About the #NotTheUsualPod category

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Ask in the comments below any question you have always wanted to ask Fiona, Constance, and Gwilym,

We are celebrating ChinesePod users, the brand and our content in a unique and fun way. Join the ChinesePod team between October 2nd, 2017 ~ October 15th, 2017, for the #NotPodAsUsual campaign.

To strengthen our relationship with our community and to better engage with you, our loyal fans, we have created two weeks of unusual lessons and activities. We will still teach Mandarin, but #NotPodAsUsual .

Submit your questions before Friday, September 29th.

Don’t miss your chance to win #NotTheUsual prizes or discounts on subscriptions. Participate and share your ideas, as we release the content we have prepared specially for you!

Stay Tuned - The coming weeks are all about having #NotTheUsual fun!

Fiona, Gwilym and Constance what’s your favorite food?

I dare you to act out a famous scene from GOT in mandarin

What do you like the most about living in Taiwan? And what do you like the least?
Can you give us suggestions of books to read in Chinese for intermediate learners?(simplified characters)

What is the most embarrassing mistake you’ve ever made in Chinese?

Which is your favorite place in Taiwan?

I speak spanish, Chinese can be quite dificult, where would you recommend to start studying chinese?

Hi guys.

What’s the difference between 皮包 and 包皮?
The characters seem to be the same.

As I was a big fan of the Lily love story some years ago My question will be, how did Fiona and Gwylim come together? I want a new 爱情的故事 please

What is the best and the worse experience you had had learning or communicating in other language?

Fiona, Constance, Gwilym! I have become so addicted to see you guys and learn Chinese everyday! I would like to give this question to you all : 如果你重新投胎，你想當誰？

How effective is the HSK exam at testing your Chinese abilities? And what level is a good level to show your a basic Chinese speaker?

I’m more interested in the structure of Chinesepod as a business… Did Fiona and Gwylim buy it from John and Jenny? Or is the ownership separate from the hosts? What are John and Jenny up to these days? These questions may have been answered when the transition happened, but i wasn’t around at that time.

Also, who writes the lesson dialogue, expansion and grammar sentences? I know it’s irrelevant, i guess I’m interested in irrelevant details

Also, Fiona’s chinese name (Tián Xīn I think) sounds like ‘sweet heart’, but I think I saw different characters somewhere. Did your parents intend ‘sweet heart’ to be a kind of double meaning when naming you? thanks!

What do you think about when you’re alone in your car?

You’ve been given an elephant. You can’t give it away or sell it. What would you do with the elephant?

A penguin walks through the ChinesePod’s office door wearing a sombrero. What does he say and why is he there?

Bonk/Marry/Kill? Jon Snow. Jaime Lannister. Tyrion Lannister.

Would you rather fight 100 chicken sized horses or a horse sized chicken?

If you could spend a dinner with a famous person, who would it be?

I dare you to do a hand stand or a split.

大家好，
今天我有好多问题想问你们。
首先你们三个人都怎么认识的？你们都是个门儿吗？第一天来台湾工作怎么呢？
其次除了一起工作意外，你们都一起出去玩玩？出去时喜欢做什么好呢？
祝全ChinesePod团队愉快。

PS: 如果我搞错了的话，真的抱歉，我只是一般的法国人，哈哈。

Seeing that you guys live in Taiwan – What are some of the biggest linguistic differences you have noticed between Taiwan and Mainland China?

More questions::

Are there any movies or TV shows we can watch that will help us in learning Mandarin?? I’m thinking children’s shows might be best for intermediate learners like myself.

I know you guys like GOT (so do I!), but maybe while we wait forever for the new season to be produced, do you think you can do an episode on the Walking Dead?!

Which ones are your favorite 小吃？

Children’s shows are no use, the vocabulary is just not for everyday life… unless of course you live in a world of magical dragons.

Most modern movies are spot on. Super clear mandarin. Some very useful stuff. I tend to enjoy the Rom-coms for Chinese. They seem to have the most real-life dialogue to my ears. And can actually be quite entertaining movies.

