Project Timetable

The idea for this project started back in 2002, however at the time was unsure how to deliver video content to the web. A trial run was created using MP3 files instead for a difficult-to-find language to learn, Southern Min or commonly known as Hokkien/Taiwanese. This project was launched in some of the Chinese Dialects pages of the Glossika site and is already in its 5th year.

I started looking for and began talks with film crews in 2005 in making a training platform for both Chinese and English. I raised some money, hired a few actors and actresses and we shot a few on-location skits for Chinese in 2006, however the filmmaking cost was running between 500 and a couple thousand USD per day and I could not ascertain the educational value. It would have cost much more to create something of higher entertainment value, so I decided to focus on improving the educational value. It was a good experiment and learning experience. At this time, video sites like YouTube started taking off and it was now feasible to embed video directly into webpages.

Between 2006 and the end of 2007, I spent all of my effort creating a series of training modules in English for the Chinese population, and this has been pulled off successfully including even a two-way video training window. Due to some cost disagreements, the company I collaborated with and I have since parted ways and I ended up building a plain blog-based site like this one to deliver material to my growing customer base. Actual video training started in the spring of 2007 and I still film new lessons for that site on a regular basis. The English site was officially launched January 1, 2008.

The idea for the Chinese site, still many years in the making finally started getting under way when I found a candidate to co-host the show with me: a foreign language major and part-time runway model. A little shy and softspoken at first, her personality comes out more in later lessons as we became more comfortable interacting on video. Shooting started in late November 2007 and more than 30 lessons were complete by Chinese New Year. Now with Module 1 almost to completion and another series of supplementary videos already started, I’ve put the shooting on hold until I get this site launched.

So the official launch of the Chinese site shall coincide with the first day of spring, and coincides with a phrase we teach somewhere around lesson 20: 春天即將來臨 Spring is soon upon us!

Now all the videos are in post production and as you read this, if you are still awaiting new lessons, they’re just a matter of hours until being posted.

I would like to thank the hundreds of Chinese supporters and users of my training method in English, and the few early believers and adoptees of my Chinese training method. Good luck to you all and I’m glad to be a part of making your dreams come true in speaking this magnificent language!

Mike Campbell