We took Squeak in after a friend found him huddling in the bushes of her apartment complex. As he's grown up, our once-tiny kitten has developed a fondness for gnawing on things as a general solution to any problem, along with a voracious appetite for lychee and fondness for fetching paper balls. Given that our last non-Chinese cat spent most of its time sleeping, our conclusion is that Chinese cats are pretty cool.

Learning Chinese? At the elementary level our dialogues start moving away from simple words to more complex sentences. And while our dialogue for today is still not that complex, it moves as quickly as the language you'll hear on the streets of Beijing. So if you're pushing ahead with your mandarin or are an animal lover looking to pick up some pet-related vocabulary, join us for a lesson that will set you on the right track.
 said on
May 25, 2011
This is a muscle-cat...肌肉猫...

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 25, 2011
太可爱了。他还会捡纸球吗?
 said on
May 25, 2011
@尼古拉斯桑,

对,他特别喜欢玩纸球。不过他和狗捡球的方法有点儿不一样,他如果想玩儿,就会把球捡回来,如果他不想玩儿,怎么扔他也不捡。他非常self-centered...

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
May 25, 2011
Keep up the good work. This was a fun.

 said on
May 28, 2011
@Echo

听起来Squeak跟我的猫一样。
 said on
May 29, 2011
@尼古拉斯桑,

哈哈,可是Squeak更喜欢玩儿的一个游戏是咬人......

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
June 8, 2011
...liked the quiz!
 said on
June 8, 2011
@griffith.craig,

你喜欢猫吧?
 said on
June 11, 2011
还可以, 最喜欢狗

 said on
June 11, 2011
@griffith.craig,

我也是最喜欢狗,特别是大的狗,它们真可爱。
 said on
June 17, 2011
我住在沈阳。 最近沈阳规定不许养大狗
 said on
December 1, 2011
Wow kinda disturbing...:(
 said on
May 27, 2012
Somewhat unrelated question - what do you think the best translation for "significant other" is?

Benny
 said on
May 27, 2012
@bennyoyama,

你的问题很好... It's also a hard one, because in Chinese, we'd like to use more specific words, like 丈夫,妻子,(老公,老婆),男朋友,女朋友. The closest word I can think of now is 爱人. It can be used to refer to both female and male partners. However, it still tends to describe people who are married.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
April 17, 2013
Ha, my Chinese coworker wrote 灌 instead of 罐 for 罐头。

Success.
 said on
June 27, 2015
My Chinese friends all claim they could write 罐 easily...no way to prove it though as they are across the pond.
 said on
June 27, 2015
@Crowley.brendan,.

缶部+艸字頭+吅+隹 makes a 罐

缶部 signifies this is a container, but 氵is not even in the ballpark. I don't understand how any self respecting Chinese could possibly make this mistake. Are you sure they weren't ABC?