Popup Chinese - Chinese Lessons

One of the things we're proud of at Popup Towers is our hard-fought ability to wring natural dialogues out of less-than-natural voice-actors, a skill that usually involves unleashing Grace at them in varying degrees of rage. And since recording a dialogue this way can take up a bit of time, the result is that we usually end up with a number of variants for each one, usually getting more and more natural as we go along.

If you're totally new to Chinese we suggest coming back to this show later -- the lesson is a bit tricky for the Absolute Beginner level -- but we wanted to showcase it here for two reasons. The first is that this show features not one but two dialogues. The interesting thing is that the first dialogue sounds a bit stilted while the second sounds extremely natural. And since they basically saying the same thing, we wanted to contrast and compare them, to learn what it is that makes mandarin sound forced and what makes it more colloquial.

Classical pianist Glenn Gould, the most improbable sex symbol in Canadian music history, set the world ablaze in the 1960s and 1970s with his emotional reinterpretations of Bach's keyboard repertoire. But what really distinguishes Gould from his contemporaries is the sheer volume of experimental recordings he bequeathed the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on his death, recordings made at home during his final years in recluse and only now available to the public for the first time....

Note to Listeners: we tried to keep this show focused on classical music, but then Grace kept mentioning how much she doesn't like Taylor Swift, and David felt forced to wave his populist flag, and that is how our podcast descended into nonsense shortly after our two hosts offhandedly diagnosed the vast majority of the Chinese population with obsessive compulsive disorder.

The tip-off? It had come from an old landline in the basement of the National Gallery, so the caller could have been anyone associated with the institute, and possibly even the director himself. But finding out exactly who had made that call was proving more troublesome than Inspector Zhang had anticipated, since the phone had been wiped clean of prints, and none of the staff - even when questioned privately - showed anything but bewilderment at any suggestion of impropriety.

So who had snuck into that backroom, and was there any substance to their allegations of artistic skullduggery? Complicating matters further was the demand for extreme discretion coming down from his supervisors at Scotland Yard, who themselves were now under pressure from Downing Street and the House of Windsor, both parties well aware that with the integrity of the Royal Collection at stake, the nation itself might face a public scandal that could threaten the integrity of the monarchy itself.

As a professional negotiator with more than twenty years experience on the force, Richard had dealt with hostage cases before and knew that this would be a particularly tough one to crack. And his was an impression confirmed by the grim visages on the faces of the SWAT team. Holed up on the upper floors of the National Bank, the kidnappers had settled into a defensive position that would make storming the building a disastrous exercise in bloodshed, making a negotiated settlement the only practical option.

As the whirlwind romance that preceded Mary's honeymoon faded, it became increasing clear that her ill-fated marriage had thrust her into a conjugal death march. Yet despite her husband's passive aggressive hostility, Mary lived in the hope that sheer enthusiasm could somehow break through his frustrated silence, and so continued to ask after him and express an interest in his affairs, and all despite the fact that -- let's face it -- the man was an unremitting asshole.

The admission process had already taken four months. Four months of school tours, and meetings with first the principal and then every fourth grade teacher on payroll. Four months of paperwork, paperwork and more paperwork as Jonathan sat sullenly at home wondering when he would finally be able to go back to school. It had been a long wait, but today, at least, his parents would get an answer to that question.

Rather than a regular podcast, today we are pleased to publish a longer Elementary dialogue designed to test your listening comprehension. The language used here is not terribly difficult, but it is spoken at native pace and with the sort of emotional inflection you'll find living and working in China. So take a listen and click through to our quiz to see how much you understand. Our annotated transcript is there as always in case you have difficulty.

Through many countries and over many seas I have come, dear brother, to this futuristic society in which you live, only to find myself astonished and humbled by its paradoxical embrace of social monitoring tools which seem to assure social order, yet also remain respectful of individual privacy and democratic rights. But alas! What is that pale cry? From whence comes that demonic shriek which fills the air with groans of woe, and strikes my soul with fear?

Learning Chinese? This is a fairly easy beginning lesson that covers the basics of asking and answering questions, such as asking what things are. We also give you a great phrase you can use to make yourself seem more understood, and help you apologize as you push yourself off the subway. So if you're just getting started with mandarin, check it out!

The government had first dismissed rumours of the city's impending water scarcity, yet as the months dragged on and the supply trucks grew less and less frequent, public denial morphed into slow acceptance as the city baked. In time, even the moat around the Forbidden City drained to nothing, its dry stones picked clean by the dessicated husks of those who remained, parched shadows of their former selves.

Learning Chinese? This is an upper-level recording that features an original movie trailer. If your Chinese is getting up there, take a listen and see how much you understand. While we don't walk through the recording line-by-line, David and Grace do point out some of the more difficult bits, including some revolutionary language you may not yet know. So take a listen and let us know what you think.

Xiao Zhang loved his job. Even that time he fractured his arm at the water cooler, it wasn't until the pain began to trigger hallucinations that he even thought of going to the hospital. And then there was the day he had a spinal fracture and laughed it off until the company owner personally strapped him to a spinal board and ferried him to the emergency room. So a bruise? This was nothing. Hardly even visible.

Learning Chinese? And confused by our lesson photo this week? While we're willing to admit that this lesson doesn't have much to do with a hammer, all of the photos of bruises that we could find were offputting. And this lesson is going to live in our archives for a long time. So everyone gets a hammer instead. Consider it one degree of separation from our topic this week, and considerably better looking.

After years in the metaphorical wilderness, the Society of Anarchists had finally gathered enough funds to purchase their printing press. Tucked away covertly below the buildings of parliament, the machine stood as a symbol of intellectual resistance within the very halls of a power. Its presence would spark a revolution in dissent and art both, and draw the ire of the very political establishment whose ideology it mocked.

Having spent the weekend puttering around Chaoyang hospital listening to the groans of the infected, certain members of our staff would like to suggest that a priority for the next Fifth Year Plan be fixing the vending machines in all major health centers, so that at least some of this world's inevitable pain and suffering can be partially offset by the ready availability of fresh caffeine mixed with high-fructose corn syrup.

Learning Chinese? In previous lessons we've taught you the difference between 才 and 就. Most textbooks stop there, but we've decided to plow on with this lesson that is going to confuse things even more, by showcasing a specific case in which the two characters are actually used to mean exactly the same thing. Just think of this as one of those times when Chinese decides to kick you in the teeth... for fun.

This week at Popup Chinese, we take you behind the scenes of a recording session as Grace and Li Zhiqiang struggle to coax a decent performance out of a new voice actor. This is a fairly difficult intermediate show, but if you've been listening to us for a while, we think you'll like it. Not only does it help show what our recording sessions are usually like, but it provides a good excuse for talking about some of the less obvious words and phrases Chinese people use to describe more complex emotions.

