Robert suspected his wife's strange preoccupation with Beijing Opera was beginning to affect their marriage. While he had always been aware of her fascination with Chinese culture, after she became involved in a local theatre troupe, June seemed much less willing to compromise on the small issues, or even consider things from his perspective. And then there were her midnight practice sessions, furtive telephone calls and paranoid protectiveness of personal toiletries.

Learning Chinese? Our elementary lesson today is a bit trickier than most, but if you've been with us for a while we think you'll enjoy it, since it introduces a new sentence pattern we haven't run into yet, and that we're not aware of being covered in any textbook we've stumbled into to date. Despite the hour of pain that preceded the recording, we had a good time making this show and hope you enjoy it too.
 said on
May 22, 2013
Funny lesson. Especially, the second dialogue. I have a question about the first question from the pdf dialogue. It seems like 整天, 成天, and 全天 all have similar meanings of "all day (long)". Is this not right?
 said on
May 22, 2013
老婆是太监,,,逻辑上讲不通啊亲 哈哈
 said on
May 22, 2013
甚好!如果是泡泡中文的对话,肯定有太监,僵尸,吸血鬼,还是海盗。 You should do one with all of them in one... on the Titanic while in an Inception dream sequence.
 said on
May 23, 2013
So great to have all three of you in the studio together!
 said on
May 23, 2013
@burento5,

Yes, that's right. However, 全天 there only means "the whole day", and it doesn't have the meaning of "everyday".

@孔瑞,

太监、僵尸、吸血鬼和海盗们从一个梦中醒来,发现他们都在正在沉没的泡泡泰坦尼克号的甲板上,风雨大作,他们不知道自己是在梦里还是在现实里。吸血鬼想,如果他在这里死了,就能回到现实了,所以他跳了船,晕了过去。醒来以后却发现自己还是在水里,这时候他才想起来:原来他早就死啦!不能再死一次了......

欢迎大家来接龙继续讲故事 :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 23, 2013
太监是什么意思? 我不太明白太监这个名词~
 said on
May 23, 2013
@Echo

故事继续:虽然吸血鬼(Jack,Leo在演)不能再死一次,有命运比死亡更糟。Jack一看他在水中的爱人就发现Rose(Ellen Page在演)是个太监,而且他为海盗工作!不可能!他最近画的人(还有最近在车里陪他的人)绝对不是男的!海盗的样子为什么很像那个被烟囱砸死的意大利人?为什么说不出来他的名字?Fablizio? Fabalazio? 为什么僵尸在吃他的脑子?太困惑了!应该怎么办?

接龙继续讲故事。。。

PS. This post was originally going to include a 巴恪思 reference related to Rose and Jack's relationship but in order to avoid introducing 精神污染 into Popup Chinese (in whose recordings such material is, of course, completely absent) I held myself back.

@loveja37 太监means "Eunuch"... which is absolutely essential vocabulary if you plan to listen to Popup Chinese.

 said on
June 11, 2013
Just listened to this podcast again, so awesome. This is why I love popup... 泡泡中文能干的事多着呢 :)
 said on
September 15, 2013
那個天真的丈夫太可憐啊!!

我問你們,這個句子 “她都做些什麼?” 跟這個句子 “她都做什麼?” 有沒有不一樣?如果不說些句子的意思變化了多小?有沒有細微的差別?
 said on
September 18, 2013
@裴戴維,

没有太大的差别,有“些”的时候标明了复数而已。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
December 13, 2013
It seems like there's supposed to be some link between eunuch and secretary in Chinese, is this true? Perhaps that's where the joke stems from... Nevertheless, it is humorous; please inform!
 said on
April 28, 2016
I love the very short music clip about 10 seconds in. Could you please give me the name of the song/artist?
 said on
May 6, 2016
@trevelyan,

Great, thanks :-)