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 - What's in the Box
Feb 11, 2013
Show notes
David Mill's eyes settled on the blood-stained box lying before him. It was the same box that Somerset had carried over moments earlier... or would have carried over were he actually in this scene and not taking the day off from work. Somewhere in his subconscious, David realized that this meant the script made no sense. Without his partner, he must have gone over and picked up the box himself. But why would he carry it all the way back to Joe Doe before opening it, and what kind of sane police officer would just leave a serial killer alone in the desert?If you've been with us since year one, you doubtless know all about our penchant for slasher films by now. And you probably also know that our dialogues sometimes don't make any sense. So we recommend you don't think too carefully about the setup to this one. Just enjoy the show, hopefully learn a bit more about when questions aren't questions, and write us anytime at service@popupchinese.com if you have feedback or suggestions on things you'd like to see us cover.
Intermediate - The Iron Chicken
Feb 04, 2013
Show notes
Iron Chicken knows which way the winds are blowing. It knows how much that shirt sells for at the Chegongzhuang Discount Market, and it isn't afraid of telling you straight out. So don't try to pull one over the Iron Chicken. It will not pity you. It will stick fast to its ideals of fairness, justice and affordable cotton casual-wear. And if you still insist on your ridiculous markup, it will walk away. Because the Iron Chicken does not need you. It does not need anyone.Learning Chinese? While there is less fowl here than our title might suggest, we had fun recording this show and would like to reiterate that the entire dialogue is Echo's idea. So please do not use our general email address for your complaints. Rather, please direct your hate mail straight to the source by writing echo@popupchinese.com. In fact, feel free to write multiple times under different pseudonyms. And don't forget to compliment the rest of our Popup Staff while you're at it.
Absolute Beginners - What's wrong, Lassie?
Jan 21, 2013
Show notes
Timmy needed her! And just like that our faithful collie no longer felt the sting of the ice round her paws, or the frozen wind blowing through the woods. Instead, blood surged through her veins as instinct took command and she drove headlong back to the farmhouse in search of help, her small body throwing itself across the fields and over the old wooden fence in a single bound as she raced home for help.Learning Chinese? At the Absolute Beginner level at Popup Chinese, our focus is on covering the basics of the Chinese language in a series of shows you can cover in any order. In today's episode, join Echo, Brendan and David as we talk about why Lassie never made it big in China, and then discuss an easy way to put your sentences into the Chinese equivalent of the future tense.
Advanced - Impressions of America
Jan 14, 2013
Show notes
With air pollution off the charts in Beijing, we turn our gaze outwards this week and invite Echo and Amber into our studio for an advanced show about their experiences living and traveling across the United States. Little did we know that we would not get a podcast about the majestic sweep of American wilderness, the dynamism of a working Republic, or even the great American foods like deep-dish pizza. Instead, they both went on about something completely different....Learning Chinese? At the advanced level, we try to showcase a wider variety of materials than explicit lessons, which means we also have some shows featuring the kind of Chinese-only advanced conversation featured in this podcast. Beyond listening to this sort of listening material, we also encourage advanced students to check out our manually annotated collection of Chinese short stories, our not-as-regular-as-it-used-to-be film guessing game, and our archive of upper-level HSK materials.
Intermediate - The Newsroom
Jan 01, 2013
Show notes
While Bruce may simply have been standing in the right place at the right time, the mood in the newsroom was nonetheless elated, with even the interns well-aware that this unexpected scoop would catapult their local paper to national attention, and perhaps even net them a National Newspaper Award for excellence in photojournalism.Learning Chinese? At the intermediate level one of the things we try to highlight is entirely natural and improvisational Chinese as opposed to the sorts of heavily scripted and largely unnatural speech featured on other learning programs and textbooks. And this dialogue is a case in point: the difficulty is not so much in understanding the vocabulary here as simply following what is happening as our native Chinese speakers communicate casually the way you'll hear everywhere in mainland China.
Elementary - On the Road
Dec 25, 2012
Show notes
Memories of New York were fading rapidly as we pulled over to the first roadside station we had seen in hours, our gas tank hovering a touch above empty after what seemed to have been an interminable drive through the desert. It wasn't clear exactly where we had ended up, but the gas was cheaper than expected and the counter inside sold some of the best falafels we'd ever eaten....
Advanced - A Visit from the Doctors
Dec 17, 2012
Show notes
Earlier this month, in an effort to make our advanced shows more interactive, and ensure they address the needs of professional workers throughout the world, Popup Towers invited the staff of the Surgery Department at the China-Japan Friendship Hospital to our recording studios to participate in the making of a dialogue and podcast dedicated to members of their profession. This is a mistake we will not be making again....Over time, most intermediate students pick up on the basics of medical vocabulary, learning to talk about CT scans and ultrasounds and recount the names of a huge number of virii and diseases that can kill and maim in various horrible fashions. But despite this, most advanced students still have no clue how to talk about sprains, bruises, cramps and other really common ailments, which is why we've put together this lesson today.
Intermediate - The Gods of Powerpoint
Dec 11, 2012
Show notes
After watching his guest power-cycle the projector in baffled dismay for five straight minutes, Wang's internal struggle to maintain composure was fast approaching breaking point. Why did every fiscal quarter end like this? Flush with enthusiasm for whatever latest management theory was trending in California, headquarters would inevitably dispatch a fresh graduate with no actual experience in the industry to lecture his battle-scarred team about their own supply chain issues. And now this?Learning Chinese? Our lesson today falls midway between the Elementary and Intermediate levels, and we were a bit on the fence about how to classify it. The reason for this is that while our dialogue is a bit easier than most others at this level, our subject matter and vocab is more professional and stretches beyond the basics into the hinterlands of Chinglish, that hazy region on the linguistic map where the familiar can be surprisingly exotic.
Elementary - Casanova's Roommate
Nov 27, 2012
Show notes
For most of the evening, Jay had hovered on the cusp of sleep, kept awake by the muted sounds of bossa nova pouring from his flatmate's stereo, its dim beats peppered with the occasional rattling of pipes and a series of strange falsetto screams. And on the few occasions he managed to drift off, his mind was flooded with strange images of his thesis committee at a Cuban beach party, reading his thesis and laughing at it in a series of oddly-familiar falsetto screams.Our latest show is an elementary Chinese lesson. For us the elementary level means that you're able to follow the basics in spoken Chinese, but have difficulty watching television or listening to the radio at normal speed without assistance. This is the level where we like to highlight the basic grammar points we assume everyone knows at our higher levels, where our focus shifts to how and why Chinese people break them. So if you're an elementary Chinese student get started by listening to this show, and then check out our chinese lesson archive for more than a thousand other great shows.
Intermediate - The Acrobats
Nov 19, 2012
Show notes
Detective Wilders was coming face-to-face with a world few members of proper society even acknowledged: the underclass of the acrobatic arts. And yet perhaps underclass was not the proper word. For as not unlike members of a secret society, acrobats did not reject the tenets of civil society so much as simply live by a separate code. Theirs was a world not easily entered by outsiders, but one which once entered, must be entered completely.
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