A rose tucked away at the bottom of the pantry, clumsy letters wrapped in ribbons and hidden in the attic: such as these had been her efforts at concealment. Yet how brazen were their mid-day meetings in the park near the wharf, making it nonetheless inevitable that her husband would hear of her affair, and take steps to bring it to a decisive and final end.

Learning Chinese? This is a bit of an easier Intermediate show than some of our more recent ones, so if you're clambering up to full fluency from the Elementary level, give it a try and see how much you can understand. In the show itself, Grace and David talk a bit about duelling, and teach a grammar pattern that - even if you hate - you should still find useful.

Auric supervised the construction of his cutting laser feeling relief laced with loathing. Procuring the damn thing from China had promised cheaper costs, but prompted endless foot-dragging from US customs over environmental standards and power supply issues. Between those delays and the inevitable miscommunications with his Shenzhen supplier, it would have been easier to import Swiss equipment from the start.

Popup Towers has nothing against Starbucks. In fact, as a language training company, we admire the way they've found success getting otherwise sensible people to use made-up words like venti and trenta in normal conversation. Nonetheless, as occasional coffee drinkers ourselves, we also hope that someone at Starbucks listens to this lesson if only so that corporate headquarters gets a wake-up call about how insanely frustrating it is ordering a medium coffee anywhere in the Middle Kingdom.

Incidentally, if you're already used to learning Chinese with us you'll find this Chinese lesson a bit different than its predecessors. And that's because we don't really teach standard mandarin so much as the bizarre subset of it needed by anyone growing weary of repeating themselves about seventy or eighty times to make sure they get the right-sized drink, or going through the physical pantomime we call the "Starbucks dance", a highly repetitive ritual between you and your barista that involves rhythmic turn-based pointing at the cup rack.

Something was hidden in the attic. That much was certain, yet how could Mark and Susan find out the secret of the orphanage? Any passage leading to the upper crawlspace was well cloaked, perhaps even sealed off years ago in the renovations that followed the death of the last schoolmaster. And with Miss Gruntle known to prowl the school grounds at night, their only opportunity to truly explore opened them to the risk of a lifetime of lashings.

Teaching Chinese may have been Xiao Wang's first love, but diversifying into English just made business sense. Not only were there a lot more English learners than foreigners in Beijing, but the students she picked up seemed more appreciative of her talents and receptive to her teaching methods. Sure, every now and then someone would come along who thought they knew better, but had they lived in London for four months?

Learning Chinese? In this show, the second time our Chinese tutor has surfaced, we cover some essential classroom vocabulary you may have missed: words and phrases like "say it again" and "what fresh hell is this". So if you can't yet understand Chinese spoken at natural speed but are getting there, give this show a listen and let us know what you think in the comments section.

The board had taken quick action when rumours of accounting irregularities had hit the local papers, commissioning Detective Zhen to investigate the allegations. But once he had uncovered evidence of embezzlement at the local subdivision, something had compelled him to keep digging. And the further he dug, the less regular overall corporate finances seemed, and what he found pointed to much deeper problems than a single corrupt staffer....

This week on Popup Chinese, the fish rots from the head down in a show that features bribery, embezzlement, kickbacks and more. Join us as we explore the darker side of corporate malfeasance, and teach you the language you'll need to know to navigate your way through blackmail and corruption in the Middle Kingdom.

The good news about living in China is that you're unlikely to get abducted and forced into a satanic ritual. Part of this may be a lack of personal experience with raising the dead, but part is also a lack of the basic linguistic tools necessary for communing with the masters of darkness. Which is really a cultural issue, because it took us about five minutes to explain what a pentagram was to our confused voice actors....

Facebook spent 16 billion dollars on some kind of mobile phone app? We heard something about that, but we're not really sure what you guys are doing outside China. Because we have our own thing going on in the mobile chat space, and pretty much everyone in this country of 1.3 billion mobile users is on it. So you should get on it too.

Learning Chinese? In today's show, we feature two dialogues about asking someone for their Wechat/Weixin number. This is a useful way of hooking up with new friends, and a non-threatening way to meet new people -- it's not as aggressive as asking someone for their phone number, and it lets you find out more about them through an entirely new and innovative method of digital stalking. Needless to say, we highly recommend it.

"I can't believe you still haven't covered Sweden!" Living on the front lines of our ongoing battle to disregard user feedback, and particularly feedback that requires expending effort, Gail was upset about our prolonged disregard of the requests of not just one but two of her more Nordic students. But while the wheel of podcast production may grind slowly, it grinds very fine indeed. So here you go Sweden. And here you go Ikea. And here you go Fridtjof and Ragnvald....

And how about you? Do you have any ideas for a topic we haven't covered yet? While we don't suggest getting your hopes up in the short-term, let this episode stand as testament that not only will we do our best to eventually and somewhat laggardly produce stuff that people keep harassing us about, but that we will also somewhat concomitantly find world experts on the topic to help make the materials stick. So don't be afraid to email us, or - better yet - praise us online somewhere in an authentic but perhaps marginally spammy way, mentioning almost in passing that if only (if only!) we also had a lesson on __________ then there wouldn't be any reason for any sane person not to listen.

Xiao Ming would always remember her first day at Lincoln High, if only because the Chinese student's shock at the reality of an inner-city American school almost drove her to tears. Little did she know that she would be a celebrity within the year. But even when her peers started giving her high-fives walking down the hallway, Xiao Ming didn't let the attention go to her head. Because none of this was about her: it was about the dance team, and about saving their school.

Learning Chinese? This intermediate show has two separate dialogues that tell the story of Lincoln High, and what Xiao Ming did there. In addition to some new vocabulary and a few interesting patterns, this lesson also features a common northern expression we encourage you to drop into conversation with your friends, especially if you are nowhere near Heilongjiang and feel like pulling one up on the locals....

Every other industrial operation in China may have shutdown now that it's Chinese New Years, but fortunately we've managed to keep our lesson-producing slavemill podcast studio open during the break, all the better to continue delivering the sort of fresh and interesting Chinese learning shows that will help you join our ranks as oppressors of the working classes and partisans strictly opposed to things like compulsory holidays.

On a pedagogical note, our recent lessons at this level have climbed up the difficulty gradient to the point they're almost intermediate-level shows. If you've found them a bit challenging don't worry -- in this show, Brendan and Echo take a step back from the brink, with a simpler dialogue that reveals a charming technique you can use to imply that you're stating the obvious, or what should be the obvious at least.