Besides the above, I love anything by Zhang YiMu. He is a genius film maker. Some of his earlier films give a real sense of culture, which is what I also want to pick up from Chinese movies. Even though I live in China, with the everyday life routines, I forget I’m in China sometimes. Good cultural movies like his bring me back to really appreciating China.

But it’s not only Mandarin as a language, and culture, that one gets, but also how it is used and in what context. Really helps learn appropriate sense stress, punctuation, how to appropriately put different emotions into Mandarin and the likes.

Check out modern romantic comedies for language and early Zhang YiMu movies for deeply soul enriching Chinese culture

Is there a Chinesepod episode on childhood pranks?

Since you asked for dares + #NotPodAsUsual: I dare Fiona to give Constance a wedgie in an episode!

Hi team!

1. As you know, everyone on this platform is struggling to learn Mandarin. But, to keep the balance fair, I would like to know which foreign languages YOU guys are currently studying and (maybe) struggling with
   And if you’re not learning any foreign language now, maybe you’ve done it already or plan to do it. What motivates you to learn it ? What do you find curious/hard/funny/etc about it ?

2. I’d also be curious to know who your favourite taiwanese artist/band is and why. As random as it might sound, I must say that my heart has currently chosen MC Hotdog and the band Chthonic… You’ll enjoy the fact that these two artists have probably never appeared in the same sentence before, right ?

3. And if we ever come and visit Taiwan, can we come to your office, quickly say hi, and leave you a few specialities of our home-country ? (We have great beers and chocolate in Belgium).

Thanks a lot for your great work!

This is really helpful. Thanks for taking the time to respond!

Hi, big fan of you guys!

Can you give a Chinese pod lesson teaching us how to eat with shop sticks?

Ah another. Can you give a pod about choosing funny Chinese names for us, westerners?

And for last, a pod about what Chinese people think about Brazil (like, it is a forever party place? Carnaval? Soccer?)?

I am very very happy for finding the Chinese pod a year ago!

A big hug

Fabio

#NotPodAsUsual
#chinesepodthebest

Hi!

Other than listen to Chinese Pod, my second favourite method for trying to tune into new words is listening to music.

I’d like to know who your favourite Mandarin speaking music artists are and why?

Tina

Hey! I love ChinesePod! There are so many lessons/topics, I can always find something interesting to listen to.

I have 2 questions:

1. Say It Right really helped me get past some of my fears of pronunciation but I still struggle saying or distinguishing some sounds. Perhaps a lesson or two on some of the sounds that people typically struggle with? I would love that review.

2. What are your favourite success stories (big or small) from your users?

And for something funny… I’d love to see you do one of the typical silly videos like you see on youtube (in Mandarin, of course).

1 – eat terrible things
2 – the jellybean challenge
3 – the “boyfriend” challenge

Something where we see you having fun interacting in Mandarin (rather than a lesson!)

Hello fellow 台北ers! I too used to live in Mainland China and came to this potato-shaped island for language study and now for graduate school. Are there any plans for a Taipei meetup in the near future? ChinesePod fans, 聯合起來!

When it comes to language exchange, what is the best methods of getting the most out of them?
Should I just be more focused on attempted chit chat or reading to my language exchange buddy to see if they understand what I said or…?

I’d like a video introduction of each of your cats please!

What is your favourite meal to cook at home?

What is the general oppinion of Germany and the EU in Taiwan and what are your personal stereotypes.

Do you think we will solve intelligence in our life time and maybe upload our brains into computers to become effectively immortal?

Do you like milk tea? (I love it)

Also I dare you all to read the following German sentences in a German accent: “Ich frohlocke und jauchze beim Chinesisch Lernen!”, “Wenn ich mal groß bin, möchte ich eine Sternschnuppensammlung haben.”, “Gwylem sieht so süß aus, wenn er Chinesisch unterrichtet!”

Constance, how often does Fiona need your help to learn something? Am I going to need a personal tutor forever :o ?

