我特别喜欢这些字词：

别啊了！That could come in handy in several situations.

就是。。。也 construction. 我从来没听过这个说法。I looked up 就是in the glossary and couldn\'t find any examples with...也, so I offer the following:

你就是百万富翁我也不会跟你结婚！

I\'m so excited to learn a way to express the third conditional in Chinese!

(I have to say that it\'s ironic that this lesson topic is about a translation assignment)

Also, I have a question:  the sixth sentence \"远在天边， 近在眼前， 你就是我要找的那个人”， what\'s the deal with this sentence? Is this some kind of a Chinese proverb or something? \"I thought you were far away, but here you are. You\'re just the person I was looking for\" ... I don\'t get it. It\'s so random. Is this some kind of classic Chinese expression or something? Please explain in detail.

Thanks for pointing out the 国外 mistakes. It should, of course, be 'abroad', not 'America'. I let my identity and experience with the language affect the translation. And no, the irony is not lost on me! ;)

As for 底线, although in some contexts it can translated as 'deadline', it more precisely means 'minimum (standard)', or 'bottom line'. In the sentence, 这是我们的底限，绝对不能再让步了！the speakers are more than likely involved in a sort of negotiation, and therefore 'minimum', or 'bottom line' are arguably the most appropriate translations.

“远在天边， 近在眼前” is a line from the book, 《二十年目睹之怪现状》. The full line is, “原来远在天边，近在眼前！无论如何，你总要代我拉了来的。” and is used to express the something/one you're looking for is right has been right in front of you all along. It's similar to the English, 'right under one's nose'. I left it somewhat literal in an effort to make the meaning more clear. Hope that helps!

1)我好让其他部门开始相关的工作。 
       That way I can have the other departments get started on their parts.

Why does he say 好让? couldnt he just say 然后我可以让其他部门怎么怎么做。。. please explain...

2)下次有升职的机会，公司会先考虑你的。
       Xiao Shi, do a good job. Next time there's an opportunity for a promotion, the company will consider you first.

Why does he say 考虑你的。..why is there a 的? couldnt he just say 考虑你?

Thanks!

RCK

"好"有"可以"的意思。这个用法的时候，"好"用于后一小句，表示前一小句中动作的目的。

当然你也可以说：我可以让其他部门...

2)下次有升职的机会，公司会先考虑你的。

"会...的", "的"有加强肯定语气的作用。

所以这个句子应该这样理解"公司 会 先 考虑 你 的"。

Really worth the money

1) 30+ new words, and approximately 10-20 existing words that were combined in a different way.

2) supersonic speed. I thought intermediate was fast, but I now realize intermediate was zipping along at 0.8 Mach, and now upper intermediate (at least this one) is at Mach 1.2.  It does seem natural speaker speed though.

3)new context.  Not really familiar with this type of work.

With the newbie and elementary levels, you can pretty much listen to them once and then review them maybe in a month or two. With the intermediate ones you need to listen to them at least a couple of times to get a good understanding of everything going on.. so with upper, it must be that you now need to spend a lot of "home work" time on the new words, the new combinations and so on.. plus train your brain to translate faster :)

Light, I suspect that this is about as average an upper intermediate as there is now being produced in the past 6-10 months, thanks to Cpod standardizing the lesson formats. My take is that you're right, upper inter is definitely more work. I do recall Simonpettersson blowing through upper intermediate, but he was Simonpettersson. Here's been my experience with intermediate lessons (your mileage may vary):

1) listen a few times and get about 50-80% of the lesson on the first pass. Usually took some drilling down for about an hour or 3 to get the last words under the belt. Drilling down includes writing down new/unfamiliar words and usages. If i'm enterprising and have the time, i create new sentences with them (haven't had much time recently which is why my Chinese is still atrocious, but I whined about boredom and Grace is kind enough to let me go to upper intermediate)

2) don't bother with listening to the show unless there are plenty of words that you don't understand, and you've already moused over the dialogue on the website. John's/Jenny's explanations usually do the trick.

3) shadow.

4)have guided lesson call with Grace.

Altogether, I end up spending about 2-4 hours on an intermediate lesson.

This approach might have worked if I hadn't been so busy this week. Preliminary results for the first upper intermediate were:

Altogether, spent about 2 hours on a lesson I should have spent maybe 6-8 hours on.

1)listened about 10 times to the dialogue straight through and understood about 5% even after 10 times.

2) read the dialogue and understood maybe 50% of the lesson. This is where the metrics around new/reordered words comes in. I will say i've heard plenty of people speaking this fast, so i'm "ok" with the speed, but its just that content on manufacturing is a different ballgame from talking about kids, life, grammar and what are you doing this weekend.

is "高材生“ referring to a student's "height" , rather than "talent"(才) ?