Some Lesson suggestions

There is a good one called "The Scene of the Accident" it is upper intermediate, but you could pick up some of it. http://chinesepod.com/lessons/the-scene-of-the-accident/discussion

obitoddkenobi: Thanks I'm glad you read through the story! I tried not to make it too long and complicated like my last story (看起来故事这么长， 怪不得没有人读了呀！) I think if there are enough fellow Poddies who are interested in writing it could be interesting. Perhaps it might also be something for my 88Groups group. However I still have a lot of work to do to get that up to speed. By the way, in case anyone is interested, my 88groups profile is here: http://88groups.com/acting--entertainment---演员，娛樂，娱乐--中国的电影

When I was on a train recently from Chengdu to Kunming, I thought it would be great to have a lesson that uses the recordings one hears on (long-distance) train rides. The Chinese is very clear and not too fast. Has a lot of good vocab.

Here is an interesting story that would be fun if expressed in Chinese: My first visit to China a few years ago began with this incident. I arrived at the Beijing airport about 9:30 in the evening and was met by my host. After securing my bags, we settled down in a car for a two or three hour drive to Qinhuangdao. There were several construction zones on the highway that were somewhat poorly marked, at least by my American standards. They are marked maybe a hundred yards before they narrow down to one or two lanes: No lights but a few flags and bricks in the road and maybe a sign. The driver of our car was cruising down the highway at I guess about 80 MPH. (You know how these official cars are!) At one of these sites, a badly loaded truck jumped into our lane just before the construction. Of course there was a lot of screeching of tires, and horn blowing but no crash. After the construction site, our driver drives around the right side of the truck and delivers what I guess to be the Chinese equivalent of the "bird" along with some invectives. But then our driver does not resume his previous speed. He waits until the next construction site and them stops in the middle of the road with the truck behind him. He reaches behind the seat and picks up what looks like a pipe. Then he gets out and goes to have a discussion with the driver of the truck who also gets out with a club. They must have had a very interesting conversation for about ten minutes. No blows or fighting occurred but I certainly thought it was going to! Meanwhile, the other traffic on the raod is either backed up behind us or a few less then timid drivers were driving straight through the construction on the highway. This was an interesting first exposure to highway diplomacy in practice! "Road rage" is not solely endemic to the US!

Wolson, Thanks for the great topics. You will see (and hear) them in the future. Obitoddkenobi, Thanks for helping out.

I still think a bible series of lessons would be good, like one chapter per lesson until we can read the whole bible in Chinese. :) Or alternatively a well known novel, but a novel chapter would probably be too long for one lesson and there may be copyright issues.

Here is a good online bible: http://www.bbintl.org/read/?do=read&a=gb&b=niv You can have a Chinese and English split screen.

Here is a complete audio bible as well: http://www.lhm.org/asian/china/onlinelisten/ChineseAudioBible.html The quality is a bit low but help keep the file sizes down, for example Genesis is 28mb and yet it's 4 hours long.

Wow, thanks Bazza! I was wondering where to find a online Chinese Bible stuff. This is great for us non-heathens. :)

I also support Wolson's original request of further lessons on train travel. I know there already exists a Newbie lesson that even includes supplemental vocab for soft-sleeper/hard-sleeper etc., but it would be nice to see those used in context. Essentially, ratchet it up a notch and have Elementary/Intermediate lessons on typical ticket-window transactions. Thanks!

Thank you

I think the Bible thing is a great idea since it is the worlds most read book! I'm sure there are plenty of non-heathens who are on Chinesepod (myself included) who would be very interested in the Bible lessons. 基督教徒权利！ A good novel might be "The Lord of The Rings" 魔戒之王since it's a very popular and timeless story that might give opportunities for alot of interesting new words like: (哈比人）he he...

