Nice quiz on this lesson. You should add these to more lessons!

The extra example sentences with translation given after the dialogue are a great addition to the lesson - helps me train my ear for improved listening comprehension.

@davidwilljack,

Thanks for the feedback. I want to reply at length because I think your comment gets to the heart of how we do things and deserves a serious answer. But first let me say that if you have suggestions on specific dialogues you'd like to see and/or new formats you'd like us to try we would very honestly welcome them.

> The Chinese stuff is too stilted, yours too

> contrived. Both fail to deliver 'authentic,

> real-world and relevant' dialogues.

Our situations are often dramatized, but the language is not. The speaking patterns, cadence and speed of what we do is exactly what you'll hear in China. That is our criteria for relevance. What we consider irrelevant are lessons with names like "A Trip to the Museum" that introduce the names of 10 creatures from Jurassic Park. People can spend years listening to that stuff and never make any progress because the emphasis is in the wrong place. We focus on building up a comfort level with actual spoken Chinese.

Is the language here relevant? Let's take a look at a few of the lines in this dialogue:

你们这儿为什么会有这么多....

他们都是一流的，都是符合国际标准的

有点意思。就这么定了....

This is Chinese the way it is spoken. We feature more high frequency phrases and shorter patterns in our Elementary and Absolute Beginner materials. But we believe we would be doing our more advanced students a disservice by dumbing-down the Intermediate content. The biggest problem we see serious students have time and time again is failing to make it through conversations at normal speed because their comprehension drops halfway. Once people are comfortable with the way Chinese is spoken their brain parses around words they don't understand. Just like any other language. Learning comes more naturally.

All that said, if you have suggestions on what you'd like to see please do send them in. I'd be interested to learn what exactly it is you're looking for and if we can try it out we will. Practically speaking, we're all for letting 100 flowers bloom, trying different approaches and seeing what works for different people. And without the purges, either.

Best,

--david

@davidwilljack,

Yes, the dialogues are sometimes surreal, overacted, improvised and understated. Occasionally even disgusting. But hopefully memorable. I disagree that the word zombie is not intermediate level content or is impractical (金刚 is also surprisingly useful), but all feedback is appreciated.

If you can take a moment to write up a dialogue or two you think exemplifies the kind of relevance you're looking for (even in English) please do send it along to us. There's no hypothetical limit to the number of lesson series we can run, so even if things don't fit within an existing lesson series, it's always possible to find new ways of doing things. Also, since we plan to be recording until the heat death of the universe, constant experimentation is a good thing.

Best,

--david

Erratum: xing2hao4, yi1lu4 (umlaut)(Apologies: can't write Hanzi)

I already have these dialogues so what would be the point? They are someone else's creativity so although some people would doubtless find them useful, it wouldn't be right. I'm sure you and your team are more than able to produce your own stuff in a similar vein, if you really wanted to without any input from me.

Agreed. The insane dialogues are the reason I subscribe. My textbook, "New Practical Chinese Reader" is full of useful lexical terms and structures... It's definitely practical, but it is tedious! I have to force myself to study it.. Lessons like 'The Gay Vampire' (my personal favourite) not only break the monotony but have taught me loads. I keep coming across grammar points and vocab in NPCR which I understand because you guys have covered it- and in a way that doesn't put me to sleep or go make yet another cup of tea.

Agreed that the novelty and challenge have value even to beginners like myself. There has to be a balance between basics and novelty/interest. I think the balance here is about right, especially if this is not your only resource. The trick to learning languages is motivation and multiple learning methods. Fortunately, this seems to be the golden era of language learning, given the volume of low cost learning content.

@greatgil,

起到 means in resulting. We always say 起到...作用，起到...帮助 or 起到...效果 in Chinese. For instance, 他在这里没起到什么作用 (he's not of any use here).到 is the complement of the verb 起. You can choose to use 了 as same as in other sentences.

@oliver.holton,

谢谢，如果你有什么对话的建议，也欢迎告诉我们呀！

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

Once again late to the discussion. The dialogs are both interesting and creative which results in motivation to learn more Chinese. It is also a rewarding bonus to walk up to your Chinese friends and engage them in the subjects covered in Popup Chinese. Thats what sets this site apart from all other language programs. The dialogs are witty and interesting even to native speakers (generally speaking). Every lesson focuses on a larger grammatical pattern which goes way beyond the immediate subject manner of the dialog. Its only when you learn slang and speak naturally that you begin to make real connections with native speakers of Chinese.

@mtpastille,

Thanks for your support mtpastille, our 老大 called those weird but brilliant contents conflicts.^^

Now to the questions:

1.会 has the meaning of 'can', with it here the sentence can be translated as 'why there can be so many zombies?', although it's abnormal in English. But if you delete it, the sentence is still OK. In Chinese, 会 sometimes just like plus sign in front of a number, making no big difference.

2.Yes, it is.

--Amber

amber@popupchinese.com

@mtpastille,

谢谢你这么喜欢我们 :)

Amber has answered your questions, but there is something I'd like to add:

1 It means "possible" there. Like in this sentence: 我怎么会知道？(How could I possibly know)

2 Not really. You can simply look at 以后 as from now on or from then on. For example, you can say 以后我们就是朋友了. (From now on, we are friends.) However, when you use 之后，you usually need to give people a condition, and you can use 之后 alone. Like in the dialogue, "孩子们和僵尸成为朋友之后...", you will need to provide the condition 孩子们和僵尸成为朋友. So you can use 之后 as after something happened (and you always need to let people know what has happened).

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

I just listened to this lesson, and I'm late to the discussion as per - won't stop me from chipping in tho :)

I've worked as a language teacher for about 5 years now, and there's a common myth amongst language learners that learning the language and learning how to have a conversation are one and the same. Vocabulary and grammar can be taught, but as any fluent second language speaker will tell you, conversation is a skill that needs to be learned, and can't be taught.

One simply cannot learn "useful" sentences and parrot them back in the hope of having a conversation. Since no teacher can predict what the content of your conversations will be in the future, the example dialogues given that contain the target grammar and vocabulary may as well be about zombies and gay vampires as much as it may be about buying train tickets or some such stock situation from any language textbook - just because the context may be contrived/wacky/offensive, doesn't mean that the vocabulary or the grammar is going to be wrong.

@donalthurley,

It's "In this way" rather than "so" in this context. The meaning is closer to "so" or "so very much like this" if it is used preceding an adjective (这么好，etc.)

Best,

--david