Between launching a new Chinese website and publishing 27 new lessons and tests on Popup Chinese (that's almost one per day!), we had a pretty intense May. So if you haven't visited us in a while you've missed a lot of new developments. But that's why we have this monthly newsletter, so all is forgiven. And here is our latest news for all of you in the Chinese learning circuit:

* ChineseClass101 Launches *

On May 18th we officially launched ChineseClass101.com, a new learning site we're running in partnership with Innovative Languages, the world leader in educational podcasting. Historically, we've noticed that most Popup Chinese users tend to outperform their peers when it comes to language competence in mandarin. You guys are good, but what you need is not always what a total beginner needs, so our focus with ChineseClass101 is taking the great content we've been producing and develop something focused more tightly on the needs of absolute beginners.

So far the new show seems to be a smash. According to statistics from Apple Computer, our new podcast has already ranked as the #1 educational podcast on iTunes and #54 most popular podcast worldwide. Those are pretty amazing statistics. If you haven't dropped by iTunes, you can check the details on Frank's blog. [http://frankfradella.com/?p=466]

* Our New Writing Pad *

In mid-May we rolled out a disastrous application called The Writing Pad. It was coded in Java and as Brendan commented, "I don't know what we were thinking." We've since ported the software to flash where it actually works. So if you're interested in learning how to write Chinese characters drop by and check it out. Our Writing Pad makes writing characters fun and addictive. And we've just published our first lesson that uses it to introduce the basic rules on how to write hanzi so it's educational too. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/writing/the-two-fundamental-rules]

* FREE T-Shirt Promotion *

You may have spotted our sleek black Popup Chinese t-shirts in some of our promotional graphics. These puppies will bring the heat of a Beijing summer to you wherever you happen to live. And so they're also our promotion for this month. Sign up for a six or twelve month subscription to Popup Chinese and we'll send you a free t-shirt. This is a limited time offer that will expire at the end of the month, so act now! [http://popupchinese.com/users/account]

Our Popular Lessons:

In May we published a variety of lessons with content at every level of difficulty. Here are our favorites:

* Absolute Beginners: Watership Down

Sometimes our lessons veer into the surreal. The concept for this dialogue started with the perfectly innocent question "What if Richard Adams spoke Chinese"? From there we ended up with this hard-hitting podcast that explores the life of two mandarin-speaking rabbits. If you haven't listened to this yet, you'll find it about as explosive and action-packed as a podcast with lagomorphs can be. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/absolute-beginners/watership-down]

* Elementary: Mother's Day *

On Mother's Day we split our listeners along gender lines with a podcast all about jewelery, and whether it makes for an appropriate gift. You may be wondering what this subject has to do with Mother's Day, and you'd be right to wonder. Listen to this podcast and you'll hear how things derailed. And since we're studying Chinese we'll also learn the basics of how to use Chinese prepositions. Just stick them in front of the verb and you'll be fine. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/elementary/mothers-day]

* Intermediate: How to Swear in Chinese *

Too often language learning products tone themselves down into pablum out of fear of offending. We're lucky to have a crowd of fairly advanced listeners for whom this sort of thing isn't a problem. And if you're living in China and don't know the basics here you really owe it to yourself to listen to this podcast. In it we cover some fairly low level ways of expressing anger, and explain why you really shouldn't escalate to more aggressive language unless you really know what you're doing. [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/intermediate/how-to-swear-in-chinese]

* Advanced: The Band's Perspective *

If you're a fan of our annotated short stories, check out our popup edition of Autumn in the Ancient Capital [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/short-stories/autumn-in-the-ancient-capital], a lengthy love letter to Beijing written by Yu Dafu in the early 20th century. And if you think your listening skills are really hot, check out a recent listening test we put together on a subject we've visited before [http://popupchinese.com/lessons/archive/advanced/the-bands-perspective].

And that's it for last month. As always Echo, Dave, Brendan and the rest of the crew want to thank you for reading, and please accept our special thanks as well to everyone who is supporting our work with a paid subscription. We hope this newsletter finds all of you well and encourage you all to drop by our studio the next time you're passing through Beijing.

祝好,

The Popup Chinese Team