William had been home a mere two hours before his father sequestered him in the living room with a suggestion they sit down and insinuation of a serious conversation to come. This was followed at first by a general humming and hawing, and a few pregnant pauses, and William began to wonder what could be of such obvious concern? What had happened while he was away at university?

Learning Chinese? Our intermediate lesson for today is at the more difficult end of the difficulty spectrum at the Elementary level. But we still felt it was worth publishing, for it focuses on a rarely-taught but incredibly useful expression for telling other people that something isn't a big deal. If this is too difficult for you don't worry though, most of the material at this level is a bit easier to understand, so just check our archives for a show that's closer to your level.
 said on
January 20, 2014
No dialogue or pdf?
 said on
January 20, 2014
Aahhhh..I love Popup Chinese. Gotta love the voice actor when he states "真的。了解和支持“
 said on
January 21, 2014
@xiaokaka,

Thanks for the heads up. Both the PDF and the dialogue files should be up now.

--david
 said on
January 23, 2014
Great lesson with some fantastic words/grammar bites. Thanks!
 said on
January 24, 2014
Well, saying Chinese people never talk about sexual orientation might be an overly strong generalization. Here is a very public discussion underway :) :

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/01/23/cecil-chao-hong-kong-billionaire-gigi_n_4651872.html
 said on
January 24, 2014
I am openly gay at work and was very surprised how open minded Chinese people can be. Actually they caught on that I was gay and was pretty straight forward about it. 那时候,我没出柜了, 可能我被发现了。Of course, I live in the South.. (Guangzhou)
 said on
January 27, 2014
Hi, great podcast!

I'm a bit confused about this sentence in the dialog

我们是爱她的

I was under the impression that the ...是...的 construction was used for past tense events, but here it seems to be used for a present tense. Are the below sentences also possible, and if so what are the differences in meaning/nuance?

我们爱她

我们是爱她

I've often seen 是 without the 的 like the last example. Is this like a progressive aspect? If so, can all verbs take a progressive aspect form, even stative verbs like 爱 which in English usually do not distinguish the progressive aspect (i.e. "I'm loving" isn't common, except in McD commercials =)
 said on
January 28, 2014
@dainichi,

Great question!

我们爱她=我们是爱她的

是…的 is used for past tense events (i.e.我是去年毕业的), but this construction also used for emphasis(i.e.这个问题可以解决=这个问题是可以解决的). So in this case, 是…的has nothing to do with tenses. For this function, negative form不是…的 doesn't apply.

You can say 我们是爱她. 是here 表示肯定 affirmative.(i.e.这房子是太小;昨天是冷;我是喜欢他)so it doesn't involve progressive aspect.

Hope it helps~

 said on
January 29, 2014
Thanks, very helpful. Another question, about the sentence

这件事情很正常了现在

I believe textbook grammar would have prescribed adverb before verb

这件事情现在很正常了

Is 现在 here like an afterthought, or is there something else going on? Would this be common in writing, or is this mostly spoken language?
 said on
January 29, 2014
@dainichi,

这件事情现在很正常了 is perfectly correct in both written and spoken Chinese, so that being said 这件事情很正常了现在 is correct but it's mostly spoken language. i.e.我现在不饿了 you can say 我不饿了现在 in spoken Chinese as well.
 said on
January 29, 2014
That was a great question, dainichi.
 said on
January 30, 2014
@Grace Qi,

Again, thank you so much for taking time to answer!