Gwillym, what’s the worst thing you’ve overheard Taiwanese people saying about you in public?

Fiona, next time I go back to Taiwan, can I visit the cpod office ?

For Gwilym, I’ve been learning Chinese in my spare time for several years, but I can’t seem to get over the intermediate hump. Do you have any advice for maintaining progress and motivation when you don’t have the momentum of studying Chinese full-time?

To all three:

A la Theresa May, what’s the naughtiest thing you’ve ever done!?

你以前做過的什麼最調皮的事？（英國投票之前therea may 也受到這樣的問題，記得嗎）

To all three, can I please win a prize?
可不可以讓我中獎嗎？

Hey guys! I just LOVE your shows, and since I try to stay a little far from the traditional textbooks, I would like to know what does Gwilym thinks about learning chinese through comics.

Hi, Fiona, Constance and Gwilym. What did you guys do before ChinesePod?

Hello ChinesePod Team,

Just allow me a little off-topic because I love you guys
I arrived here through a Facebook Ads Link. In which you state the source as "MailChimp"in your UTM parameters, which I guess you are using for your email marketing. So your stats might be off on that particular campaign.

End of the off-topic, Keep up the good work!

Pierre-Yves

What kind of music could I listen to that would improve my language learning? Do you know any songs that might help with learning basic things (from pop music to nursery rhymes, anything that could help me as an intermediate student)?

Challenge to Gwilym: Introduce yourself in Chinese for one minute (no english), speak Chinese as much as you can, how old are you, where do you live, what are your hobbies, what can you say about Fiona and Constance, ChinesePod and Taiwan.
Challenge to Fiona: Recite the “Lion-Eating Poet in Stone Den” 施氏食狮史, It is a famous poem that become viral on Facebook
Challenge to Constance: Sing your favorite English song.

Suggestion: If they can do some viral online challenges such as Spicy Noodle Challenge (not necessarily the korean brand, the chinese brand can do)

Question to them:
Can you recommend popular Chinese songs? What songs do you have on your playlist?

Gwilym, Fiona, Constance，如果你可以跟一个中国的或者台湾的明星成为好朋友的话，你会选谁呢？ 为啥呢？

Fiona, did your approach to teaching Chinese change after coming from youtube to ChinesePod? Did it get easier here or do you miss something about your time creating content only for youtube?

Gwilym, how does it feel as a learner to be so close to so many Chinese teachers all the time? Would you consider it an advantage or can it be difficult too, sometimes?

Constance, I’m not sure, but I got the impression that you used to (or still do) teach Chinese in person / in a class room too. If so, how does teaching it on a website compare to teaching in person? Is it more difficult because you don’t have the immediate feedback? Or are there advantages to teaching online too?

Thanks to you all

You guys gave me the confidence to keep learning Mandarin so I moved to Taipei this summer for work and to learn Mandarin! I would like to know, on a scale of 1-10, how receptive would you be to a total, star-struck, geek-out if I see one of you on the street? Just asking for a friend… #have-a-question:NotPodAsUsual

Today I had a discussion with my Chinese female flat mate about the recent protest at the national taiwan university. I would like to know how you perceive the current situation and what your oppinions on the independence movement are.

I also dare you three to take a picture with this facial expression:

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A harry potter scene ?

Kiss confusion: I remember when shortly upon arriving in China I told a Chinese teacher colleague “kiss” instead of “excuse me”, or even worse when I in France wanted to inquire whether to “kiss on the cheek” but instead made a VERY direct and rude request that doesn’t lend itself to translation here

Gwilym, Constance and Fiona what are your most embarrassing language mistakes in Mandarin or other?

Thank you for all the questions: Here is a link to the video we made answering some of the more personal or silly ones:

In today’s lesson, we will answer the language ones as well as “life in Taiwan”.

We tried to answer most questions but had to cut some in order to keep it shorter or more focused.

To any of you: How is internet censorship in mainland China affecting your work? And do you work with companies like Alibaba?