Before we get to our Chinese lesson for today, let us admit that it differs from its predecessors in one important way. Put simply, in response to the rising cost of bread and air in Beijing, our engineering team has been forced to make minor changes to our recording format which lower expenses while increasing staff efficiency. These changes are subtle and should not be noticeable to most listeners.

With that out of the way, what can be said about this lesson that the word "masterpiece" fails to cover? In addition to a native-level dialogue filled with suspense, this podcast contains exactly the sort of advanced language point that will have native Chinese speakers scrambling over themselves in praise of your eloquence. So listen up for a podcast drenched with sex, murder and one of the only Chinese adverbs you can use to start a sentence....
 said on
February 11, 2011
关于你们指的"光”第二个用法,是不是在“光”后面的名词要有个数字?

比如:泡泡中文真迷人,光很有意思的播棵有几百个。

我们不能说:“泡泡中文真迷人,光很有意思的播棵有的。”吧?
 said on
February 12, 2011
@Tristan,

谢谢 :)

是这两个字:“播客”。

不一定要有数字,最重要的就是前半个句子和后半个句子的关系,后半个句子是在具体地进一步地解释/描述前半个句子,就没问题了。

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
February 12, 2011
Loved the lesson, you guys are hilarious! What happened to Brendan? (希望没有毒死他,把他的尸体拖到园子里埋葬了。。。)

Btw: the PDF file has parts of the text missing toward the end (at least on the iPad).

Thanks for all the fun and great grammar points.

huyilin

 said on
February 12, 2011
@huyilin,

Brendan is still around... just not in this podcast. PDF is fixed too -- thanks for the ping. :)

--dave
 said on
February 12, 2011
Hi, great lesson - thank you.

There is a minor point in the PDF and the text version translation:

甲: 在你花光了两任丈夫的全部资产后...

甲: zai4 ni3 hua1guang1 le5 liang3 ren4 zhang4fu5 de5 quan2bu4 zi1chan3 hou4 ...

甲: After you spent all of your husbands' property....

I think it should be "After you spent all of your two husbands' property... " (but "两, liang3" is missed in translation)

Even worse than having just one dead husband!

Rach
 said on
February 12, 2011
@Echo

Ah, ok. Got it (I think). Thanks for the explanation.

Tristan
 said on
February 13, 2011
Just a quick qustion 她恨死了她的丈夫,光毒药就用了三包

In the dialogue Echo reads "包" without out the 1st tone, it sounds more like qingsheng

Can you explain, is it a different bao than the one I have written above?

Thanks

 said on
February 14, 2011
@pooky,

A lot of times, people read some measure words with qingsheng. Such as 个,些 etc. It's more colloquial, but you can not use qingsheng as well. It doesn't affect the expression.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com
 said on
February 18, 2011
this 光 is splendid, thanks.
 said on
February 21, 2011
i was lookin' 4 this sort of lessons long time ago. Finally, it's here. Very happy though. 感谢!你们。。
 said on
September 22, 2013
Do you mean she buried both her husband and the gardender in the garden, or that she buried her husband with the help of the gardener?
 said on
September 23, 2013
@etbaccata,

I think it would be too much work if she killed and buried the gardener as well....

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com