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Elementary:

A Matter of Food Security

It felt as though the household was passing through some horrible wartime rationing. Once a daily luxury, the mid-afternoon milking had become at first irregular before fading to an almost complete absence. Conferring on the crisis from the comfort of the third floor sun deck, Edmund and Susan decided that the time had passed for inaction. If they were not to live at the mercy of others for their basic food security, it would be necessary to root out their own reserves, however problematic that might be without opposable thumbs.

Learning Chinese? Our elementary Chinese lesson for today covers the most native way Chinese people ask exasperated rhetorical questions, so that you can sound as world-weary as everyone else. Also in the mix: how to complain about Beijing's air quality and traffic problems and a cultural note on why no-one has their phones stolen in China. So if you're learning Chinese or just learning to get by in China, listen to our show and let us know what you think in the comments section below.

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Chinese Podcasts and Lessons from Beijing, China....

Popup Chinese is the highest rated Chinese lessons series on iTunes, and the only Chinese program recommended by the heads of all major immersion programs in Beijing. Create an account today for instant access to our entire archive of free Chinese podcasts, along with everything else you need to learn mandarin online: mobile apps, HSK tests, study tools and much more.

Why should you use us? While most mandarin podcasts are created by Chinese teachers with little experience learning a foreign language, Popup Chinese has been designed from scratch by native English speakers with native-level fluency in Chinese. We've suffered through the same dry textbooks and ineffective classes you have, and built Popup Chinese to solve the major problems we had learning Chinese. Try out a few podcasts and in no time you'll be understanding more challenging Chinese than you ever thought possible and enjoying the emotional subtleties of the language.

In addition to being more enjoyable, Popup Chinese is also more efficient than traditional learning systems. As you work through our podcasts, an optional testing system measures your knowledge and builds a customized course for you that highlights areas where you're weak. This keeps you from having to listen to everything just to figure out what you don't know. And meanwhile, our spaced-repetition flashcards and other study tools also cut the amount of time flashcard-users need to learn new words, while our mobile tools make learning on the go an actual pleasure.

But enough of an introduction. To get started create your own free account. Once that is done, you can explore our archive of free Chinese podcasts through this website, or download the audio files to your computer by subscribing to our public iTunes feed. If you value convenience, a reasonably-priced premium subscription adds the ability to download audio files straight from our server to your computer with a single click, and provides access to supplementary audio transcripts, dialogue-only recordings and other premium learning materials.

There are many advantages to becoming a premium subscriber, and all subscriptions are backed by a no-questions-asked refund guarantee. That said, if you're not ready to take the leap don't worry. It is not necessary to upgrade to create an account, and even non-paying supporters can head over to iTunes and download all of our Chinese podcasts by subscribing to our feed that way.

How do I listen to the Popup Chinese podcasts?

Once you've downloaded our podcasts, we recommend installing them on a smartphone or portable music player, and then listening on-the-go. Most of our subscribers use iPods or iPhones, but our lessons will play on practically any mp3 player.

If you are familiar with iTunes you can subscribe to our public lesson feed through the platform for access to our basic mp3 files. Site supporters are also able to setup their personal lesson feeds with a single click, and be downloading everything to their iPod or iPhone in minutes. In either case, signup and follow our instructions. And if you have any difficulty, simply drop us a line at service@popupchinese.com and we'll help you sort things out.