You know the tin-foil hat wearing, conspiracy-paranoid crowd that started showing up almost overnight when X-Files became mainstream and that you'll still run into every now and again in the States, and especially if you live in San Francisco? Well... the good news is that China doesn't really have this kind of counterculture yet. The paranoid life is simpler here. More direct. And much less high-tech.

Learning Chinese? The elementary level at Popup Chinese is where we get most of our grammar out-of-the-way, and today's lesson is no exception, focusing on what you'll come to know and love as the continuous aspect: the Chinese way of communicating than an action is ongoing. In this lesson we cover two common ways of doing this and talk about both the similarities and slight differences between these techniques. This is rarely taught in textbooks, but its the sort of thing that separates native speakers from second-language learners, so if you're working towards fluency be sure to give it a listen, and let us know what you think.