About Site:
Popup Chinese is a Chinese language learning site that has a host of podcast that will assist a Chinese language learner
of any level to hone their Mandarin listening and speaking ability. In addition to the podcasts, Popup Chinese host other tools (HSK Test, flashcards, dictionary, news articles, and much more), which give you a well-rounded language learning experience.
Commentary:
Popup Chinese is a regularly updated, well organized, and structured Chinese language learning resource. The site is supplied with hundreds upon hundreds of quality language learning lessons for the absolute beginner, the elementary, the intermediate, and the advanced Chinese language learner. Their audio lessons are based on relevant, real world situations, which makes it effortless to become engaged with the material. One of the advantages of the site is that the voice actors speak at a normal pace, assisting in fine tuning the listener’s ears to the speed words, phrases, and sentence are spoken in Mandarin. Accompanying these podcast are its downloadable mp3 files and their PDF transcript counterparts, which are helpful for deeply immersing yourself into the scenarios Echo, Brendan and the other voice actors play out for us.
Other than the podcasts, complete immersion into the Chinese language is made simple due to Popup Chinese’s Chinese dictionary, pinyin chart, Chinese converter, Chinese News, Chinese writing pad, and Chinese software. A favorite of ours is the Chinese news tool, which collects Chinese written news stories from across the web and displays them in one location, but the most exciting part about this tool is that as you scan the characters with the mouse all their information (simple and traditional characters, pinyin, and English translation) appears. Anyone undertaking learning Mandarin, in any a capacity, should have Popup Chinese as one of their main tools in their Chinese language learning arsenal. Lastly, if you are interested in learning Cantonese in addition to or as oppose to Mandarin then you should investigate Popup Cantonese; a resource put together in a similar fashion as Popup Chinese.
If you haven’t already, look over our Popup Chinese site summary to become better acquainted with their offerings, and then mosey on over to their site to check it out for yourself.
Your Review:
If you have used Popup Chinese, feel free share your thoughts and insights below. Our visitors would gain greatly from knowing your experiences.
Popup Chinese is pretty amazing. First of all, the voice actors’ skill makes you remember the expressions and the intonations. Secondly, the hosts of the “show” – and this podcast really feels like a good radio show – keep it very lively and entertaining, while providing a very accurate linguistic commentary. I have studied five other foreign languages in my life, and Popup Chinese is one of the very best language learning resource I have used for any language. Finally, all the lessons – and there is over a thousand of them – are free (as in beer
for you to listen to online or download to your MP3 player.
Another cool feature of the site, called KTV Wednesday – is full transcripts of Chinese pop songs, and they have some cool tunes which you would have never discovered on your own.
Popup Chinese is an anomaly in the current Internet. It does not feature ads, does not try to lure you with free stuff just to add small print that only the trial is free, etc. If you have any questions about the podcast, you can post a question on the forums or write an email directly to one of the hosts and they will answer your question – linguistic or otherwise – right away, even if you are not a paying subscriber.
There are famous language-learning programs that use only audio, which you can get for free at Popup Chinese. In my case I found that having access to transcripts and audio reviews was worth the paid subscription. I certainly do not regret my decision and intend to stay a paying subscriber for years to come.
@Yuri I couldn’t agree with you more! Once I found the service I knew it was worthwhile. The content is ever-growing and they provide various situations to make it easy for the language learner to really enjoy immersing themselves in the Chinese language. Popup Chinese is definitely my favorite Chinese language learning resource.
Thank you for comment! I am sure anyone who comes across it will appreciate your break down of this awesome resource
I’ve been a subscriber to Popupchinese, almost since it first began. I’ve studied Mandarin Chinese at the collegiate level as well as with private tutors and further self-study. I’ve seen every methodology on the internet as well as nearly every textbook so I have the perspective of almost a decade of experience to lend weight to my assessment.
As was stated earlier, PopupChinese is an anomoly on the current internet. What I mean by that is that the individuals behind the site really care about the listeners/students, which really shows through in the materials. PopupChinese.com is as close to a university on the internet as one can get.
One of the things that I feel is most helpful is that, right from the first login, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on learning to read and write Chinese characters, complete with writing pad that corrects your stroke order.
There is a PopupuChinese dictionary with tens of thousands of entries to it, that is always growing.
There is a Pinyin tool which can translate from characters to pinyin and from Chinese to English.
