. Although it may look like we have been dormant for the last little while with promised updates that haven’t come, there has been lots going on behind the scenes. Specifically, there are now 4 projects that I’m currently working on. Here is an update on all 4:

1. CLO iPhone app - the app was ready quite some time back, but we’ve run into all kinds of problems with the final feature that requires user to be able to download additional content onto it. I’m hoping it will be ready to submit to Apple by the end of this month - cross my fingers there. The first version will have the first 20 lessons of the course available. We will then add more lessons as there is demand.

2. New CLO website - the website is live and operational and all current members now have access to it (if you are a current subscriber and don’t, then please email me). There are still some details to be finalized before I’m ready to open it live to the public. There are a lot more resources on there both for subscribers and for free users. I’ll provide more details when that is ready.

3. Spanish website - I’m working on a Spanish version of CLO for Spanish speakers who want to learn Chinese. I’m hoping that this tool will be ready for launch by the end of this month. We will begin with the first 30 lessons of CLO, and then add additional lessons as there is demand.

4. New online Chinese course - I’m also working on a new online course that uses a very different approach from CLO. The content will be completely different and the progress will be more systematic. So while CLO will stay in its existing form as a self study course, this new course will use a more guided approach, with teachers who monitor your progress every step of the way. I’m hoping this site will be ready for launch before the end of the year.

For those of you using the popular Pleco Flashcard software, I have released the entire vocabulary list for CLO for use on Pleco. You can find them here: CLO-Pleco.zip

Enjoy!

I’m happy to announce that users of the popular Skritter website to learn Chinese characters, can now access all the vocabulary from the first 100 lessons of CLO. Enjoy!