Popup Chinese

If you've spent much time in traditional Chinese classes, you've likely had that moment of frustration shortly after arriving in China when you realize your textbooks have been lying to you, or at least featuring a more Panglossian form of mandarin than seems to be spoken by anyone you've met. And that not only do Chinese people rarely speak in formal prose, but a disappointingly small number seem to spend weekends climbing the Great Wall or exploring tea plantations. We feel your pain, which is why our Chinese podcast for today is about a casual way to answer questions that most textbooks ignore, and some even get factually wrong. This is a common pattern you'll hear people use whenever they want to describe where something is or say where they got it. So if you're learning Chinese, spend ten minutes with us today and by the time we're done, we guarantee your mandarin will sound a lot more natural and genuine than the way you've most likely been speaking it before.

Shortly after the tsunamis wiped out the coasts, those inland were blindsided by solar flares, floods, landslides and volcanic eruptions. Within months the sky had blackened and from the pre-crash population only a handful of survivors remained, living mostly in fortified underground bunkers cut off from each other and the outside world. Theirs was a world of terror and crushing loneliness. And this Chinese podcast is their story.

We know that many of you admire Brendan and Echo for their uncanny ability to make mandarin accessible without reducing it to baby-talk. But what you may not realize is that central to this is a hard-fought policy we created of not letting Brendan discuss Chinese grammar until the Elementary level. And this is more than a matter of keeping things easy: it's a defensive mechanism to prevent our ten minute podcasts from growing into half hour Odysseys which require serious editing work to get useable. That said, there are times when Brendan is right and we've got to just throw some grammar your way. And this podcast is one of those times, because we want to introduce the continuous aspect: how to describe an action that is ongoing in Chinese. But even if you hate grammar, you should listen in because we'll temper the book smarts with the perfect excuse for getting out of conversation. So take a listen. And if you have any questions or comments? Leave a post in our discussion section, or write us anytime at echo@popupchinese.com.

Mike's relations with Julie's family had been poor for as long as he could remember, but this evening felt different. Perhaps it was the beer, or perhaps it was discovering how much he had in common with her older brother. But regardless of the cause, as the evening and drinks wore on Michael felt as if a weight had been lifted. While he still might not see eye-to-eye with his new family on politics, at least he was starting to feel like less of an outsider. Learning Chinese? The bad news is that we can't really help you handle your in-laws. Or perhaps we can help you figure out what to call them. And actually being fluent in Chinese might help you handle their deadpan jokes about murdering the foreigner in his sleep. But beyond the basics, you're pretty much on your own. Still... why not take a listen to our latest intermediate Chinese podcast? And be sure to signup for your free account with us if you haven't yet.

One hundred years ago this week, local outrage over plans to nationalize provincial railways triggered the Wuchang Uprising, an act of sedition which marked the start of the Xinhai Rebellion and the beginning of the end for China's long-governing Qing court. Setting in motion forces that would establish a short-lived Republic and throw the country into its warlord period, the movement also created an icon of revolutionary authority in the figure of Sun Yatsen, a man whose political legacy remains hotly contested even a century later. This week on Sinica, Kaiser Kuo hosts China history experts David Moser and Jeremiah Jenne for an in-depth discussion of the legacy of the Xinhai Revolution and Sun Yatsen. If you've listened to Sinica before, you'll remember David Moser as one of Beijing's most versatile academics and Director of the CET immersion program in Beijing. Jeremiah Jenne is another excellent Sinologist: Dean of Chinese Studies at the IES program in Beijing as well as author of the popular China history blog Jottings from the Granite Studio. Enjoy Sinica? If you'd like to be notified automatically whenever a new episode of Sinica is released, create an account on Popup Chinese and subscribe to the Sinica show in your list of podcasts, or hook yourself up through iTunes using our standalone RSS feed: http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica. Just click on the option "Subscribe to Podcast" in the "Advanced" file menu and provide that URL when prompted. Anyone seeking less commitment is of course still invited to download directly from our site as a standalone mp3 file. Enjoy!

