Brendan cultivates an air of eccentricity. He's constantly forgetting the names of friends and relatives, wandering around our studio looking for whatever book he happens to be holding, or putting his glasses in the kitchen blender and absentmindedly powering it up. So you may be surprised to hear that this podcast isn't based on a true story. And that Brendan usually comes to recording sessions fully clothed.

And yes, this lesson definitely falls at the easier end of the Elementary curve. It would be Absolute Beginner in fact, except for the pace of the podcast and the grammar point: a rumination on the difference between 去哪儿了 and 哪儿去了. To make it up to you more advanced speakers, we've enabled our voice recording hotline. To get feedback on your spoken mandarin, or just gossip with our crew, give us a call and share your own embarrassing story in Chinese.