The most convenient way to learn Chinese the way it is actually spoken and used. Start with our basic lessons, and in no time you’ll be listening to music, watching films and television and engaging in the actual language. With free daily podcasts, a vibrant community, online study tools and much more, PopupChinese is the most powerful and personal way to learn mandarin.
Elementary - The Backstreet Boys
Nov 09, 2009
Show notes
As Napoleon once commented, "China is a sleeping giant. Let her sleep, for when she wakes she will truly rock." We may be paraphrasing slightly, but it's impossible to under-emphasize the passion with which Chinese youth have embraced the concept of the Western boy band. Truly the Middle Kingdom is a place where everything old is new again. Join us in this podcast and see for yourself.On a side note, we should mention that our dialogue this lesson is at the upper-end of our difficulty spectrum for the Elementary level. We were almost tempted to put it at the Intermediate level, but the vocabulary is still pretty basic and our sentences are still relatively simple. So don't worry if you find it more challenging than usual. Just add oil.
Intermediate - A Dangerous Chinese Lesson
Nov 03, 2009
Show notes
There are some words which are so powerful in mandarin, simply using them properly will cause any native speaker in hearing distance to cough up blood in shock and awe. So understand why we refer to this as the most dangerous lesson we've ever produced. It contains not one but three fatal phrases you won't find in any other textbook: 爱理不理, 爱去不去 and 爱谁谁.If you've been tricked into thinking Chinese is a tremendously logical language, you may be surprised to learn that none of these expressions have anything to do with love. Join us in this podcast and we'll make it clear what they mean though. Just remember that with great power comes great responsibility and we completely disavow responsibility for the consequences if you detonate this stuff on live national television.
Elementary - The Trip Home
Oct 29, 2009
Show notes
From a sickly childhood, Steven passed into a sickly adolescence. Phantom aches and pains constantly wracked the poor boy, much to the bafflement of the family doctor, who pronounced "nothing at all wrong with him physically." In fact, it wasn't until his first year away at university that his constitution seemed to pick up and his body threw off its shackles of ill-health.New to Popup Chinese? Our lessons at the Elementary level are designed for anyone who already knows the basics but is still working towards full comprehension of shorter sentences spoken at real speed. Our dialogues here are limited in length and our vocabulary is very high frequency. Exactly the stuff you need to build the bridge to greater fluency. So give us a listen. Feedback is always welcome at echo@popupchinese.com. Oh yeah, and skip the rice gruel too.
Intermediate - A Murder Mystery
Oct 26, 2009
Show notes
The motive wouldn't be hard to establish: they all had it. But given the sheer number of beatings, shootings and stabbings the deceased had suffered in the course of a few minutes (including at least one attempted hanging), it was going to be thorny to prove who exactly laid the telling blow, and where, and with what.Our Chinese lesson for today is all about what happened the time we introduced our crew to a classic American board game of murder, mayhem and sleuthing. Fun and hijinks it was not. The rules took at least 10 minutes to explain to our baffled guests, and even then we don't think we properly handled many of their more philosophical objections, such as 9527's repeated insistence that we just "jail them all and forget about it."
Absolute Beginners - How about Korean Food
Oct 22, 2009
Show notes
It happens to the best of us. Even if your home or office is strategically located in the heart of Sichuan street, surrounded by a hundred different Chinese restaurants with upwards of a hundred different dishes each, there will come a point when your stomach rebels and your heart starts pining for simpler fare. Or maybe you'd kill for Chinese food but the only restaurant that delivers is the Korean one down the street.Almost miraculously, this lesson is useful in either situation. If you're totally new to mandarin, join us as we introduce the four tones, cover some basic words and phrases you can start using right away, and learn how to steer your fellow diners towards the kind of food you want to eat.
Elementary - The Honest Cabbie
Oct 15, 2009
Show notes
Why is it that despite the enormous variety in our personal experiences, we all end up having exactly the same conversation with cab drivers? You know the drill. Where are you from? Are you used to eating Chinese food? Can you use chopsticks? Like Chinese water torture, the deadening repetition invites psychological defense mechanisms just to cope, like inventing new personal histories for each encounter.But then, just when you're about to lose faith in humanity, you run into a cabbie who is interesting, quick on his feet, and brutally honest. Our Elementary lesson for today is about exactly this situation. Like a bracing dash of cold water, it refreshes and re-motivates. Give it a listen and see if it rings true for you too.
Intermediate - The Legend of the oPhone
Oct 13, 2009
Show notes
Oh, have you heard the legend of the oPhone? It may seem naïve to raise our hopes again after the crushing disappointments that were the iFeng and Hi-Phone. Yet rumors from the interior are reaching us of a new mobile device that makes its Apple cousin seem almost diminutive by comparison. The words "hushed rapture" might best describe the attitude of our correspondents towards this device, which has a thirty hour battery, features too numerous to list and is rumored to verge on sentience itself.Join us in this podcast as we share our thoughts on China's much vaunted shanzhai competition to the iPhone. Our vocabulary and dialogue in this lesson are both on the easy side for an Intermediate lesson, but we make up for that with a grammar point that is fiendishly difficult. It centers on the slight difference in meaning between two eerily similar sentences: 你看的是什么书 and 你看的书是什么. Both are grammatically correct, but they actually mean different things.
Intermediate - The Nobel Peace Prize
Oct 08, 2009
Show notes
Each year, the Nobel Prize committee surveys the world and selects the best-of-the-best for prestige and public honor. And while there's always been controversy over some of the selections, there has never been quite as much controversy as this year, when the awards were surprised by "an unprecedentedly strong show by those Chinese upstarts," as one anonymous critic so ingloriously put it. From our vantage point in Beijing, we feel the criticisms are totally unfounded. Jealous bastards.
Elementary - No, you cannot build a swimming pool in our backyard....
Oct 06, 2009
Show notes
Today we're pleased to support all you parents out there with a lesson that will teach you how to crush the hopes and dreams of your offspring with two simple words. Whether your child's interests lie in backyard construction, the sporting life, or more prosaic things like a chance to leave their room and enjoy their sixth birthday, this is your chance to put that foot down and establish some parental authority. Enjoy!
Absolute Beginners - Where does it hurt?
Sep 30, 2009
Show notes
This lesson takes place in a doctor's office, and while we hope you won't have too many encounters with the Chinese medical system, it is one of the many places the words and phrases we teach in this podcast will come in useful. So if you're new to learning the Chinese language, put on your earphones and get listening. By the time this podcast is over, you'll know enough mandarin to ask how others are doing and be expert at pointing and complaining whenever someone else returns the courtesy.
Our TOPPODCAST Picks 
Stay Connected