It doesn't take much exposure to Chinese television to realize CCTV's recipe for juicing the ratings of any show: adding mandarin-speaking foreigners. And while we're always happy to see our compatriots getting paid by the Chinese government for a change, we'll be the first to admit that the mandarin fluency of many of our aspiring Western thespians leaves a considerable amount to be desired, at least in terms of communicating more subtle details as character motivations, emotional sincerity and overarching plot. Learning Chinese? In this podcast, join our crew as we walk through the climactic scene from a recent CCTV production featuring everyone's favorite mandarin-speaking Scots detective... as heard by its Chinese audience. And once we're finished with that, keep listening as we offer up a quick cheater's guide to a Chinese genre that's equally impenetrable to the rest of the world. Soon you too can impress your friends with eerie foreknowledge about the plots of Chinese television shows you've never seen before and are unlikely to ever see again.

What do native Chinese speakers say when they greet each other? You may be surprised to learn it isn't the standard "hello" you'll find taught in most textbooks. And that's why we've devoted this podcast to casual greetings in mandarin. So regardless of whether you're just starting to learn Chinese or have been working towards fluency for a while, join us in this Chinese podcast as we cover the language native Chinese speakers actually use when they want to say hello.

The arrival of the National Guard had done little to turn the tide at Wilmer Creek, where an unrelenting onslaught by the undead had pitched friend against friend, and neighbour against reanimated neighbour in a frenetic battle for control of the town. But even as the military struggled to reassure citizens that the situation was under control, a fresh offensive broke through the downtown blockade and routed the defense forces. It was time to evacuate. Note: this Chinese podcast is all about prepositions in Chinese. Now since it's a bit hard to make this sort of thing sound sexy all by itself, just imagine yourself on a yacht in the Mediterranean surrounded by twenty or so of the most attractive linguists you can picture, all of whom are desperate for factually accurate information about Chinese grammar. Now picture yourself casually dropping the word "coverb" into this volatile mix and knowing what it means....

The Chairman of CCTV Sports threw the latest ratings report on his desk with a sense of frustration. Despite the enormous sums CCTV was investing in live sports coverage, none of their events seemed to be resonating with mainstream Chinese audience. And while it was true the domestic sports market was still immature, the lack of any traction among male sports fans was a real problem for the program. Now was clearly the time for a change in approach to the network's sports coverage, but what were the options? Note: if you're listening to our advanced shows you should already speak relatively fluently and be looking for a challenge, which is why we've pushed today's advanced listening to unprecedented levels of difficulty. More than a native-level conversation, this listening test features rapid-fire mandarin sportscasting that is almost like the real thing, except for... well... we'll let you figure that out. So take a listen, and good luck on the test.

Wang Ziqian contemplated the ceiling from within his cocoon of self-imposed isolation. For the past week our voice actor had remained in his room, substituting regular work for sleep, sleep and more sleep. And the more he withdrew from the world, the stronger his urge to continue doing so. In fact, why not simply spend the rest of his life in bed? Even a week in this seemed by far preferable to leaving the comfort of his room. Learning Chinese? We'll admit that this is probably the wrong week to have a podcast about inclement weather, given that either nature or the cloud-seeding arm of the Beijing municipal government has given us fantastic weather for the National Day holidays. But no matter! And in addition to complaints about the weather, we're also going to cover a critical grammar point about how to talk about the duration of events in both positive and negative sentences. This is essential knowledge for anyone learning Chinese, so if you're working towards fluency be sure to listen.

At least 284 people were injured on Tuesday when a train in the Shanghai metro smashed into another which had stalled on the tracks. The accident, which threw Shanghai into disarray, came only two months after another near-disastrous incident on the same line, and only three after a disaster on the high-speed bullet line connecting Wenzhou and Hangzhou. Like those early accidents, this one also sparked derisive outbursts from Chinese netizens, who took to their keyboards to ridicule the official characterization of the event as a "minor accident". This week on Sinica, we're delighted to host Ananth Krishnanin, the China correspondent for The Hindu, who joins our hosts Kaiser Kuo and Jeremy Goldkorn for an in-depth discussion not only of this accident, but also of the general state of Chinese-Indian relations, which are showing strains as evidence rises suggesting the bilateral trade relations are somewhat one-sided. Ananth, Kaiser and Jeremy also discuss the general state of Islam in China, and talk about how the diaspora is developing across the region. Like Sinica? If you'd like to subscribe to the show and have your computer download new episodes automatically as they're released, just create an account on Popup Chinese and add the Sinica show to your list of preferred podcasts. Alternately, you can subscribe manually by selecting "Subscribe to Podcast" from your "Advanced" file menu in iTunes and providing the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica when prompted. We also encourage listeners to download this episode as a standalone mp3 file directly from our site.

