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.
 said on
October 7, 2013
按照Echo的意见,我应该是个racist。幸亏,按照Oxford dictionary, 我不是。

我在中国呆了四年,上个7月离开了,现在住在日本。

4年不算太长了,但是也是一个不错的经历。但那些4年中,我经常经常生气了。 我在路上买东西(比如快餐), 试试上公共汽车,去看“应该是”负责人的时候,十有八九,我就觉得绝大部分的人都没有礼貌,文化,能力,而且素质低,服务很差。

如果我满足了的话,意思是我去了一个很贵的地方。那,意思是,如果我想跟老百姓一起生活的话,我不可以希望好服务,好客气吗?

那,我也有挺好的中国朋友,非常好客,对待了我对待得挺好,教我了很多中国文化,特别是中国古代文化。我生气的原因也许就存在这里。我喜欢中国文化,我喜欢学中文。。。但现代中国,新的中国太不一样。
 said on
October 10, 2013
我觉得Echo开玩笑了,同时不开玩笑。她的语气不严重。 谁都不喜欢外国人批评,怎么说?,出生的国家。

My Chinese isn't good enough to express this, but I think Echo was making a joke and making a point at the same time. Nobody enjoys constant criticism of their home country. Calling someone "racist" is just a way to take a little jab. Especially with China, it's a reminder of a cultural backdrop, but a joke at the same time. But I should let Echo speak for herself.

开头的课时,David说"if X are stupid." 我听不懂, 如果谁很笨?然后Echo回答什么?麻烦你写一下。

谢谢
 said on
October 10, 2013
好像David说“拜托”对吧?意思是不是“Oh, please!"?常用的用语吗?
 said on
October 10, 2013
Yup. It's oh please... give me a break... come on!!

 said on
October 10, 2013
Nice to see a new lesson - but I personally feel as though it has too much english conversation, which my lazy ears/brain lock on to then refuse to switch context back to mandarin when needed! It would be nice to cut it down - or even provide an mp3 that has just the chinese (with possibly with bare minimum English notes, and no discussion/tangents). Perhaps even something as crude as recording english in the left channel only or something?

I appreciate that the discussions are an integral, if not primary, part of Popup Chinese, conveying the culture and attitude of the authors and thus the entire site - just feeding back that the saturation of English really detriments the podcasts learning potential in my view. It's the context switching that undermines learning efforts at the beginner/intermediate stage: we do not seek these skills just yet :)

Thanks for all the hard work & overall great product.
 said on
October 11, 2013
@bionara,

Fair enough, but it IS an elementary lesson. So we try to keep it accessible to people who have studied maybe between 3 months and 2 years? For some people this is the step up from Absolute Beginners....

We have some more intermediate stuff coming out shortly. Was actually hoping to publish a show earlier this week, but since Sinica is coming out later today it's getting pushed to next Monday.

Cheers,

--david
 said on
October 11, 2013
Bionara, you say context switching is a higher level language school? Ahh..never thought of it that way, but it must be.

 said on
October 11, 2013
I mean higher level language skill..
 said on
October 11, 2013
Mac.Jamie: Yes, effectively that's what I said/think! I was trying to convey that the primary thing we're after, as beginners especially, is immersion, with the sole reason being to hold our focus and force us to 'think in that language'. This helps/makes us absorb the new language effectively and efficiently. The context switching bursts this bubble of focus, which results in longer and more difficult study sessions. It ruins the optimisation that we seek in the short bursts that the pod cast format lends itself to so perfectly.

David & team: Again, a fantastic resource and site - it's easy for people to throw criticism, but I'm trying to do so constructively! And to be honest, I'm 'just saying' and don't necessarily want/expect/demand changes :)

 said on
October 12, 2013
For my part, whilst tentatively agreeing with you, I would really relish a Media Section in addition to the short stories and levels. In the Vocab. you will have an area of Media, say Diplomacy, Military, Terrorism, Gossip or Law and Order.

I dont know why, but Media in evety language is The Silent Shame. You can never say its the biggest learning barrier, you can never ask a teacher to teach it to you.

Every language program, whether the excellent Pao Pao C or University course will always teach the impratical flowery stuff, like poetry. Actually, I write poetry! I love the stuff ! I just want to get along, you know, to know whats going on and TO HEAR and SPEAK about the news/media to my friends. To feel empowered by this knowledge. Reading just doesnt cut it.

But you can never ask a teacher to teach you this most important of all language areas. It is The Silent Shame.
 said on
October 12, 2013
I wrote a long e mail about this to Service at Pop-Up Chinese, but it was defeated by the barrier of silence that exists in every language program.
 said on
October 12, 2013
I will rewrite this comment in the more advanced sections, but you can never start too early with the media, the receptive aural understanding of which us paramount. Everything else is icing, not the cake, in this world of controversy and issues. Man is a Political Animal. All is is emboidery, a cultivated distraction, la la land.
 said on
October 12, 2013
All else is emboidery, a cultivated distraction -la la land.
 said on
October 13, 2013
Hey Jamie,

Yeah, the email is sitting in my inbox -- I kept procrastinating since it was quite long, so I'm sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner and privately. Although I'm happy to chat about this stuff.

