As the Western world lurches to the brink of financial Armageddon, people worldwide are searching for leaders who can chart a course through the wreckage. Who will define the next generation of Asian leadership? In this podcast we are proud to present our own candidate for the role, along with a healthy dose of advanced but useful contemporary vocabulary.
trevelyan
said on February 16, 2009
Be curious what you guys think of this one. We went down a different road here - a shorter podcast that includes some English and focuses on highlighting non-obvious terminology with enough repetition that you can actually pick out the language from the podcast alone.Most advanced podcasts in the industry take what I think is a bad approach to teaching intermediate and advanced students, possibly because of a lack of experience learning at that level: they ramp up the difficulty level by simply increasing the length of the dialogue and by mixing in very low-frequency words. The result is something that I think ends up being somewhat boring to people who actually have their act together.In any event, I'd like us to do a lot more experimentation with our advanced materials. This podcast is part of that process of experimentation, so let us know what you think either in the comments section or through email.
marco64
said on February 16, 2009
I liked it. Shorter and more focused than the other advanced podcasts, which were really more focused on listening practice than explicit instruction. This was more about teaching a few useful words and phrases. The mixture of English and Chinese didn't bother me. I'd like to see more of both.
barrister
said on February 16, 2009
enjoyed it too. 歌坛 and 影帝 were both new to me.
xiaoxin
said on February 16, 2009
什么时候听周杰伦讲话没问题了，HSK11级也就不成问题了...
toneandcolor
said on February 17, 2009
I agree with marco64 that's it's nice to have a short, focused lesson with more advanced colloquialisms every once in a while, but I also get a lot out of the other 12-minutes-of-only-Mandarin model as well ("Regional Dialect Party Mix" for example). It would be great to have both types of lessons alternate.
“人气”这个词是不是从日语来的外来语？
Brendan
said on February 17, 2009
@toneandcolor - Baidu Zhidao (or rather, the top answer here) says it's from Korean. Not sure I'd want to take Zhang Q. Netizen's word on etymology, but it seems plausible enough: Google Translating 人气 into Korean yields 인기, and a search for that turns up a couple of pages that seem to be popularity rankings.
henning
said on February 18, 2009
I also don't see the point in the "no English at higher levels" doctrine. I still use a German-English-dictionary about a dozen times a day or more. It is a valid shortcut if you know how to use it. BTW, I also think that the common "no need for grammar at more advanced levels" rule is a fallacy. I got an "Grammar for the Advanced HSK" book that more than just proves the opposite (err, I should read more often in it).
Regarding lengths and format: What I like about Popup is that it unpredicably switches those, turning each podcast into a unique "Kinder surprise egg". I certainly don't see this podcast as a new template for all upcoming Advanced lessons (following a longer text with about 30% recognition definately feels better than fully flunking at the 2 sentences bar), but once in a while an interesting thing to do.
The "One Wikipedia entry - one lesson - one format" approach has its merits, too, but is already covered by others... ;)
toneandcolor
said on February 18, 2009
Henning makes some good points. I never thought about how changing the length and format keeps things interesting around here, but it does. Better to keep experimenting than rigidly stick with one format.
trevelyan
said on February 18, 2009
30 second podcasts coming up!
maxiewawa
said on February 18, 2009
I'm the opposite... I'm half Taiwanese and grew up hearing and speaking that accent. The mainland "Huan yung nyun dao bei jyung" 欢迎您到北京 drives me nuts!
Echo
said on February 18, 2009
@maxiewawa,
我们的拼音会是“huan1ying2 nin2 dao4 bei3jing1"。
其实台湾腔还是很好听的，很甜。
--Echo
echo@popupchinese.com
Brendan
said on February 18, 2009
Blasphemy! Beijinghua is Mandarin the way Jesus spoke it.
borneoherbs
said on February 18, 2009
Hello brother…how you like come to Kowloon? we can make ‘reconstruct’ your handsome face and 搞定 your jaw so you can speak more pretty your Paik-king accent. Also we will teach you some useful Hokkien and Kwangtung ‘man’ words, you know? Because Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan they not big fan the Paik-king speak, very sissy, they become laugh. Real man come Hong Kong play, so we wait you here yankee boy…
maxiewawa
said on February 19, 2009
My point is that when southerners deviate from pinyin spelling by going "zi" instead of "zhi" and "s" instead of "sh" people say that it's wrong, and that it drives them nuts.
But when people say "beijyung" instead of "beijing" and "huanyung" instead of "huanying" they get put on TV...
trevelyan
said on February 19, 2009
@maxiewawa - if someone says "huanyung" in our studio, we grab them by the collar and throw them out the window. I unleash the hounds while Echo flips the recording switch so we capture the chase through our picturesque hutong neighborhood on video.[point taken that 北方 accents are not always standard.]
barrister
said on February 19, 2009
@trevelyan, @maxiewawa - one difference for the double standard in perception might simply be that there is no "yung" sound in mandarin. So while one may come across accented pronunciation in these cases, it isn't as disruptive to conversation as when one of the speakers regularly conflates two completely different sounds.
I actually find the southern accent charming. But I wouldn't go so far as to call it comparable to most northern accents. People who are new to the language should really focus on the standard dialect regardless, and then tread out armed with the knowledge of what is a regional variant in their local community.
riaishappy
said on February 23, 2010
Haha. What a fun lesson. The voice actor voicing Jay Chou actually sounds a lot like Jay.
I just joined, and from what I've seen (and heard), it all looks really good! Keep up the great work!
xiaoxin
said on February 24, 2010
@riaishappy,
Jay Chou在中国很火，我特别喜欢他。你也是他的粉丝吗？
Gail天堂的声音
said on February 25, 2010
@toneandcolor,
yes you are right,“人气” comes from Japanese.
Clamb
said on February 26, 2017
Some useful colloquialisms here， didn't know 影帝，歌坛 or 人气。The dialogue is useful and I like it when it is broken down to explain certain parts of it. However, I don't get why the explanation is given in English at advanced level. An explanation in the target language is always superior as you are further familiarising yourself with the vocab and sentence structure and it is making you think hard to work out what the explanation means in itself. For me, translating into English encourages you to do that at other times, which is not a healthy trend. I think moving towards true fluency involves speaking and thinking as much as possible in the target language. When I have oral Mandarin lessons I don't allow my teacher to use English for these reasons.
