You have to be kidding me, baby! I couldn't have even started to imagine that you two were an item. I mean... the matching clothing is sort of strange now that you mention it, but it isn't exactly out there for two friends to own the same Alanis Morissette hoodie. Just think about it - you only need ten people in the same room before there's a seventy percent chance two of them share the same birthday. I read that on the Internet.

Learning Chinese? Let's just be honest and admit that there are some situations in which expressing disbelief in English can be convoluted and difficult. Fortunately, these are exactly the times you need to switch to Chinese, where adding a single word to the start of any sentence is all that's required to throw reasonable doubt on even the most incontrovertible facts.
 said on
March 4, 2011
I read this one before I listened to it, but I skipped the line "小王!" so that it seemed the final line belonged to the guy.
 said on
March 6, 2011
那个音乐有什么名字?
 said on
March 6, 2011
Why the name popup Chinese? I had read because if I put the mouse over pinyin spelling it would give the character, or something of this sort. But there is no video or visuals to position the mouse under, only audio. No written text, no characters, no pinyin. Is that all there is to your courses, audio?? Kind of limited it seems to me.
 said on
March 6, 2011
@lareschultz,

Plenty of premium stuff here, although we're not very aggressive about calling attention to it. If you want to read the transcript or text for any lesson online, try clicking on the text or vocabulary tabs in the main menu link above. There are some other options that will show up in select lessons as well, like tests for the HSK lessons and writing modules for our writing lessons.

If you dig around, you'll find popup annotated versions of a lot of Chinese texts, including Dream of the Red Chamber. Also things like our read/write downloadable Chinese Firefox plugin with our 200,000+ word strong dictionary. All that said, we went with the name Popup Chinese because we liked the sound, and it works well in Chinese too: 泡泡中文.

And welcome to the site too,

--david

 said on
May 26, 2011
Hey, I'm just a little curious. Is there a difference between 对啊 and 对呀? My learner ears can't hear a phonetic difference and the meaning of the two would be the same wouldn't it?
 said on
May 26, 2011
@mattjelly,

No difference. 呀 comes from 啊, because 啊 can be pronounced in different ways, and one of them is 呀.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
June 7, 2011
@Echo,

Thanks for the clarification :)

I have a new question about 已经 though.

I get that the use of 已经 is different to the use of 'already' in English. However, 'we've already been together for 2 years' is an acceptable sentence in English, where 'already' is being used to suggest that two years is quite a long time. How would this distinction be made in the Chinese version?
 said on
June 8, 2011
@mattjelly,

I would say 我们在一起已经两年了。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
April 21, 2012
What is the name of the song at the beginning of this podcast?

 said on
April 21, 2012
@apoorvashah101,

It's 不留 (nothing remains) by Wang Fei:

http://www.popupchinese.com/lessons/ktv-wednesday/wang-fei-nothing-remains

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 28, 2012
Hey is anyone else not able to download/ listen to this lesson? I have tried two different browsers but no luck.
 said on
May 28, 2012
@memnoch87, it's working for me in Chrome and Internet Explorer.
 said on
May 28, 2012
@murrayjames it must just my computer *sigh*
 said on
May 28, 2012
Also reading through the transcript. Why does he say 你有男朋友? without 吗?
 said on
May 28, 2012
@memnoch87,

It can be omitted if you make the question intonation obvious enough when you speak a sentence (meaning raising up your intonation at the end of a sentence). It's same to English, you can change a statement into a question by changing the intonation of the sentence.

What is your browser?

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 30, 2012
In the vocab page for this lesson a 不 is missing from 不知道 bu4 zhi1dao5.
 said on
May 30, 2012
@murrayjames,

Problem fixed, thanks murrayjames.

--Amber

amber@popupchinese.com
 said on
April 2, 2013
i want to nominate Gayle for the 辣妹 vocal category! im a big fan!
 said on
April 3, 2013
@dragonfly - just to clarify - it's Wang Fei singing in the beginning, not Gail :-)

I miss her, too, as I do Nicole (http://www.popupchinese.com/lessons/intermediate/how-to-start-a-business-in-china).