Hi David,

We'll be producing new lessons daily, although probably not on the weekends once we have a stable enough archive of materials. We want to have enough podcasts online for people to judge us and see if we're a good fit when we finally do leave beta. Flushing out the beginner level also lets us focus on usability testing for new students.

In the meantime, comments and feedback are very welcome. The male speaker in this podcast is me (trevelyan), and the female speaker is our very own Echo. The dialogue actors are Kang and Apple, both local actors who have appeared in a few television and radio shows. They're great people and we're very lucky to have them. I'm not sure how Echo will feel about sounding "mature" since she's younger than I am, so will leave her to read that comment for herself! :)

We're experimenting with the lesson format. This was one of the first lessons we recorded, and we've pushed it out on the weekend as we think it's a bit weaker: I'm not sure I like our explicit emphasis on the tones. We downplay that on most of the other shows and I think the rhythm plays better. There are more intermediate and upper-intermediate lessons in the pipeline and our first podcasts for more advanced students will come out later this week.

Our business model is developing an online/offline hybrid that charges for the parts of the service that require customization and keeps the mass products including the podcasts themselves free. This is fundamentally different from other teaching sites which are essentially traditional broadcasters transplanted to a new distribution media. We don't really see ourselves in competition with them except perhaps superficially. If you visit your Profile->Create page you'll see that your account has built-in publishing tools. A small minority of users may end up using them, but we think the results will be interesting.

Ultimately, rather than purchasing access to an archive of undifferentiated materials, we believe people will pay for personal services, but expect 24/7 online support and a strong online complement that extends their relationships with their teachers beyond the physical classroom. Our focus is the one-on-one teaching market. We're also looking to cooperate with local schools and offer a combination of online/offline classes, with the teaching model shifting to something more akin to a gym membership with always-open online treadmills for those who are too busy to come in person. Suggestions on other approaches are welcome - we are a business and focus on covering costs.

Ultimately, I think our service will be most useful for students who have reached the conversational stage and want to push their Chinese to the point where it is professionally useful. This almost by definition requires niche lessons and custom training. Corporate training is another example, although there are lots of new speakers who deserve better tools for education too. If a financial analyst is learning Chinese for business and his instructor is giving him vocabulary about the Great Wall, we think he's doing it wrong. :)

Appreciate the feedback, and let us know here or by email if you have any problems or suggestions with the site.

Cheers from the Team,

--david

We have a community section that lets anyone start discussions. You can also leave your questions on related lesson discussions like this one. Or create your own lesson and ask questions there....

> But it is all to you guys whether to play with

> the tone or not, i mean when you guys were talking

> in english it is quite monotone and haha you know

> it sounds like merely a lecture.

We'll be experimenting with the lesson formats and trying to have a variety of materials. Some people like straightforward stuff, others like more banter. Some people just want dialogues and nothing more.

We're not exclusionary or restrictive about content. So if people like a particular podcast or recording, they're free to wrap their own premium materials around them and publish them through the site. As long as someone can type in the actual Chinese characters, the system will automate most of the rest. Transcribing a dialogue is a great way to learn the actual vocabulary and internalize the grammar, so it's a useful learning exercise.

We'll have a video demonstrating the lesson creation and editing functionality shortly.

I love the site! Hope to see many more episodes!

@Echo September 16, 2008

Cheers for that I was wondering myself as well. BTW: I think your voice does not sound immature, but actually very cute!

Hey. Firstly, thanks for these audioclips they are very useful to someone like me who has recenlty started learning chinese and needs to hear more examples with simple vocab.. so thumbs up!：）

I have a question though. I've always been told that ‘你好吗？’ isn't really used that much to ask how someone is。I was just wandering if you, personally, would regularly use that phrase or whether you had just included it as it's easy to learn once you have learned '你好'?

Thanks

Matt

The foreigner perspective is an interesting one. Because more often than not you are the one being said "Hello" to in China. Everone and their grandma wants to practice their English even if the extent of their English vocab is "Hello"

If they shout out a "Hello" at me I shoot a"有什么事?" right back at them. Throws them off guard and I like the look of both surprise and fear, because they know they can't back up their "Hello" with anything better than "Where are you from?"

Let some “哥们儿”s fly when around some young guys- I guess the equivalent of Bro or dude.

Also I like using 老大 with the older crowd. It means like a colloquial "Boss" or head of a gang.

If you want to be condescending I sometimes go with the 老爷 which is an older term referring to the master of the house.

And we cannot forget the go to, ace in the hole, 你吃了没？The "Have you eaten?" which regardless of what time of day it is, always a warm opening to elicit some good convo out of the locals.

For me the most interesting aspect of Chinglish, is the adoption of tones to the English language. For the most part I usually hear the "hello" with a sharp 4th tone on the o in hello. Makes me laugh

@matt - 这 is pronounced zhei4 as a shorthand for 这一. You can say zhe yi instead, but its easier and faster just to combine them and come out with zhei.

Considered standard I believe, and more common up north than down south. Totally dominant in Beijing.

@barrister,@matt,

Guys, i have to say, you are right.

what I want to say is:

now after a long time, we can also use it in the following way, like:

zhei两件 nei三天

加油!!

@paglin09,

And "中" has to be the second tone, right? 中不中zhong2bu4zhong2? 中zhong2！！

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

I AM NOT JUSTIFYING WHERE TO START ?

LET HELP ME FOR GOING TO RIGHT POINT TO START LEARN CHINESE.

ALRMS

That was great! You are very kind! 谢谢!

Edy,

Not sure what you mean at all. Listen to more materials and you will get it. There are slight differences in speaking patterns between regions of China, but if you are intellectualizing and analyzing the differences to this extreme with such minimal level of exposure that means you are putting a negative, analytic framework between yourself and the language. How can you expect to internalize it?

By the time you get to the elementary level you will not have these problems. And by the time you hit the intermediate and advanced levels you will know how minor differences in tone communicate emotion in Chinese just as they do in English.

Either way -- don't overthink it. Young children can master Chinese. They don't over-analyze grammar and pronunciation: neither should you.