Just to chip in anyway, we don't do Tang poetry to date largely because it doesn't seem easily teachable or useful for developing colloquial mastery. We also have a lot of colloquial readings more than extremely literary ones (the Lu Xun one is fairly straightforward for example -- compare to Kite or Diary!) Somewhat likewise with the news stuff. We could do something and getting people in the studio is easy enough, but I'm not sure how to make it really good.

Suggestions are welcome. Likewise if there is anyone actually IN Beijing who wants to come by our studio and try stuff out, we can experiment that way too. I do want to avoid just putting up random audio since I think quality is more important than quality, and it is easy to start just knocking bad content out if people are reduced to just reading the news.

It is a good question.

Best,

--david
 said on
October 14, 2013
if you've been in China a long time, and you speak the language, you will detest living there. Of course it makes you more irritable. So does being stared at, mocked on the street, etc. When you start hearing Waiters/Waitresses talk shit about you, standing 5 ft away from your table, you'll book tickets out of China.

Enjoy your brief stay in the illustrious Middle Kingdom--be sure to invest in a good set of earplugs. City Shop has the good Japanese import ones.
 said on
October 14, 2013
if you've been in China a long time, and you speak the language, you will detest living there. Of course it makes you more irritable. So does being stared at, mocked on the street, etc. When you start hearing Waiters/Waitresses talk shit about you, standing 5 ft away from your table, you'll book tickets out of China.

Enjoy your brief stay in the illustrious Middle Kingdom--be sure to invest in a good set of earplugs. City Shop has the good Japanese import ones.
 said on
October 14, 2013
The most 排外 treatment you get is in the big cities. 二线城 will genuinely stare at you and talk about you out of curiousity (let's face it, they're bored as hell)... but in the big cities there's no excuse. 北京精神 my ass. ;)
 said on
October 14, 2013
My suggestion with Media Readings is to just keep the News article pretty much the way it is and perhapsexplain some difficult language points and chat at the same time about the news issue being studied.

Actually this is all a student would need. Quantity is more important than quality by far. The news happens every day. The student has a lot to learn and quality will reduce comprehensible input volume.
 said on
October 14, 2013
Trevelyan, with Media Readings creativity isnt important. We have the stories and lessons for that. It should be a hit the ground running style of lesson.

If anything can help improve self-esteem in China, understanding the news will. You can then talk about it to taxi drivers or your Chinese wife or your co-teacher.

When people wonder whether they know a language, they generally ask themselves whether they can understand a news broadcast, not a story or a conversation.Media is the barometre of language sucess.

Thats just the way it is. And language programs should start refecting that, if only to have another competitive advantage over Chinese Pod.

 said on
October 17, 2013
I agree with bionara. The frequent and rapid switching between the languages is unhelpful. As an elementary learner, I need an introductory explanation of the situation, with some vocab preparation, and then the (uninterrupted) Chinese at a slightly slower delivery than natural speed. Followed by some repetition (at natural speed, perhaps) and translation. The best thing, I think, would be to follow the Chinese (without English interruption) in the transcript, but for that I have to subscribe, it seems :-( I might consider doing that if I felt the podcasts were better structured.

 said on
October 17, 2013
frogball47 : This sounds like a good suggestion. I do find it hand when they prime in English, then into the Chinese as your mind's already context-aware, so more likely to follow and identify phrases/words.

However, I think Popup Chinese have nailed it with the speed, voices and accent as it prepares you more for real-world stuff; and it keeps things interesting, humorous, and commands your attention due to the sometimes non-logical (and totally natural) directions they take.

The transcripts are very useful (I signed up a few weeks ago) and I check them out for every podcast. They're great (essential for me) for micro level learning, like clarifying tones, on top of macro level learning like identifying sentence structures and characters. It's a good price for the year, and the money's not just paying for these additional fees, but actually being used to subsidise the entire platform and content, so I'm quite happy.

But yes, I think less INTERSPERSED English discussion at these levels would be a good thing (it's fine, just bunch it up).
 said on
October 23, 2013
I kinda like the amount of English this lesson had. I feel there are many other lessons where there is more Chinese and there is the intermediate section.

The English really helps when im multitasking. When my mind starts to glaze over due to the amount of Chinese, the English will bring things back into context, and help me find my place if i had gotten "lost".

Thats the thing i like about the elementary lessons. You can still learn something while not busting your brain due to the effort of concentrating.
 said on
November 9, 2013
Where's the new content chaps? Seems this time last year Pop-up Chinese was delivering the goods much more frequently :)
 said on
December 10, 2013
In your transcript section, I have found the node for listening to the separate pinyin/english sections very useful for personal practice in speaking (mimicry). Of late, the node does not seem to work; I hear nothing when I press it; the node arrow does turn dark, however.

Have you discontinued the node transmission? To me it's worth its weight.

Maybe there is a technical problem with my computer; but everything else works fine. Thank you.

Canderson_91
 said on
December 30, 2013
"context switching bursts this bubble of focus" well, going out of your comfort zone is exactly what you need to learn to think in the language on your feet. It's the difference between the learning in classroom and learning language through everyday application.