When the doctor entered the room, the boy was sitting motionless on the floor where he had been several minutes before, still staring intently at a crack in the nearby wall, as if there was some secret in the darkness beyond which promised some profound revelation. Yet the doctor's attention was not on his young patient, but rather the father who stood anxiously several feet away. For how could he break the news?

In this intermediate lesson, we cover two relatively advanced ways of making comparisons. First with a structure that is used to compare things which are quite alike, and then with a more tricky pattern that can be used to make percentage comparisons. This is a tricky point, wrapped in a very colloquial lesson, so if you're working towards fluency, give us a listen and see what you think. Feedback and thoughts welcome below as always!

William had been home a mere two hours before his father sequestered him in the living room with a suggestion they sit down and insinuation of a serious conversation to come. This was followed at first by a general humming and hawing, and a few pregnant pauses, and William began to wonder what could be of such obvious concern? What had happened while he was away at university?

Learning Chinese? Our intermediate lesson for today is at the more difficult end of the difficulty spectrum at the Elementary level. But we still felt it was worth publishing, for it focuses on a rarely-taught but incredibly useful expression for telling other people that something isn't a big deal. If this is too difficult for you don't worry though, most of the material at this level is a bit easier to understand, so just check our archives for a show that's closer to your level.

Save for his passing look of furtive intelligence, the police would hardly had given the beggar a second glance, for even if loitering on public property was technically a crime, it hardly served anyone's interests to harass those without even the limited means of paying the necessary fines to secure due process. And so the truly poor and desperate were permitted to exist on the margins of society, secure in their poverty from unreasonable search and seizure.

Stephen hit the refresh button without much expectation, his mind preoccupied with the question of whether now might afford a good opportunity for another visit to Starbucks. After all, no serious market analyst could be expected to write a report like his without the most up-to-date sales data from finance, and who could fault him for being securely caffeinated when those all-important documents finally did arrive?

Learning Chinese? Or just a slacker seeking that ever-elusive job that combines maximum pay with minimum expectations? Whatever the reason you've come to Popup Chinese, join Brendan and Echo in our studio today as we talk about how to use directional verb complements to send email to colleagues and resuscitate the near-dead.

In recent news, Beijing University has disbanded its Chinese philosophy department. "We listened to the latest advanced show from Popup Chinese," department chairman Wang Xiaoming stated, "and realized that they nailed it... wrapping up essentially all outstanding academic disputes in a mere fifteen minutes." With no research remaining to be done and no need for further books on the matter, the professoriat is disbanding to focus on university administration.

Learning Chinese? There are a couple of philosophical debates in mandarin that form such a core part of the language that it's impossible to be a well-rounded Chinese speaker without being aware of them. The question of "original sin" is exactly one such issue: is evil inherent to the nature of man, or a product of social upbringing? We were curious how everyone at Popup Towers came down on this, which is why we invited Sylvia, Echo and David into our studio for a debate over 性本善 or 性本恶. Why not take a listen and let us know what you think?

Huang Xiaoming brushed his hand through his hair, which glistened in the morning sunshine in a somewhat unusual way. "After the army, I wanted to be able to express myself more fully." Pens scratched against paper in the silence that followed. "But how could I do that with clothing and music alone?" Xiaoming's voice dropped into quiet intimacy, as if he was reaching out to each listener personally. "And that was when I knew I needed to make real innovations in Chinese hairstyling."

Learning Chinese? Or stuck in Yiwu on a sourcing trip and really need to get a haircut? Fortunately, in this Elementary show, we cover both of these likely possibilities in a show that reviews most of the language you'll need to get a haircut, or maybe just a trim, at your neighborhood hairdresser. And - yes - we actually mean hairdresser. If the shop doesn't have scissors you're on your own....

Some of our shows can be admittedly negative about China, given all of the pressures and stresses that people deal with living here. But China also remains the world's happiest nation, at least according to North Korean media. So for all of the grumbling that we do, there is plenty to love about living here. Which is why we invite everyone feeling down about life in the Middle Kingdom to join Sylvia and Echo today for an advanced podcast in which we chat about everything we really like about life in China. We keep things upbeat for a change, how about that?

In this Intermediate show, David, Echo and Sylvia drop into our studio to chat about The Art of War, revealing not only what the Chinese military classic has in common with Monty Python, but also our own personal favorites from among the text's celebrated 36 strategems. And our goal? Helping you seem hyper-educated: because we're all about shortcuts, and why read the original text when you can just fake it through a podcast?

Learning Chinese? This lesson is a touch on the more difficult side for our intermediate series. Not only do we have a lot of native Chinese spoken in the discussion section of our podcast, but our non-dialogue focus is on some of the more commonly used strategems from The Art of War that you'll run into in daily life in China. But if you're an upper-level student, please do check it out and let us know what you think.

So this story is somewhat off-topic, but after you hear the podcast you'll understand. The back-story is that Amazon emailed (repeatedly) to notify us that some books we had ordered for next-day delivery were shipped and would arrive that afternoon. But then after changing plans to make sure someone was home, we were notified by a telephone call in the late afternoon that the shipper hadn't even bothered to put the books in the mail. Because they wanted to check that we really wanted them.

Admittedly, this isn't a bit deal in the scheme of things, but is complaining about it unreasonable? Does it mean we hate China? Because maybe it means we've got other stuff on our plate: you be the judge.

Although we claim to be experts in basically everything involving China, we should admit that no-one at Popup Towers has ever had to call an ambulance. The one time a friend came down with a medical problem that needed one, he staggered to the local convenience store and someone took care of it for him. But since you're living in China and can't count on that, be sure to give this lesson a listen as we cover all the Chinese you should need to know to get help in an emergency. Or at least dial the right number.

Learning Chinese? At our absolute beginners level, all lessons are designed for people who have no previous experience speaking Chinese. So even if you don't know any Chinese, you should be able to understand the materials we cover in this class. And when you start finding this stuff too easy? Head up to our elementary level which features more spoken Chinese in the podcast, and longer dialogues in general.

Safely ensconced on the fifth floor (5A-West) of the parking garage, the Volkswagen Beetle waited patiently for the return of its masters. Minutes passed into hours, and then hours into days. And when winter stretched into spring and spring into summer, the passage of time caused little discomfort for the unprepossessing automobile. Its owners would come, and when they did it would be time to take them and their shopping home.

Learning Chinese. In this show, we cover a few words and phrases useful for getting out of just about anything in mandarin, and remind you that verbs describing thinking and feeling are always used in the present aspect. Finally, we cover a use of 又 which is impossible to translate, since the character carries almost no independent meaning into the sentence.

