Crime and Cryptocurrency

Elementary: Crime and Cryptocurrency

Bring us your tired, your poor, your huddled cryptocurrencies built on artificial hashing algorithms and stochastic probability measures. Bring us your illicit profits from online drug and kidney trades, international money laundering, and late-night poker sessions conducted in furtive retreat from the prying eyes of Internet censors. And long live this entire peer-to-peer thing: we think China could use a lot more of it.

Learning Chinese? Our Chinese podcast for today is an elementary lesson intended for anyone with an interest in digital currencies, or an abiding dislike for particular family members. That said, the content in our podcast is (mostly) true. If you're a bitcoin fan we're happy to share news that you can now use the currency to upgrade your account on Popup Chinese. Send us an email and we'll arrange for your upgrade at the prevailing market rates.

Herbert T. Gillis

said on

July 7, 2011

什么都。。。。。 / 什么也。。。。有什么区别？I get a vague sense that there is a difference, but I can't get a handle on it. Help. Also, really liked your quiz for the last few lessons.....miss them already.

thanks, Griff

leanne

said on

July 7, 2011

在口语中，有语气的区别，比如：什么都行 (all good) is more suitable, rather than 什么也行。I tried a few other examples, such as 什么都不管了/什么也不管了，什么都不问/什么也不问，and in these examples, there is hardly any difference between the two.

leuken46

said on

July 7, 2011

This was fun. Thank you all for this. I am just over a year into my Chinese learning endeavour. If you were to give one piece of advice when it comes to learning Chinese, what would that be?

Again, Thanks for the help.

Xiao Hu

said on

July 8, 2011

@Leuken46，

If I were to give you one piece of advice it would be to take the plunge into learning Chinese Characters. I know many people feel like speaking is enough, but with a wealth of written Chinese out there that can be your teacher once you reach higher levels, it just doesn't make sense not to go the extra mile. You'll find out that when you can use Characters to communicate with native speakers, or read a book or article in Chinese, that your abilities will advance quite rapidly.

Remember, no Chinese wants to use Pinyin to chat with you.

Besides that, believe it or not, reading can be a great help to your speaking and listening comprehension, even thinking in Chinese.

I truly hope you'll take the plunge into a bigger world!

我好希望你愿意好好学习中文字。

小虎

Echo

said on

July 8, 2011

@griffith.craig，

什么也 can only be used in a negative sentence, but 什么都 can be used in a positive statement too.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

Echo

said on

July 8, 2011

@leuken46,

Thanks!很高兴你喜欢。

One way you may find useful to remember new vocab or phrases is to make sentences with them. It's easy to forget the vocab you learn from a textbook, but if you can put them into sentences, you will be able to use them in the future.

--Echo

echo@popupchinese.com

djgrubbs

said on

July 8, 2011

@xiao-hu

In your opinion what is the best way to dive into Character learning? I know the sheets provided are great but do you have any other recommendations?

Thanks,

-Daniel

Xiao Hu

said on

July 8, 2011

@DJGrubbs,

First just concentrate on learning the 214 偏旁部首, radicals that make up every character.

http://www.yellowbridge.com/chinese/radicals.php

The next step is to start reading as much Chinese as you can with Pinyin next to it. The thing is, don't let Pinyin become a crutch, it's only there to be a guide in the initial stages.

There're over 1000 lessons on Popup Chinese and you can read everything in the lessons with a pinyin pronunciation guide next to it. Gradually as you begin to recognize characters, turn off the pinyin option and force yourself to read the characters without it. This will be very difficult in the beginning, but don't worry, it gets easier with time.

You can also use Pinyin input to get simple conversations going here in the forums, the greatest validation of your newfound skills will be when someone answers you back in Chinese. That's when you know you've really got a handle on it.

Don't forget that everything that's easy was once difficult. 万事开头难！

小虎

djgrubbs

said on

July 8, 2011

@Xiao Hu

Thanks a lot! I appreciate getting your insight. At some point I want to upgrade to the University Program to further my listening and speaking as well all areas of my Chinese skills.

Thanks,

-Daniel

Xiao Hu

said on

July 11, 2011

＠Djgrubbs,

Yeah, I'd most definately do something where you get good instruction and practice all around. Echo can help you formulate good teaching plan and with structured guidance I'm sure you'll improve much more rapidly. Just make sure to do a little reading and writing practice everyday.