Mildred's relationship with her cat had taken a significant turn for the worse in the past few months, degenerating to the point it had started treating her with open resentment. In recent days the creature would sit on its perch by the window surveying her with a sullen contempt, an attitude that settled into begrudging acquiescence only when she ventured to change its litter or feed it a snack.

It was hard to say when exactly the shift had occurred, but it probably dated to the cessation of her academic leave and the reversal of her and her husband's schedule. Even since March she had been working routinely from her downtown office while Philip spent most of his time at home handling domestic matters and working on his home business. But even if that was the cause of the change, what exactly had triggered it. Feelings of betrayal, or loneliness?
 said on
August 3, 2011
I noticed that the 不 in 不再 here keeps its 4th tone, instead of becoming a 2nd tone when followed by a 4th tone. Is this a special case where the usual tone sandhi rule for 不 doesn't apply?
 said on
August 3, 2011
@Jhcline,

I heard 不再 as 2nd tone and 4th tone respectively.

Don't worry, there is no exception to the tone sandhi rules that govern 不 and 一.

 said on
August 3, 2011
@Xiao Hu,

I hear the 2nd and 4th tones now in the audio, but the tone marks on the transcript and vocab pages show only the 4th tone, so I wanted to double-check. Thank you for your quick reply. ;)
 said on
August 3, 2011
@jhcline,

No problem. :)

Don't get confused by tone marks not reflecting tone sandhi. Proper writing with Pinyin should never reflect tone sandhi, it's always up to the speaker to change the tones for themselves.
 said on
August 3, 2011
@Xiao Hu,

That's helpful to know. I always thought that the Pinyin should reflect tone sandhi. Now I won't be confused by this again. :)
 said on
August 3, 2011
@Jhcline,

Truthfully, tone sandhi is a very confusing subject. Anything I can do to aleviate confusion and make student's learning process that much smoother.

祝你学习中文很愉快!

:)
 said on
August 7, 2011
你好!

In question 5 on the pdf download, it asks:"我们的猫不会再爱你了" 的意思是?

I thought at first that the answer was 我们的猫不知道怎么爱你, but then when I saw I was wrong I understood that this is because there is no "了" for the change of state (so the question and answer would be in two different tenses). However, I wondered if the answer could be: 我们的猫不再知道怎么爱你了, and well as the correct answer of 我们的猫以后不爱你了?

多谢你的帮助!
 said on
August 8, 2011
@wibbleypig2003,

Hmmm, the answer is no, because "不会" and "不知道" are talking about two different things. " 不会" is just a fact that the cat will not love love you anymore, while "不知道" is the cat doesn't know how to love you anymore.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
April 21, 2012
so can you say 他在写字儿????
 said on
April 21, 2012
@sageres,

Yes, you can.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 11, 2012
well how about 汉字儿, is there any other times you say zir4???
 said on
May 11, 2012
@sageres,

No, just when 字儿 is the noun.

--Amber

amber@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 30, 2012
Can 字儿 also be pronounced zi4er2, or is the pinyin in this lesson incorrect?
 said on
May 30, 2012
@murrayjames,

You are right! Our bad. Fixed :)
 said on
December 5, 2012
一直在训练 和 一直训练 有什么不同?
 said on
December 7, 2012
@loveja37,

意思是一样的,有“在”的句子更强调。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
December 7, 2012
谢谢!! 我最近天天听popup chinese. 我觉得蛮好啊~ 哈哈。。