The worst childhood pet stories we've ever heard are variants of Cujo or Pet Semetary, involving a once-beloved puppy which not only goes crazy, but massacres large portions of a small rural village in the process. And in that sense, these childhood stories of Echo and Sylvia are somewhat tame by comparison. But they also make us wonder at the sensibilities of a country which trains its children to raise worms.

Xiao Luo stared at the business card with the patience and intensity of an archeologist exhuming an ancient Pharoh. Unexpectedly, the combination of her own sweat and the Shanghai summer heat had given the once cream-colored paper a greyish-blue tint, and smudged the delicate combination of numbers and letters which had previously been the email address of the most important businessman in her field. Could she reconstruct it from memory?

Learning Chinese? This lesson has one of our more difficult dialogues at the Absolute Beginner level, although we try to work you up to it slowly. Nonetheless, if you are a total beginning to mandarin, you'll probably want to start with an easier show from our beginner lesson archive. If you've already got a few under your belt though, join us for this show and learn all the Chinese you need to ask for someone's email address. If you're new to China, you'll find this is oddly more difficult than it is abroad.

The first month after the apocalypse was the worst, as China struggled not only with efforts to fend off its relentless onslaught of undead, but also to keep its survivors motivated and well-fed as food supplies ran low and major cities found themselves cut-off from more well-stocked regional outposts. Fortunately, it was not long before Chinese ingenuity offered a solution to the nation's predicament.

Learning Chinese? In today's show we cover a pretty strange grammar pattern that appears twice in our dialogue. And it's strange not only because it fails to obey common grammar conventions, but also because we can't really explain what is happening ourselves on a fundamental level. If you think you can do better, take a listen and share your thoughts in the comments section below. We'd be curious if anyone can give us a good systematic explanation for what is going on.

It was at precisely the moment Xiao Zhang was supposed to be mulling over his options and trying to find an escape from his predicament, that his mind somehow veered back to Einstein's theory of General Relativity and the conceptual experiment of the accelerating elevator. Because if gravity was the same thing as constant acceleration, then what exactly was five minutes anyway? Wasn't time relative? And if it was, then how could it ever come to an end? The thought seemed oddly comforting.

Learning Chinese? Rather than assault you with more , today we're pleased to present a simpler lesson intended to help you practice all the Chinese you need to deal with time, whether it involves procrastinating at work or hectoring the overattentive wait staff at your favorite Chinese restaurant. We hope you enjoy it, and if you have suggestions on future topics you'd like to hear covered, let us know anytime at service@popupchinese.com.

The Beijing Capital Airport is not only the busiest airport in the world by traffic volume, but it's apparently also the most vindictive and spiteful when it comes to the treatment of non-national airlines. Or that's the most likely explanation we can think of for how a four hour flight to Beijing transformed into a thirty hour Odyssey that included a two day layover in Taiyuan while our plane was cleared for "permission to land" in the capital.

Admittedly, the delay could have been an accident. Or it could have involved mechanical difficulties. But we're leaning towards corruption as the most likely answer, and if you're interested in the reasons why, Echo and Sylvia in our advanced show for today as they talk about this epic flight delay, and share some local gossip about the airline industry in China. And with that in mind, we'd be interested to hear if anyone has similar stories, so please feel invited to leave a comment in the discussion section below, or write Echo directly with your experiences at echo@popupchinese.com.

Deep within the bowels of his Shanxi fortress, lungs safely ensconced behind an industrial breathing apparatus, Gao opened his oven to gaze inside with paternal pride. Thick, rich and spewing forth unquestionably carcinogenic vapour, his second generation of brownies looked deliciously irresistible. In fact, it if weren't for his intimate knowledge of the physical agony awaiting anyone who sampled even a single bite, Gao would have been tempted to try one himself.

Learning Chinese? Newcomers to Popup Towers might wonder why our staff seem so intent on killing each other using homemade imitations of popular Western desserts. We worry less about the homicidal impulses of our voice actors and more about providing interesting Chinese learning materials that also feature Chinese the way it is actually spoken here in China. So we hope you enjoy this lesson. And if you're still confused by the story, be sure to check out this lesson which outlines the background to Gao and 9527's epic Popup rivalry.

As the most handsome member of his squadron, Huang Xiaoming was routinely tasked with the more photogenic military duties: fielding media interviews, organizing photo shoots for recruiting purposes and posing as "Mr. December" for the division's annual charity calendar. Content with their second-tier status in the world of masculine beauty, Huang's squadmates would drift into supporting roles on these projects: lifting heavy items, cleaning weapons, or playing with animals for b-roll.

Learning Chinese? Our dialogue today is a bit of a mix of more formal public speech, as well as the sort of casual mandarin that you'll hear people speak in more unguarded moments. And what are we learning? Beyond the listening practice, what we hope you take away from this is that Chinese speakers regularly make exactly the sort of mistakes that Chinese learners do as well. So don't worry too much about getting your speaking habits perfect, although we'll tell you how to do that too.

On our advanced show this week, Echo and Sylvia go head-to-head on the topic of modern dating, with a conversation specifically about 非诚勿扰, the most popular dating show on Chinese television. Sylvia isn't a big fan of the show, but Echo wishes she could take part. If you're looking for native-level conversation to practice your listening skills, join us for this show and learn why.

Knowing he might never see her again, Nevis had stood in the snow outside her window all night. And now he stood, hands trembling slightly in the morning breeze, fingers wrapped tightly around a thin grip of steel, prepared to face the worst if so he must. And it would be worth it. It would be worth all of it.

Learning Chinese? We have an interesting sentence in our dialogue for today, because it is completely time-agnostic. Put it into the past, and it doesn't change. Use it to refer to ongoing conditions, and it doesn't change. And stick it into the future? Yup - no change at all. So join us in out studio today as we take a look at this great sentence pattern and teach you how to use it like a native.

Even years after her sudden death from apoplexy, Robert's mother would haunt her son's dreams, her corpulent and open-palmed presence bellowing with outrage over his "filthy, filthy pants" and threatening to give the boy "a good scrubbing." As his court psychiatrist would later testify, this classic case of childhood trauma not only colored his relations with the opposite sex, but also affected his notions of acceptable personal hygiene.

Interested in learning Chinese? Or perhaps you're not really interested in learning Chinese at all but are still curious how exactly to speak to household cleaning staff. You know, wanting to know enough Chinese so that you can walk that fine line between being the sort of permissive employer who attracts every layabout in the Middle Kingdom, and the sort of tyrant immortalized in the oral histories of Fujian and Anhui? Then this podcast is for you.

The largest investment for any family daring the Oregon Trail was the purchase of oxen. Bullets? Medicine? Clothing for the children? Safe passage across dangerous rivers? All of these were luxuries. Even children were a luxury, since in a worst case scenario your adults could survive on squirrel meat and repopulate once they reached the west coast. But if your oxen died? Then the grim ghosts of dysentery that stalked the trail would show no mercy.

