If you're living in China you've probably heard our selection for this week already (it tends to burrow into your head). What you may not know is that the singer is American.

Born in West Virginia, Wilber Pan moved to Taiwan at the age of seven. He started working as a DJ with the Channel V music channel there, and has produced a number of popular albums, many of which have songs which are highly imitative of others. As with the Flowers' Xi Shua Shua, allegations of copycatting have not stopped his music from dominating mainland charts.

On a more academic note, it's worth commenting that Wilber pronounces one of the words in this song... wrong. We don't point this out to harp about it and don't think it has anything to do with his being a non-mainlander. It's an instructive mistake though as the error involves confusing two words that look practically identical and have similar meanings. If you're feeling up to the challenge, see if you can find it by just listening. We've pointed out the mistake in the notes section of our annotated popups.
maxiewawa
 said on
December 31, 2008
Hey guys, there's a lot of stuff here that's not on the podcast feed... not even a mention of it on the feed... maybe put something there that says "today's video is 什么什么, if you want to hear more come to the site". I had no idea there was even a KTV show. Or a quiz feature. (They're pretty good you know. Still 讨厌考试 though)

Oh yeah, and how about a comments feed?

I usually put a show's podcast feed in iTunes and the comments feed in Bloglines... that usually means I get everything that is ever written by anyone at that site... but popupchinese is the exception...

There's only so many times one can pop back to the site if any new comments have been written!

谢谢
trevelyan
 said on
December 31, 2008
Hi maxiewawa, the comments feed is here:

http://popupchinese.com/feeds/community

All of the lessons are on the iTunes RSS feed. iTunes just displays the entries with an associated podcast though, so many of the HSK materials won't appear through the program. They will appear in Google Reader and other feeds.

We're posting 6 times a week - so there should be something new posted at least every 24 hours through the week, occasionally more. We're usually off on Sunday.

Frank
 said on
December 31, 2008
Holy crap! I actually KNOW this song! LOL A friend of mine from Beijing sent it to me years ago, but it was the last thing I expected to hear when I clicked "Play."

I really like this song a lot. Thanks for posting it!
Frank
 said on
January 1, 2009
One more comment here. I hate to confess this is the first time I'm really digging into the KTV Wednesday. It's a brilliant strategy. Well done!

I'd like to suggest a small change to the text provided, though. In this song, we get verses 1, 2, 3 & 4, then before verse 5 it repeats verses 1 & 2. Then you get to verse 5, but before you get to verse 6, you have to repeat verses 1, 2 & 3. But wait! You have to repeat them out of order! You have to repeat verse 3, then verse 1 & 2. THEN you can go back and do verse 6 before you head back to verse 1 & 2 for the final go 'round.

Musically, and for space constraints, it makes sense to simply state "repeat verse 1 & 2." However, from a learning perspective, scrolling up and down on that page while people are singing and hoping to find the right verse in time to follow along was a bit much. Maybe you could just re-paste the repeating lyrics where they belong? I know it would make the page about a mile long, but I'd rather scroll in one direction and keep up with the singers.

What do you think?
KTV Wednesday
 said on
January 1, 2009
@Frank - we'll expect you proficient in the rap section for some real KTV come February. :)

Frank
 said on
January 1, 2009
Ha! I haven't rapped since the Sugar Hill Gang. (Don't ask.)

We're definitely going to go to KTV when I get there!
marco64
 said on
January 2, 2009
is the mistake 存在? It sounds as if he says it with an "h" in there, but that's more of an accent than anything else, right?
trevelyan
 said on
January 2, 2009
there's that, but we're referring to the difference between 自己 and 自已.

The last two characters look nearly identical, but they're different. The former is a noun (oneself) while the latter is a verb (to control oneself). So it's very easy to get them mixed up. They're pronounced differently though. zi4ji3 versus zi4yi3.
barrister
 said on
January 2, 2009
strange. 自给 is also pronounced zi4ji3. 自给自足. gotta love duoyinci.
dfloyd2
 said on
January 5, 2012
Wait! What?! He is from West Virginia!? So am I! Sorry, but I just got really excited there for a minute :)