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PODCAST

Popup Chinese

The most convenient way to learn Chinese the way it is actually spoken and used. Start with our basic lessons, and in no time you"ll be listening to music, watching films and television and engaging in the actual language. With free daily podcasts, a vibrant community, online study tools and much more, PopupChinese is the most powerful and personal way to learn mandarin.

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All Episodes

08:00

Advanced - Things We Love About China

Popup Chinese ·

2013/10/21

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

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08:00

Intermediate - Faking the Art of War

Popup Chinese ·

2013/10/14

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

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08:00

Elementary - Buzzing Up (and hating China)

Popup Chinese ·

2013/10/03

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

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08:00

Absolute Beginners - Ambulance Days

Popup Chinese ·

2013/09/25

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

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08:00

Elementary - Lost in a Parking Garage

Popup Chinese ·

2013/08/27

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

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08:00

Advanced - Chinese Pet Stories

Popup Chinese ·

2013/08/19

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.

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08:00

Absolute Beginners - The Art of Email

Popup Chinese ·

2013/08/12

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

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08:00

Intermediate - Sheep Disappointment

Popup Chinese ·

2013/08/05

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

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08:00

Elementary - The General Relativity Ultimatum

Popup Chinese ·

2013/07/22

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

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08:00

Advanced - Flight Delays of the Gods

Popup Chinese ·

2013/07/17

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

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08:00

Intermediate - Brownie Cake, Part II

Popup Chinese ·

2013/07/15

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

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08:00

Elementary - In the Army (Huang Xiaoming edition)

Popup Chinese ·

2013/07/09

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

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08:00

Advanced - If You Are the One

Popup Chinese ·

2013/07/01

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.

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08:00

Elementary - The Duel

Popup Chinese ·

2013/06/24

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

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08:00

Absolute Beginners - A Good Scrubbing

Popup Chinese ·

2013/06/10

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

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08:00

Intermediate - The Oregon Trail

Popup Chinese ·

2013/05/27

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

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08:00

Elementary - Something you don't know about your wife

Popup Chinese ·

2013/05/20

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

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08:00

Advanced - Chinese Parenting

Popup Chinese ·

2013/05/14

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?"

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08:00

Elementary - The Chinese Tutor

Popup Chinese ·

2013/04/29

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

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08:00

Advanced - Memories of School Days

Popup Chinese ·

2013/04/22

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

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535 results

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