Learning Chinese? This week on Popup Chinese we boot up the Apple II and discover the surprising amount that Chinese people know about American history. And Super Mario and Contra and strange Chinese role-playing games involving mystical swords. Also, details on the not-so-legit Nintendo gaming systems that were all the rage in the days before the XBox.

Robert suspected his wife's strange preoccupation with Beijing Opera was beginning to affect their marriage. While he had always been aware of her fascination with Chinese culture, after she became involved in a local theatre troupe, June seemed much less willing to compromise on the small issues, or even consider things from his perspective. And then there were her midnight practice sessions, furtive telephone calls and paranoid protectiveness of personal toiletries.

Learning Chinese? Our elementary lesson today is a bit trickier than most, but if you've been with us for a while we think you'll enjoy it, since it introduces a new sentence pattern we haven't run into yet, and that we're not aware of being covered in any textbook we've stumbled into to date. Despite the hour of pain that preceded the recording, we had a good time making this show and hope you enjoy it too.

It was another ideas meeting at Popup Towers, and the topic had turned to our advanced Chinese-only shows. "Why can't we have an upbeat podcast for a change," David had suggested. "I'm worried listeners are going to think we're chronically depressed between our discussion of pollution, academic bribery and corporal punishment." The room hung silent. "Couldn't we have a happy show about family and love or something like that?"

Sean couldn't mask his dismay at the literal exactitude with which his Chinese lecturer approached her teaching duties. Even after months of parroting back her sentences like a trained parrot, he still struggled with spontaneous communication. It struck him as absurd that anyone expect a student to reach fluency this way, but that was why he'd finally taken the plunge and hired a local tutor. Even if his new teacher wasn't professionally trained, at least his time with her would afford the chance for some genuine conversation.

On the off-chance that this is your first lesson, don't be scared: while this is the longest dialogue we've ever produced at the Elementary level, the vocabulary is not terribly complex and we think you can handle it. And if you have any questions or comments? Feel free to write us anytime at service@popupchinese.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Our Popup crew had dinner at a Sichuan restaurant last week, and for whatever reason the conversation quickly turned to traumatic childhood experiences. And it turns out that while attending school in any country can give kids a rough time, if you attended school in China in the 1980s and 1990s you had to add teacher-management and bribery strategies into your list of daily problems, as Echo and Sylvia discuss in today's show.

Curious what it was like attending primary school in China in the late 1980s and early 1990s? If so, join us today for a podcast that shares the dirt on the Chinese school system, and finally gives Sylvia and Echo a chance to come clean about their traumatic pasts. And if you have comments of your own or suggestions about future topics you'd like to see us discuss in the future, leave us a note below or send us an email at service@popupchinese.com. We look forward to hearing from you.

Our new Ayi is great, except for her propensity to gossip. We'll tell her things like what we had for breakfast or how much sleep we got the night before, and the next thing you know she's shared that on Weibo and Facebook and then we're getting inbound telephone calls from strangers in Henan with occasionally useful but somewhat overfamiliar advice. Truth be told, we're not sure exactly how to deal with it, since she does a really good job otherwise.

Learning Chinese? In this lesson, we cover an incredibly useful expression that is unfairly ignored by textbooks worldwide. And in the process, we try to illustrate one of the nicest things about learning mandarin: the looser grammatical structure makes many Chinese expressions more flexible and universally applicable than their English counterparts.

People often ask us how we get such great voice acting, as if there were a secret we could simply put into words. Whereas the truth is that acting is a form of Zen, and it takes years to develop a sensitivity to the art. For us a key part was spending our formative years at the Central Academy of Drama. And as much as it pains us to admit now that we are trained thespians, we'd never even heard of the Bard before attending that venerable institute. In those days, as our teachers would often tell us, truly we were green as lettuce.

Learning Chinese? This lesson is mostly just fun listening practice, but if you're looking for a challenging way to build from it, spend a few minutes on our associated vocabulary list and quiz, which will test you on how well you can recognize famous quotes from Shakespeare... translated into Chinese. This ends up being harder than you think, although it may help to note that we've only used one selection per play.

When Detective Smith started his slow climb up the professional ladder, his unorthodox crime-fighting techniques and obsession with furniture made him a laughingstock to the local criminal underclass, as well as many of his more conventional colleagues. Yet his persistent and creative efforts to clean up the city would eventually earn him the grudging admiration of even his most vocal foe, and lead to a sea change in policing techniques nationwide.

Learning Chinese? This is among the more difficult of our Elementary lessons, but if you're working towards understanding television and radio in China you should find it useful: the conversation is natural and reflects the sort of Chinese you'll hear every day in real media. So give it a listen and let us know what you think by email at service@popupchinese.com or in the comments section below.

If this show is a bit introspective, that's because the "at what cost" question has been a recurring theme of late in our conversations with colleagues and friends. For some the decision to move on is about money and lifestyle, while for others it is just time to do something different. What do we think about this? What do you think about this? If you understand native-level Chinese and are looking for listening practice, why not join us for this advanced show and let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Factional alliances had been coalescing for months, for as the availability of work narrowed, it was obvious to all that sacrifices would simply have to be made. And so it was that Popup Towers became a place of whispers and sideways glances among the voice acting team, as a hundred secret alliances blossomed and then withered overnight. And then there was the baking....

Learning Chinese? At the Intermediate level we try to present genuine Chinese dialogues prepared and presented without concerns over reducing the difficulty or sculpting the language spoken to make it easier for beginners. This means you get fully natural Chinese passages in speed, tempo as well as emotion. And once you can follow along at this level, you should be ready to step up to both native media as well as our more advanced shows.

Our advanced podcast for today is a show Echo and Sylvia recorded about the air pollution in Beijing. What's it like living in a city where you can't breathe? How do Chinese people cope and what are people doing to solve the problem or deal with it? If you're an advanced Chinese student looking for some upper-level language practice, join us for today's show and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

It had been a winter of great discord, with even Russia's wealthiest cities stalked by a sweeping tide of violent bolshevism. And yet how far the Tsar's summer home seemed from all this blood, as the rich strolled on the warm grass oblivious to the death fast approaching. And even now was their blindness anything but the arrogance of the Imperial throne, and characteristic of this age of contradictions?

Learning Chinese? Our lesson for today is inspired by several of the Russian television series we've seen imported into China over the years, and dedicated to anyone who has ever watched a full episode of these imported soap operas, or even just stumbled across the name of the Russian Foreign Minister when working through the news. Because you're not alone to find eight-character foreign names excruciatingly difficult to pronounce.

