@pefferie, Echo,Just one thing to chip in -- technically the part of speech for words like 今天，明天，早上，etc. in Chinese is noun (a specific subcategory of time nouns). Mentioned not because it affects the logic of pefferie's answer, but because it's related to a consistency problem in Chinese that a lot of people struggle with: the way you can use nouns like 刚才 or 今天 as the standalone answer to time-related questions like ("when did this happen?") but can't use adverbs like 刚刚.
@Ibano7,Until we have a javascript-based audio player that will work on the iPad (or iPhone), the best way to get started on that device is probably hooking up the public iTunes feed:https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/popup-chinese/id292036117
That's right.
The questions are a mix of HSK materials as well as questions which cover particular points mentioned in the lessons as well as some grammar-oriented questions not found elsewhere. The questions should get more difficult as you do better. The goal is to continue expanding it and making the questions better.
That said, if you don't answer anything incorrectly -- we still will recommend something at the level we think you're at. The reason being that we don't want someone who visits the site and starts the test to end up with nothing to do and no idea of what to do next.
Goal is integrating all of this into a more comprehensive learning system with a stronger sense of grammar and teaching points. We're not there yet, but we are moving towards it. Right now we working on another feature we're hoping to announce next week or the week after.
We've actually got the HSK vocabulary lists on our HSK test page. There were other lists floating around, but when we looked closely things didn't line up, so we had to digitize and translate the official lists when we put them together. Best of luck anyway.
This is Brendan's coy way of asking for a raise.... I'm not actually against it either. I just don't want the dialogues to be bad or uninteresting.
Anyone with ideas please do feel free to submit them to us by email (service@popupchinese.com). Sometimes we have a lot of trouble coaxing good stuff out of our voice actors on particular ideas, so even if it is a great idea, no promises on delivery. But we can try.
Perhaps I'll set up a Kickstarter page to get this rolling. I actually found a youtube clip of you (David) and Echo being interviewed by Xinhua (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2zgUq1fytw)so you seem pretty damn fluent to me (not that I ever questioned that you were ;)). As far as ideas go, I think there are some areas of satire to explore as it pertains to Chinese perceptions of Americans and Canadians (a country north of Montana). You guys have explored this in some depth in previous dialogs where the voice actors slow...down...the...language once they discover someone is a foreigner. Also, the pitfalls of transliteration from English to Chinese is a rich playing ground for shtick.
Ok, so having just met Sidney Rittenberg the other day I do have an idea. You could construct some sort of comical script with Mao, Zhou En Lai and Sidney. They used to all play cards together and I think there is a script idea that would involve Brendan playing the part of Sidney and Gao (if he's still around) playing the part of Mao.