After mentioning Naturegirl's blog in the last post I really should also mention Ellen's Chinese podcasts. Ellen has lots of material on her site and most of it comes with audio. There are different levels of dialog, with text and translations. You also get to hear children's voices, male and female...
I am not sure why more people don't seem to use resources like this, material posted by real Chinese speakers is particularly precious. Ellen gives you some real dialogs often with a lot of humor. Naturegirl's chengyu were a great find, I have just started really taking the study of chengyu seriously and appreciate the example sentences and the fact that I can ask questions.
I get the impression that many learners carry a classroom mentality and are afraid of stepping outside of a set course of instruction. I don't see how stepping outside and spending time expanding your experience can ever cause harm?