Sometimes life in China doesn't make much sense. Which is why we'd like to introduce your head to this concrete wall now while everyone is still being sociable. We think you should get to know each other, and learn a bit about your hobbies and special interests, because you'll be running into each other fairly often now that you're in town. And can you use chopsticks? Yeah? Just checking.

We've been trying to keep our feature film project under wraps and don't want to do the whole Kickstarter thing, but if anyone knows the Spielberg brothers tell them to answer our emails, because we only need a bit of cash to start shooting at this point and the story basically sells itself. I mean... if someone else made this movie, we would probably see it a couple of times in the theater at least. Multiply that by the number of people in China and you'll have a sense of what this can mean.

The concept? We're working from an original script, but imagine something like Inception except on Mars and with a spy angle as well. And we don't even need to cast: we've already got provisional commitments from Kate Bekinsale, Anne Hathaway and David Tennant. Granted, not everyone has signed on paper yet, but as soon as they see our concept art it'll be impossible to pry the pens from their fingers. And since everyone will be speaking Chinese, Steven will finally have a shot at that Best Foreign Language Oscar.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.

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.

The heart of the operation was a claustrophobic room tucked away in the bowels of just another city bar. Once through the trap door into the basement, visitors were greeted by a tiny circle of chairs arranged haphazardly atop an unfinished concrete floor. It was not a place anyone would come for civil discussion. The air was fetid, and pools of water collected unevenly on the floor as water dripped down from the cooling pipes which snaked across the ceiling.

Learning Chinese? Our lesson today features an intermediate-level dialogue, along with a quick book club of our own. Want to know who we consider to be the Hemingway of China? And who else is worth reading now that you're up to this level? Get our verdict in this show, and leave your own thoughts in the comment section below to share recommendations on contemporary authors we've missed.

Before you send us hate mail, be aware that we tried getting 9527 to slow down. "Whatdoyoumeanslowdown," she said in bewilderment, "Imalreadyspeakingslowly." And we sighed and told her maybe to try a bit harder, since even our microphone only caught about thirty percent of what she said and she looked at us like we were crazy and headed back into the studio clucking softly and proceeded to do another take on fast-forward.

Learning Chinese? If you're at the elementary level, you shouldn't find the vocab in this dialogue challenging in the least, although you'd be forgiven for missing the english word that gets repeated throughout considering that most of our voice actors seemed to have trouble pronouncing the letter D. Fortunately, our focus isn't English phonetics so much as Chinese grammar: a sentence pattern you'll hear all over the place that native Chinese speakers use to place an extra emphasis on the ownership or possession of an object.

Our somewhat confused efforts to introduce the American board game Clue to our Chinese friends has resulted in a number of Friday pickup games near Sanlitun. But even after several months, the concept of the game seems strangely difficult for some people to grasp. And we sympathize, because knowing who killed whom with what hardly addresses the much more important why.

Learning mandarin? At our intermediate level, we don't shy away from giving you native-speed, colloquial Chinese dialogues. And there really isn't much hand-holding in this episode, but if you find it too difficult don't worry - just head to our intermediate archives and find an easier lesson from among the hundreds we've already published. And let us know what you think anytime in the comments section below, or by sending us email at service@popupchinese.com.

American Idol premiered in the United States in 2005, and China has had a metric ton of song-related reality television shows since then. So what exactly is it that has turned The Voice of China into a nationwide craze? Since its premiere in July on Zhejiang Television, the show has become probably the most talked-about television series in the entire mainland, with a band of fanatical followers including some of us here at Popup Towers.

Learning Chinese? If your Chinese is already at a relatively advanced level, join Echo, Andy and Gao today for an advanced Chinese lesson focusing on a lot of vocabulary related to The Voice of China and other reality television shows. Our conversation here is entirely in mandarin, but if you have any questions or problems, we encourage you to leave comments or questions in the discussion space below, or write Echo at echo@popupchinese.com

Nathan struggled to make sense of the mugshots. The young banker could remember countless details about the previous evening: the costumes, the songs, even the taste of exotic milk-based dishes. But how could he ever pull the criminals out of a line-up? Almost everything about the evening had been designed to draw attention away from their individual appearances.

Learning Chinese? This is one of our easier lessons at the Intermediate level, since we go light on difficult vocabulary, but if you're used to the slow and artificial pace of textbook Chinese you may still find it quite a challenge. So why not take a listen and see how much you understand? And let us know what you think by email at service@popupchinese.com.

All through their autumn romance, Susan had seemed so eager that Michael meet her parents, and the two of them had planned a joint trip home at Thanksgiving just for this purpose. Yet now that the date was upon them, her enthusiasm had changed into an almost brooding depression, forcing Michael to wonder what could possibly have gone wrong. Had something in their relationship changed? Was she upset at him? Or had her parents heard something about him and disapproved of them being together?

Learning Chinese? Dealing with relationship issues? Regardless of whether you have to meet the folks or not, we encourage you to listen to our lesson today as we stress the all-important point about how the Chinese language can sometimes be totally and utterly illogical, and how its easy to make amateur mistakes which will give you away as a non-native speaker simply by following all the normal rules outlined by your teachers.

Rich Koreans, carnivorous teddy bears and Nazis. Lest anyone think we are oblivious to pop culture, today we are pleased to present an Elementary Chinese lesson on the latest Internet sensation sweeping across China. Also, considering the continued availability of Titanic gear in shops nationwide, we expect to continue hearing about this for at least the next decade, so it doesn't hurt to bone up on it.

June's colleagues had been so eager to set her up with Peter that she had resisted for over a month, coming up first with this excuse and then that one before finally succumbing to at least one date. But now that the two of them were alone together, she wondered why had she waited? He was handsome, and funny and charming. Even the waiters, ever sensitive to the delicacy of unfolding love, had slowly cleared the rest of the guests indoors, leaving the two of them alone on the candlelit terrace.

Learning Chinese? Our show today is at the more difficult end of our spectrum when it comes to lessons for absolute beginners. In it, we cover a useful sentence pattern for telling other people how you feel about them... or life in general. But if it is too difficult for you, don't worry. Just hop back to our lesson archive for hundreds of even easier lessons for total beginners to the Chinese language.

As the time machine settled emerged from the plasma void, the world came back into focus through the tiny porthole. It was a jungle, and the jungle was high and broad and the entire world forever and forever. Sounds like music and sounds like flying tents filled the sky, and those were pterodactyls soaring with cavernous gray wings, gigantic bats of delirium and night fever. As the machine started its cooldown cycle, Eckles reached for his rifle and pursed his lips in satisfaction: after years of anticipation, it was finally time for the hunt to begin.

