There are a lot of podcasts out there to help you learn Chinese.  A few years ago I sampled loads of them and even subscribed to a few.  Most of them were too much on the beginners side for my liking (I’m not counting the news broadcasts in full-speed, faster than fast, Mandarin).  Most of them were very dry and not much different than listening to a short Pimsler Basic Chinese Course lesson each day.  “Today’s lesson: Should we bring an umbrella because of the rain?”

So a few weeks ago I took another look at the Chinese learning podcasts out there and found one that I now include among my favourites.  It’s called Popup Chinese.  The Popup Chinese podcasts gives 3 lessons a week at Elementary, Intermediate, and Advanced level which each last between 5 and 10 minutes in length.

The dialogs in the lessons are really what differentiate the lessons from all the other ones out there. Here are a few examples of the lessons they’ve had in the past few weeks:

• How to Start a Business in China – Dialogue between a school principal and a child’s parents about how their child has started the other children with gambling and sniffing glue.
• Performance Anxiety – A dialogue between a performer on an American Idol type show and the judges.
• How to Defuse a Bomb – A bomb is about to go off and a former policeman comes to the rescue but is not sure which wire to cut.

Each lesson is pretty funny and irreverent.  Even with some vocab that you will never use, there is a lot of very good instruction on grammar and common speech.

The show is presented by two American and one Chinese teacher in Beijing. 

It’s a great podcast.  If you are past the beginner stages and into the intermediate and advanced stages of Chinese learning, you should check it out.

Related posts:

1. Mandarin Learning Everywhere
2. Chinese Dictionary on iPhone

Next week, I will be in both Shanghai and Dalian for business.  I have several meetings lined up and I am very interested in seeing the up-and-comers in the software development market.

Shanghai is the fastest growing city in the world.  I’m really looking forward to seeing it.  I suppose there will be a lot of construction in preparation for the World Expo next year.

Dalian is a place I’ve been wanting to see for the past few years as it has a vibrant software outsourcing market.

I’m spending a lot of time this week preparing and am really looking forward to the trip.

Exciting times.

Related posts:

1. Thanks to my new friends in Dalian and Shanghai
2. 5 Days in Shanghai
3. CISIS in Dalian

Here is a promotional video which shows a lot of scenes around Dalian.  I’m very excited.  But the city is a lot bigger than I thought it would be!

Related posts:

1. Next, Shanghai and Dalian
2. CISIS in Dalian
3. Dalian CISIS trip in jeopardy

The problem with getting a visa for China (which should only take 4 working days) is that I need 6 months remaining on my passport in order to go.  I realised about a month ago that my American passport expires in four months.  Zao Gao! 

So, I had to

1. Renew my American passport
2. Transfer to indefinite leave to remain status for the UK to the new passport (an NTL)
3. Get a visa for China.

The US passport agency said it should take about 3 weeks, since they had to send my passport application to the States.  I got it back in just over two weeks.

The UK border agency didn’t give an estimate, but I figured 3 weeks should be good enough for that.  After all, I already have permanent residency, I just need the stamp in my new passport.  They didn’t need to send it anywhere.  I sent it to them two and a half weeks ago. 

Yesterday, I phoned the Border Agency office.  I had a letter from them saying they had my passport and that I should NOT phone them to check on the status.  But I was worried so I phoned anyway.  After spending ages in a call queue, I got someone on the phone who did not want my reference number when I offered to give it.  “We don’t check on the status of an NTL application until it has been with us for 14 weeks,” they guy told me.  He obviously had to deal with a lot of difficult people and he wasn’t going to give me any lee-way (read “he was kind of rude”).  I asked if there was any way to speed it up, he told me there wasn’t.  He would not check on the status.  I told him it was a renewal, not a new application—but he didn’t help.  He told me that the wait time is between 4 to 14 weeks.  I was speechless.  4 weeks!?!?  There is no way to make this happen before CISIS starts.

Yesterday was a flurry of activity cancelling things.  The hotel was easy to cancel.  The flight was non-refundable (but I might be able to get about half of my money back).  The people at UK Trade and Investment are holding off on booking any more meetings with software companies.  They even offered to help speed up the China visa if it helps.  Still, there is the possibility that the passport might drop through the letter box and everything will be back on.  We’ll see.  I’m not cancelling my flight just yet.

I’m still going to Dalian.  I’m just not sure when.  I might be be a few days later, or a few weeks. 

Tomorrow, I get 4 shots for vaccination. 

I’m trying not to let it get me down too much.  I’m enjoying the beautiful sunshine (which can be rare in England) and re-establishing some old contacts.  I’m still playing with Ruby on Rails and trying to write a few applications which have been in my todo list for a while.  I might as well enjoy the down time.

Related posts:

1. CISIS in Dalian
2. An update on my trip to China
3. Next, Shanghai and Dalian

I’m really looking forward to it.  I need to get all my visa situation in order.  That, and I have concerns of the swine flu ruining everything.  But, if all goes to plan I’ll be there.

I’ll keep you posted.

Related posts:

1. Dalian CISIS trip in jeopardy
2. Next, Shanghai and Dalian
3. An update on my trip to China

One of the most difficult aspects of trying to read Chinese is looking up characters in the dictionary. If you recognize a character and know how it sounds, you can look it up via the pinyin romanization. However, 9 times out of 10, you don’t know what it sounds like. So, you have to look determine what the character’s radical is and check that radical in the radical index. That will then tell you where in the dictionary to look for your specific word. It takes ages.

Most Chinese-English dictionaries I’ve had have a very worn our radical page.

I downloaded some dictionaries for my iPhone a while back to have a play with them. The dictionaries were cool, but it still relied on me entering text via the online keyboard. I never checked the international settings and found that I can set up more than one keyboard on the device. I could also select to enter Pinyin or draw actual characters.

Now I can draw a character into the dictionary program (I’m using Slovo-Ed at the moment) and immediately see a list of characters which look like the one I’m trying to draw. It is really, really cool.

Seriously, if you have every used a Chinese-English dictionary, you will know how much of a time saver this would be!

Related posts:

1. Popup Chinese