First of all, we should admit that this dialogue sparked a major feud at Popup Towers over the proper way to say the word "power bar" in Chinese. Religious obduracy in Ireland has nothing on the intransigence we've seen take root in our office over the past week. Echo refuses to use anything but 电插板 while Gail keeps making pointed reference to our 接线板. The rest of us being sick of the debate, officially give you permission to use whichever one you prefer.

That said, Elementary students should know that our listening test today is special in essentially defining the upper boundary of our Elementary level. The vocabulary used is relatively straightforward, but it is delivered at a fast, natural speed. So test your Chinese comprehension by listening to our dialogue once and then clicking through to our online quiz to see how much you understood. Our regular popup transcripts and vocabulary lists are available for reference if you need them.

 said on
June 18, 2010
wheres the lesson at?
 said on
June 18, 2010
Apologies everyone, audio uploaded now.
 said on
June 18, 2010
shay shay
 said on
June 18, 2010
呵呵
 said on
January 27, 2011
I would like to make sure. In this sentence:

还有他那嘴唇长得也有点儿过分

The 长得 is there as "has grown into" for "is," like in the good-looking younger brother podcast from a few months back, right? So a block-for-block translation of the sentence would be something like "Also there is that lip of his that is [has grown into] somewhat excessive"?

Initially I thought that the comparison of the nose with the power bar was not only because of the size, but also because of the red light at the tip. :-)
 said on
January 28, 2011
@jyh,

Not sure I understand the question. A really literal translation might be that it's also that his lower lip has grown (长) in such a manner that (得 -- connecting the verb with its result) it's all a bit much (也有点儿过分). That said, we can treat 长得X as a standalone verb meaning "to look X".

Never thought of the red power light. And not sure why it was a power cord in retrospect. Funny thing for me looking back at this sentence is more seeing that 也 tucked away between the verb and its complement phrase.

--dave
 said on
January 28, 2011
@dave

Hi Dave, thanks for the reply.

I am not too sure anymore what my question was :-)

I guess I always have the same problem: I pretty much always guess correctly the meaning of the sentence but there I absolutely no way I would come up with that construction. In this case my problem is with "长得". Would the sentence have roughly the same meaning without it? For that matter, is the sentence even grammatically correct without it?
 said on
January 28, 2011
@jyh,

Yes, you can leave "长得" out, although the meaning of the sentence can become vague. Using "长得" is to point out what the sentence emphasizes is someone's appearance.

Here are some examples with "长得":

她长得很漂亮。 She looks very pretty.

他的鼻子长得有点儿大。 His nose is a bit big.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 28, 2011
@Echo - Thanks, this is beginning to make sense. I was focusing on the "grow/come into" meaning of 长得 and I think that I had ended up attributing a dynamic/process coloration to it.
 said on
November 17, 2011
I often hear hotel staff refer to this as 插线板儿 is that incorrect?
 said on
November 18, 2011
@drummerboy,

插线板儿 or 接线板儿 is correct too :)

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
January 23, 2014
There seems to only be the dialogue here, can't find the lesson. Can someone help?
 said on
October 30, 2014
bump: lesson not playing for me either, just the dialog.
 said on
October 30, 2014
Listening test. There is only the dialogue for this one.