Learning Chinese? Our shows at the advanced level assume that you're either relatively fluent in mandarin, or very close to being fluent. Because of this, we focus less on colloquial Chinese and more on the sort of problems that upper-level students face: advanced vocab acquisition and dealing with less colloquial Chinese. In this show, join us as we explore the problems of paradox and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

You know the tin-foil hat wearing, conspiracy-paranoid crowd that started showing up almost overnight when X-Files became mainstream and that you'll still run into every now and again in the States, and especially if you live in San Francisco? Well... the good news is that China doesn't really have this kind of counterculture yet. The paranoid life is simpler here. More direct. And much less high-tech.

Learning Chinese? The elementary level at Popup Chinese is where we get most of our grammar out-of-the-way, and today's lesson is no exception, focusing on what you'll come to know and love as the continuous aspect: the Chinese way of communicating than an action is ongoing. In this lesson we cover two common ways of doing this and talk about both the similarities and slight differences between these techniques. This is rarely taught in textbooks, but its the sort of thing that separates native speakers from second-language learners, so if you're working towards fluency be sure to give it a listen, and let us know what you think.

Bruce Wayne surveyed the hospital room where Gordon lay in babbling incoherence. The police commissioner had been delusional since being pulled from the Gotham sewers two days ago. And while the fallen officer could offer no words to explain his predicament, the keen eyes of his guest nonetheless understood. For lying on the table beside him were the remnants of a dinner too much for any man to bear: an untouched slab of beefsteak, a spoonful of mashed potatoes. And then the corn. Two pieces of corn on the cob, gnawed clean to the bone.

Learning Chinese? We are working with industry contacts in Hollywood to bring a greater and better vision of The Dark Knight to Chinese cinemas, one with more corn and less Dickens. Shooting a film is a pretty big endeavor, but while we get it off the ground we are pleased to bring a double-header podcast to help share our vision of the film, and drum up support for what we think will be a much more ambitious and literary take on the Batman mythos.

"There's no excuse to find oneself stuck in a desert these days," Philip muttered as he crested another dune. Between satellite positioning systems and cellular phones, it was practically impossible to get disconnected from society at all. So what were they doing trudging through what appeared to be the Sahara desert? The last few days may have been a bit muddled in his mind, but whatever the reason, Philip was pretty sure this was somehow James' fault. Whenever they got into a situation like this it was always James' fault....

Learning Chinese? Our lesson today is intended for absolute beginners who are just starting to learn Chinese. This means that even if you don't know any mandarin, you'll still be able to make sense of this dialogue. And by the end of our ten minute lesson, you'll be able to use a simple sentence pattern to say or ask how much more of something is left, whether it be distance or time.

Let us break from the tradition of language instruction and instead offer some practical home-cleaning tips for making the best of your time in China. First, we recommend buying separate mops for the washroom and the rest of your home. Having a third mop dedicated for kitchen use is advisable but not necessary. And don't forget to keep your cleaning rags out of the kitchen, and take care lest they get tossed into the wash with the rest of your clothing. Other than that, living in China is great.

After the scandalous acquittal of Nathan Darnell, Jeremy Harvale became one of the more sought-after solicitors in the city, his services in demand by everyone from white-collar criminals to gang leaders and hardened murderers. And while his popularity may not have reflected a vote of confidence in the ethics of the legal profession, it never helped to be too fastidious about morality when hundreds of thousands of dollars and years of personal freedom were on the line.

Learning Chinese? Let us confess up-front that today's Elementary lesson is harder than most of the others at this level: our dialogue really pushes the limits of what we consider elementary. What we want you to take away from this show is much simpler though, being an easy way to transform fairly straightforward questions into skeptical expressions of doubt. This is an easy emotional twist that will make you sound a lot more fluent, so if you're learning Chinese, be sure to take a listen and then let us know what you think in the comments section below.

After reading our declaration of solidarity with the workers of the world, Naomi Klein dropped by Popup Towers the other day for a solidarity march to Wangfujing, where we mobilized the masses in protest of oppressive capitalism in general, and the replacement of sensible, logo-free clothing with rhinestone-encrusted t-shirts and pleated stonewashed jeans in particular. And then we went shopping.

Learning Chinese? Our elementary Chinese lesson is like most of the others at this level: it features a fast and colloquial dialogue that's representative of the sort of Chinese that is rarely featured in modern textbooks, but is the way people actually speak here in China. So if you haven't created an account at Popup Chinese yet, be sure to signup for a free account and get immediate access to not only this lesson, but our archive of literally thousands of other great shows to pull your Chinese up into fluency.

Lest there be any doubt to the French protestors who have taken to milling about outside Popup Towers, let it be known that - like Byron - our hearts stand firmly with your people, save in those edge cases where demonstrations of solidarity run up against our inveterate hatred of early-morning calisthenics and other forms of fascist reveille.

And what is that mon ami, you are learning Chinese but tired of the oppressive pablum that constitutes most Chinese textbooks? Then shake off your shackles and liberate your mind with a free account here at Popup Chinese. We have well over a thousand shows in our free lesson archive, and you're welcome to listen to them all.

It turns out that our first mistake doing business in China was giving our hosts a gift of dessicated turtle bones wrapped in bamboo and silk. They were polite enough to accept our offering and one of the younger staffers even commented on how well preserved the carapace seemed to be, but we never did get that contract, and they stopped replying to our emails. Chalk it up to cultural differences.

This is an advanced show,and it's a bit different from anything we've done to date. While we have a reading here that teaches some of the basics in parsing classical Chinese, our focus is more than just providing a resource for those interested in reading classical Chinese, since we also have the chance to highlight some of the debates that real Chinese people continue to have about traditional Chinese philosophy, and Zhuang Zi in particular.

Learning Chinese? We've already had a few lessons about basic numbers in mandarin, so in today's show we take a step beyond that and talk about ordinals, or how to say that it is your first, second, third or four hundredth time doing something. The rules for doing this are much easier in Chinese than in English, so take a listen and in less than ten minutes you'll be well on your way to the elementary level, at least as far as numbers are concerned.

This introduction has zero bearing on our actual lesson, but considering the gravity of the subject matter, if you live in Shanghai please throw us a bone and tell us where on earth people go for late-night dining. The "Eat Drink Man Woman" diner on Tongren Lu used to be a great place with serviceable coffee and 24-hours of nutritious WIFI. But with that shut down it seems the entire city's late-night dining options are restricted to McDonalds, 永和大王 and 避风塘. Say it ain't so.