If listeners have any questions, they can write directly to the hosts and receive real-time answers, as well as feedback on text written in Chinese by the students.
Beyond this, the crowing jewel is the dialogues. No other Chinese learning system features dialogues that are so natural, I’ve found Popupu Chinese to be a great help to my pronunciation. Pronunciation is the key to being understood by the listener in any language. Utilizing the dialogues on Popup Chinese, if one applies themself, it’s absolutely possible to sound like a native speaker. Not only in terms of pronunciation, but also in terms of naturalism. By mimicing Popup Chinese dialogues, sounding 100% natural would be completely within reason.
The additional resources that come with a paid subscription are absolutely worth it. For only a bit over $100 USD per year, there’s not this level of sophistication and integration in any language learning system anywhere elso on the internet.
I’ve been a subscriber to Popupchinese, almost since it first began. I’ve studied Mandarin Chinese at the collegiate level as well as with private tutors and further self-study. I’ve seen every methodology on the internet as well as nearly every textbook so I have the perspective of almost a decade of experience to lend weight to my assessment.
As was stated earlier, PopupChinese is an anomaly on the current internet. What I mean by that is that the individuals behind the site really care about the listeners/students, which really shows through in the materials. PopupChinese.com is as close to a university on the internet as one can get.
One of the things that I feel is most helpful is that, right from the first login, there was a great deal of emphasis placed on learning to read and write Chinese characters, complete with writing pad that corrects your stroke order.
No other site places so much emphaisis on being literate, which is the backbone of learning ANY language.
There is a PopupuChinese dictionary with tens of thousands of entries to it, that is always growing.
There is a Pinyin tool which can translate from characters to pinyin and from Chinese to English.
If listeners have any questions, they can write directly to the hosts and receive real-time answers, as well as feedback on text written in Chinese by the students.
Beyond this, the crowing jewel is the dialogues. No other Chinese learning system features dialogues that are so natural, I’ve found Popupu Chinese to be a great help to my pronunciation. Pronunciation is the key to being understood by the listener in any language. Utilizing the dialogues on Popup Chinese, if one applies themself, it’s absolutely possible to sound like a native speaker. Not only in terms of pronunciation, but also in terms of naturalism. By mimicing Popup Chinese dialogues, sounding 100% natural would be completely within reason.
The additional resources that come with a paid subscription are absolutely worth it. For only a bit over $100 USD per year, there’s not this level of sophistication and integration in any language learning system anywhere elso on the internet.
As far as I’m concerned, Popup Chinese is the best site out there to, learn chinese.
I say that with the backgound of having learned chinese in university and after university through self study, as well as having utilized other online Chinese learning medium. While David, Bredan, Echo and the whole crew also provide great content for another site, Chinese Class 101, you just can’t beat the Popup crew’s approach to learning. They utilize humor and levity to facilitate the learning process.
Don’t think the whole thing is going to just be silly humor though, there’s also a ton of great language and grammar points interspersed throughout the podcasts.
Probably the best thing about it is that the voice actors sound very real.
Popup Chinese also has a bunch of other great language tools like a Online Chinese Dictionary, a Pinyin Chart, and a Pinyin Convetor to help us learn Chinese Characters.
This site, pretty much has all that you’d need to learn Chinese on your own, that along with the fun factor makes Popup Chinese the clear winner in my book.
I was very happy to discover popup chinese.
I mainly use the translation function to translate simplified chinese text into both pinyin and english.
The pinyin translation is very good and helpful.
The english translation used to be.
Now, if ? is in the sentence, no translation occurs.
Since it is a much used character, a long, tedious scan for and elimination of this character is necessary, making this function very, very difficult to use. A few other characters cause this problem as well.
Also, copying the result is more work because of the edit window which always comes up.
I would have liked have seen improvements such as the possibility to process more text at once and to have paragraph formatting in the original text carried over to the translation, but I was very satisfied with this great service without them.
But the disruption due to the presence of some characters and the strange editing window that will not stay away are disappointing developments to the best chinese text translator I have ever found.
Please make it as good as it was!!!
It seems the character I entered was not accepted.
The one I meant was pinyin: de
as in:
zìj? de mèimei
Yes, agree that popup chinese is a great resource if you want to learn chinese, as it provides you with a lot of materials online!