Here's another idea for maybe something new under "Extra's". For all those Poddies (like myself) who are interested in writing in Chinese, maybe we could have a new section called: "Story-Pod" or something like that. It would be user-submitted short stories written in Chinese. Any errors would be cleaned up by the Chinesepod staff and then a Podcast could be made around the story. I'd be happy to offer up the first story: 辣菜大王 我爱吃辣的东西，我特别喜欢吃中国的四川菜。这在高鼻子老外中是少见的怪事。所以，有很多人叫我"辣菜大王"，尤其是我的舅舅。 有一次，我去舅舅家吃饭，舅妈给我们做墨西哥菜。墨西哥菜本来就辣，舅舅看到我还把很多很辣的辣酱往菜上撒，便好奇地问我："这个菜你还嫌不够辣吗？" 我回答说："我吃得比这个还要辣。" 舅舅听后，便去楼下拿来一根青椒，对我说："如果你真的是辣菜大王，就应该能吃得下这根青椒。" 我先尝了一下，觉得没问题，便将整根青椒一口气吃了下去。看见舅舅那目瞪口呆的样子，我又带着傻笑自我吹嘘："怎么样？是不是辣菜大王？"舅舅连连点头说："是，是，是辣菜大王！" 接着，我便对我的表弟表妹们模仿起美国总统尼克松和里根来；我的表演惟妙惟肖，把他们笑死了。 突然，我的表弟问我：" 小虎，你不高兴了吗？" 我说："没有的事，我很高兴啊。为什么这样问？" 表弟说："但是你的脸为什么那样红？而且还在流眼泪，好像在哭一样？" 表妹也附和说道："是啊，你的脸特别红，而且满脸是汗。你去照一下镜子吧。" 我跑到卫生间一看，我的脸真的好红好红，而且眼泪汪汪，汗流不止。但是，我并没有什么特别的感觉呀。 回到客厅，表弟表妹说："哎呀，是不是那个辣椒把你辣死了呢？" 我说："没的事，我没有什么特别感觉呀。" 他们说："既然没事，那么我们继续玩吧。" 玩着玩着，我觉得有点喘不上气来，胸中好像有一座火山，胃里直冒火；嘴也干得像戈壁沙漠，脑子里只有一个念头：冰水！冰水！ 我跑去打开冰箱拿水喝，一连喝了两瓶冰水，嘴里仍然觉得又干又辣。这时，表弟递给我一些面包，说："面包可以去辣，吃了也许就没事了。" 我把他给我的面一条包全吃了，但仍不见效。 另一个表弟递给我一瓶盐，说："吃点盐吧，听说盐可以止辣。" 吃了一瓶盐我更觉得口渴，只想喝水，喝呀，喝呀，不停地喝水......！ 这时，舅舅哈哈大笑，走到我的面前说："你不是辣菜大王吗？你不是说过不论多辣你都能够承受吗？看来，你还是有点吹牛哦！哈哈！" 你说，我这个舅舅坏不坏？

On the light side, a hockey podcast would be fun. By the looks of the hockey lovin' poddies thread, and this season, Jenny could redeem herself from her Detroit wasteland comments by talking about the Detroit Red Wings (底特律紅翼隊). Besides, that Buffalo player needs some lessons.

小虎, I enjoyed your story. 看起来， 很容易看得懂 for me, but I think you are right in believing that it should be reviewed by/ cleaned up if necessary, a native speaker。 Comparing how we say the same thing differently in different languages is educational. I'm not sure a podcast is necessary, but the general idea has merit. Additionally, you avoid the problems discussed in an earlier thread of people not wanting to read your stuff because its not by a native speaker. BTW is it a true story? I've never been one to chase 辣的，but I've watched others eager to prove themselves, and your story sounds true to that.

Oh no, please, no bible, yuck. The day I have to put up with bible-bashing with my lesson is the day I'm outa here.

I agree with Auntie Sue: for Christ's sake, leave religion off this site. Hockey yes; superstitious ancient (as in pre-science and reason) mumbo-jumbo no.

Maybe just in a special section for the Bible lessons and (sigh....) give a disclaimer before the lesson that it you are not religious and if you are offended by the idea of Christianity so stay as far away from this podcast as possible. (for pete sake why are people so over-sensitive these days? I can't wait for the death of PC and I'll be the first to put a nail in the coffin!) I know the general rule is to never discuss religion or politics, but don't you think these subjects have merit as part of complete learning? Just because we might offend someone we are noever going to learn the difference between 上帝 and 神？ Even though I am Christian I listened and studied the podcast on Buddism & Taoism 佛教和道教。。。without becoming offended. Why is there so much Christianity bashing going on these days?

While I know many are on this site learning Chinese in order to convert a billion Chinese people to save them from themselves, please keep cpod as 'heathen' as possible...

Here is a guide to converting an mp3 into an ipod audiobook file as well. :) http://www.dagondesign.com/articles/turning-mp3-audiobooks-into-ipod-audiobooks/