Andy Serkis tossed the dungeons and dragons treatment onto his coffee table, where it thudded to rest atop the scattered remains of nine other fantasy scripts previously discarded. With The Hobbit in post-production and Game of Thrones earning rave reviews on HBO, there was no shortage of epic fantasy projects looking for his participation. How ironic that after years of struggling for this sort of legitimacy he was now hoping for a more conventional role in a dramatic comedy.

And it was exactly then, just as Andy was beginning to feel sorry for both himself and Western culture more broadly, that he noticed the small yellow envelope which had fallen from the table to the yellow carpeting. The writing on the front was written in curiously formal capital letters. And while this was enough to entice him to open the letter and begin scanning it in nonchalant boredom, it wasn't long until his eyes returned afresh to the start of the page, and began anew as he realized the invitation to Beijing was serious.

Murder, wiretapping and blackmail aside, our focus today is actually on a more pedestrian form of linguistic crime: the way many Chinese speakers are managing to butcher mandarin by virtue of not understanding its origins. Specifically, today we focus on five useful idioms that almost every single native speaker now uses to mean the exact opposite of what they actually mean.

This is more difficult show than most of our intermediate lessons, since we spend a bit of time talking about classical Chinese, but if you're looking to push your way past colloquial mandarin into our upper level, we think you'll find this really useful. In addition to covering some extremely useful chengyu, in the next fifteen minutes you'll learn more about their origins than most native speakers ever will, knowledge we expect you to put to good use at your own discretion.

Things we love about Shanghai include its great subway system, fantastic nightlife, and its green and walkable city streets. But then there are the taxis... and have you ever tried getting a cab in Shanghai? First there is the matter of flagging one down in a place where convention demands that taxi lines are formed in parallel to the road. And assuming you wrest one from the masses and clamber in? Well... then your adventure has only begun.

Learning Chinese? Our lesson today is all about over-specifying when giving directions, a skill that is actually quite useful to have regardless of where you end up living in China. So if you're learning mandarin and already know the basics, join us for a show that will help push you beyond them and towards more upper-level fluency. And if you have any questions, please do let us know in the comment section below, or by email at service@popupchinese.com.

Squeak is our office cat who in the last few years has turned Popup Towers into his own private fiefdom of glass, aluminum and dot-com excellence. Whenever we're recording, he'll paw at the studio door trying to get in. Visitors are always greeted with excitement out of the hope they might bring something edible, and when he wants to relax on his favorite chair, good luck dragging him away from the computer or getting any work done.

Learning Chinese? This lesson is intended for Absolute Beginners to the Chinese language. We start with a fairly simple and straightforward dialogue, and move on with a podcast that will teach you some of the absolute basics to speaking mandarin. So if you're new to Chinese give it a listen and see what you think. And if you have comments or questions, feel free to leave a note, or contact us anytime by email at service@popupchinese.com.

The Shenzhen company's pricing strategy was simple but effective. Five minutes after any customer arrived, they would be guided to the executive sundeck and given several glasses of cool spring water while they waited for the executive team. Once the customer was sufficiently hydrated, their counterparts would arrive with apologies and a gift of the region's finest green tea. After several toasts, the pricing negotiations were never quite as protracted as some customers may have wished.

Learning Chinese? Our elementary lessons at Popup Chinese stretch beyond the baics into dialogues which feature more complex constructions. While these feature common sentence patterns and can help you push your way to fluency, they also highlight the same sort of conversational and colloquial speech you'll find spoken every day in mainland China. So if you're learning Chinese, give us a listen and hear for yourself how much different real spoken Chinese is from the dry, unnatural texts you may be accustomed to from other textbooks.

Memories of last week's floods in Beijing are dying hard, at least judging by the way the hottest selling items on Taobao continue to be car escape kits, and the way traffic now manages to grind to a halt everywhere around the capital anytime there's even a touch of inclement weather.

As a consequence, today on Popup Chinese we're happy to publish a fully-Chinese discussion podcast for advanced listeners. This is really just listening practice, but we have a discussion focused on the topic of last week's flooding in Beijing and there is plenty of new vocabulary for those of you boning up on disaster terminology. And in an interesting twist, we also managed to get Bunny in the studio to talk about this with Echo. In addition to being a now-famous voice-actor, Bunny is also working his way up the ranks as a member of the Chinese security establishment and was out on the streets that day. We hope you like the show.

Samuel had always appreciated architecture, which was why he had insisted on hiring a top-tier architect to design his new office. So how ironic that it would be here - in the iconic glass lobby that had symbolized his success - that he would end both his career and his life. It had not been an easy choice, but what other could he make? In the last week everything he had lived for had been taken away in an elaborate and cruel con game in which even his closest friends and relatives seemed complicit.

Learning Chinese? In our Chinese lesson for today, Brendan, David, Echo and take to our studios to talk about scams in Chinese. This lesson features a fast and natural-speed dialogue involving a man on the brink, so if your mandarin is already at the intermediate level, join us for both it, as well as a discussion on common scams in China and the language you need to know to talk about them. And let us know what you think in the comments section below.

The sheer scale of Emilio Largo's China operations -- including the military bunker in which James found himself sequestered -- suggested far more menacing plans than the mere narcotics-smuggling suspected in London. But there were more questions here than how MI5 had missed the rebirth of SPECTRE, such as how his former adversary had survived their last encounter, or how anyone could setup such a labyrinthine operation in Shanghai without attracting the attention of the Chinese government?

As the sun rose into view through the cell window, James' thoughts turned back to the question of why he was still alive. Perhaps Largo was simply unsure of what exactly Britain knew. If true, this offered some small point of leverage for the imprisoned spy, although after thirty hours without sleep James wondered if he could possibly be alert enough to seize any advantage afforded by it when meeting Emilio later this morning. What he really needed was a coffee.

Although he couldn't remember any details of the accident, having been knocked unconscious by the force of the truck's initial impact, Xiao Li found himself scarred by the collision in unexpected ways. Even months after waking up in a Shunyi hospital, the young man would find his thoughts drifting off at the strangest of times. And his memory was not what it had been in the past, something particularly problematic for someone in the service profession.

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Officer Stevens pried open the warehouse door and slipped into the musty interior. Although armed solely with a knife, he was not the least concerned about his lack of firepower. More pressing in his mind was the far-off wail of sirens, an audible sign the rest of his squad was closing in on this complex. In perhaps fifteen minutes the entire compound would be surrounded by uniformed officers, at which point the escape options for everyone would narrow considerably.

Learning Chinese? This lesson has been a long time in coming, but today we're pleased to present a lesson on verbs which are "secretly gei". And our point here is simple but unexpected. Because while most verbs in Chinese take 给 as either a coverb or complement when they want to communicate the idea of giving something to someone, there are a few curious outliers which can still go-it-alone.