Our Chinese lesson for today dredges up memories of that time we bought a copy of The Matrix Reloaded from a DVD vendor on the streets of Beijing. "This is absolutely the real thing," he swore up and down, "it came straight from Shenzhen yesterday...." And so we bought it and soon found ourselves watching a handicam-rip of Johnny Mnemonic with a near-incomprehensible Chinese dub. The scene with the talking dolphin was particularly humiliating for all involved.

And while there is unlikely to be another movie as bad as Johnny Mnemonic in the near future, China is in Harry Potter mode again and expectations are high for the final film. Operating under the principle that anything goes in this country, in this podcast we talk a bit about the piracy industry in China, review some Chinese DVD-related vocabulary and share a quick language tip on coded signals you really need to back away from the merchandise.