@Murrayjames,

I know John is one of the good guys, he seems like a nice enough guy when you listen to him on C-Pod. I've been to his Sinosplice site a few times, but it never actually jived with me. Perhaps because when I found it I was already past the target level for which it's written. Sinosplice gives tips and tricks for newbies and novices of the language,but beyond that one can't find much in the way of guidance.

EG:

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2006/12/13/mandarin-tone-tricks

Here he gives mnemonic devices and tips for some basic Chinese words and tones, like for 饼 imagining that a cake has caved in so it's third tone which has a dipped, "caved in" contour to it.

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/2012/03/09/types-of-tone-mistakes

Here he is giving advice on tone mistakes, kind of like a coach saying, "you can do it, you'll make mistakes but don't worry, keep the faith and it will get better." Which is fine for those who are new to the language and having tone troubles, but at that point I'd already worked out my own methods for resolving tone issues.

The "Chinese Grammar" link on his site is a bit misleading, if you take a look,

http://www.sinosplice.com/life/archives/tag/grammar

because he offers very little grammar guidance himself, there are some uses of "ma", some "measure words for beer" a link to a grammar book, a link to a Wikipedia article on tenses vs. aspects, etc.

This is all fine for the new student, but again, doesn't really teach much, just offers a pointer or two and then links to someone else to do the teaching.

I'm aware that Sinosplice is just a blog, not an actual study site like C-Pod or Popup Chinese, I just felt that it wasn't as helpful for me as I would have liked.

That said, one thing that did help me quite a lot was the following guide:

http://www.sinosplice.com/learn-chinese/pronunciation-of-mandarin-chinese/4

This details how to correctly produce the Chinese sounds, j, q, and x.

Before I found this (from his link on C-pod) I struggled to find the correct placement for those three sounds, which are not given any prominence in any Chinese language teaching materials that I'd come across, most likely because our own gee, chee and she can suffice as substitutes with no breakdown in understanding.

However, for those looking to sound "native" knowing this is a necessity.

I just wish that Sinosplice had more guides that actually help a student on up to the higher levels.

Which reminds me of another suggestion for Popup Chinese that I'd forgotten.

Popup needs a full Pinyin Chart with example pronunciation pronounced in all four tones, and visual pronunciation charts for all the various, difficult sounds of Chinese.