Rather than a regular podcast, today we are pleased to publish a longer Elementary dialogue designed to test your listening comprehension. The language used here is not terribly difficult, but it is spoken at native pace and with the sort of emotional inflection you'll find living and working in China. So take a listen and click through to our quiz to see how much you understand. Our annotated transcript is there as always in case you have difficulty.
yeroc99
said on October 7, 2014
I'm confused about question 4 in the transcript. The correct answer is shown as "Mao Xinyu, the retarded grandson of Mao Zedong", but where is the connection to that in the dialogue?
trevelyan
said on October 8, 2014
@yeroc99,傻孩子... 跟你爸一样傻... etc.--david
yeroc99
said on October 8, 2014
Thanks for the reply David... I still don't get the reference, because that language "you're as stupid as your father" doesn't point to a specific person. I guess this requires a lot more cultural understanding than I have :-)
murrayjames
said on October 8, 2014
David did you write this? You got one twisted sense of humor, bro... :-D
parent.j.f
said on June 3, 2015
This dialog is a piece of art! 太不可思议了!
yeroc99
said on September 25, 2015
Hey David, Echo, Brendan, Gail, etc. I don't know how many of you are still there :)I just wanted to drop you a note to say that I haven't used the web site much, but last year I bought a membership and downloaded the elementary and intermediate podcasts. I've been listening to them in the car for months during my commute, and really have enjoyed them; the mixture of grammar, word usage, sarcasm, commentary, and interplay between the hosts is great.The only comment I have is that when I am driving, I cannot look at PDF files, so frequently I find it a bit frustrating that I cannot see the character you are referring to. I know you do use the transcripts as an enticement to pay up (and I did pay up!). I guess you could argue that I can look at the PDF files once I reach my destination, but the moment has passed by that point, and I often have other things to do than dig into the pdf files to look up a sentence I remembered from two podcasts ago.So I don't have any suggestions about how to fix that and still retain the pay walled PDF files as an enticement. But in case you were considering another method, there's my two cents on the subject.
