From now on we’ll be posting a weekly preview of the upcoming podcasts. It seems that a lot of users are combining the site with their own off-line practice, so the idea is that a preview will help you plan your week.

Monday 24th “Who’s that Girl”?
On Monday we are going to take a look at how to pay compliments, and how to identify people. This will be the first time we learn to ask “who” questions, and the first time we introduce a very useful word - 觉得 jue de - which means to feel or to be of the opinion of.

Tuesday 25th “All in the Family”
Relationships are a huge part of Chinese society, and if you come to China you will need to be able to describe the people you are close to. In this podcast you will learn how to introduce your brother or your sister or your boyfriend.

Wednesday 26th “Meet Market”
Simple but essential - in today’s lesson we learn how to tell the time and make arrangements for a meeting.

Thursday 27th “The 9 to 5″
Learn how to call someone a workaholic, as well as ask about their job and age. Also, in the learning center we will show you how to say university, high school, middle school and primary school.

Friday 28th “Face Off”
This is our first podcast to look at the issue of face. Everybody knows that “face” is important in China, and here we listen to a typical dialogue that you can hear every night in restaurants around China. In addition, you’ll learn some key restaurant vocabulary, plus some useful words like “already” (已经 yi jīng).

Sunday 30th - News Update
This Sunday we are going to be adding a new weekly podcast called News Update. It will be a general space for all the team here at Chinesepod to give you feedback on your comments, answer your questions, announce site improvements and new features, and discuss language learning and podcasting in general. If you want us to discuss any specific issue, e-mail us before Friday and we’ll see if we can fit you in the show.

Steve Williams