The opening door spilled the children into the musty atmosphere of an underground research laboratory. Myriad scientific tracts with names like "Principles of Rocketry" and "Race for the Atom" filled the shelves, packed tightly between strange tanks and tubes filled with oddly-colored liquids. And yet what caught both of their eyes was something more sinister: an old newspaper spread open on the central worktable, a steel dagger plunged in anger through the dated headline. Learning Chinese? Mandarin may not have been a critical asset in 1945, but the world is changing and who knows where danger will rear its head next. So if you've already pushed your mandarin to the conversational level, listen to our intermediate Chinese podcast for today, which will get you to the point where you too can thwart renegade threats to international peace and stability, not to mention deal with the more eccentric members of your family.

Hank had spent the morning preparing for their evening dinner party. And while the dining room had definitely improved from his attention, the living room was perhaps slightly the worse for it. For while the odds of one of their guests fatally tripping over the missing floorboard was quite small, it was admittedly greater than zero. Which was why Hank decided it was time for a trip to the hardware store. If he was lucky he could get everything fixed before anyone noticed the four foot gap. Learning Chinese? Our Chinese podcast for today is designed for absolute beginners to the Chinese language. So even if you've never spoken a word of mandarin before, we know you'll feel comfortable listening to our latest radio show. And by the time you're done? You'll be fluent enough to ward off all those pesky inquiries from friends and family concerned about the hardware bills and all that time you've been spending in the basement.

"It was really distressing for me to talk to a WHO expert and have him tell me, 'I have no idea where it's safe to buy food here....'" - Sharon LaFraniere. When Luoyang journalist Li Xiang broke China's latest food scandal last week, exposing the industrial reprocessing and resale of "gutter oil" in a massive operation allegedly concealed by government officials in Henan, the news sparked yet more public outrage over China's food safety record, while triggering what seems to have been brutal retaliation by the producers, who are suspected of ordering the killing of Li earlier this week in what is being treated by the authorities as a murder-robbery. As awareness has spread that the Chinese government is hoarding organic food for its own consumption, the question of food safety has never been a more sensitive public topic, which is why this week on Sinica we're pleased to welcome Barbara Demick of the Los Angeles Times and Sharon LaFraniere of the New York Times. Both excellent China watchers doing investigative work on China's growing food scandals, Barbara and Sharon join Sinica regulars Jeremy Goldkorn and Will Moss to bring us the inside scoop on how bad the situation really is and why food safety is so difficult for China to get right. Enjoy the Sinica podcast? If you'd like Kaiser and crew to show up automatically in iTunes whenever a new episode is published, you can subscribe to the show by creating an account on Popup Chinese and selecting Sinica as one of your feeds. Alternately, subscribe manually through iTunes by selecting the option "Subscribe to Podcast" from the Advanced menu and copying the URL http://popupchinese.com/feeds/custom/sinica into the box when prompted. You are also welcome to download this mp3 directly from Popup Chinese as a standalone mp3 file and share it with friends. Enjoy!

Rachael wondered what she could possibly bring as a gift to the dinner party. When her ex-roommate had left the United States several years ago no-one could have predicted that living abroad would change her so completely. Yet now that Sylvia had returned home, her lifestyle and tastes were so different from what they had previously been that even her closest friends like Rachael felt baffled by the transformation. Reflecting on the difficulty of picking gifts for an enigma, Rachael decided that the safest gift was probably a simple bottle of wine. Learning Chinese? The first thing you'll realize about our intermediate Chinese podcast for today is that it features one of the longest dialogues we've done at this level. That said, while the conversation is fast and moves quickly, it's otherwise fairly representative of the difficulty level you'll find at in our intermediate Chinese lessons. So if you're new to Popup Chinese and have a year or two of mandarin under your belt check this out and see how much you understand. And if it's too easy or too difficult for you, just visit our Chinese lesson archive and find something more your level.