You know you're addicted to learning Chinese when...

When you're cooking in the kitchen and burn your hand, and the first thing that comes to mind is, 很热！

You know you are addicted when your CPod playlists on your iPod outnumber any other playlists: Newbie lessons, Elle lessons, Intermed lessons, DearAmber, Movie Madness, All dialogues, Intermed dialogues, Elle dialogues...etc : )

When the first English phrase you hear after hours of Chinese study makes you cringe at the flat, boring sounds of your native tongue, and you have to dive back into Chinese to calm your anxious heart.

You know you are addicted when you save a playlist on your Ipod called Cpod!

You know you are addicted when you keep a dry erase board and marker next to your bed so that you can spend your last 10 minutes awake writing characters!!

You know you are addicted when even your friends start taking an interest in it...i had one ask me this morning "so what new words have you learned lately?" I went into a whole long diatribe on weather and seasons...i taught him how to ask about the weather in shanghai...haha.

You know you are addicted when you insist on speaking Chinese at the checkout counter even though you are in some remote village in the middle of Europe somewhere.

..you walk past a bookstore in Basel, Switzerland, and seeing a travelguide about Dublin in the shop window the first thing comeing to your mind is: 哇， 到处都是绿色！。。。跟南京很不一样。。。

You know you are addicted to Chinese when- whenever this thread comes around again you must check it to see if you have anybody else's symptoms.

...you keep a warranty terms leaflet just because it has a Chinese translation on it.

If your Chinese co-worker asks you if you have become addicted to Chinesepod. He asked very politely, of course.

if you realize that for some elementary lessons you are not only able to repeat the dialog by heart but also half of the conversation between Jenny and Ken...

When you think about buying a body lotion only because there is a 密 character on it for product design reasons (i am not in china) and you wish you could read it...and after decideing not to buy it because it smells too awful you copy the character on a piece of paper to look it up at home!

light487 -- no no no no NO!!!

Cantonese - Good.

Cantonese - Good.

Considering the rate at which you're learning Mandarin, it won't be long because you're suddenly feeling truly grateful that there's Cantonese out there, with its 9 tones and its fascinating combination of classical Chinese syntax/ vocab and every-growing vocab and slang which is being minted at a rate of knots.

Oh well, just in case four tones starts to seem a bit... unchallenging ... to you one day.

When the website was down for the better part of the day, and as a result, you stay up past your bedtime because you didn't get your daily recommended allowance of CPod...good night!

I was also very disappointed to find that KungFu Hustle is in Cantonese and my local Chinese restaurant is "Chan's Canton Village" *sigh*

....you spend every other second studying Chinese.

I just bought a reading and writing book because I am sick of not being able to read the characters, so I am doing something about it.

I am also trying to find my Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon DVD so I can watch it through in native Mandarin.. and my copy of House of a Thousand Daggers (I think that's the title).. for the same reason.. :)

Yup! I'm addicted! :)

Now that's dedication. :)

I hope you get better soon Aunty.

When you're too sick to get out of bed so you bring the computer to the bedside to check what cpod is up to.

bingge, this may be the thread you were referring to:

http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/billgloveruk/connect/Learn+Chinese+Characters+on+the+iPhone

Hi bingge,

Sorry, I think I misunderstood what you're looking for. I thought you wanted to know how to upload txt files with pinyin and hanzi. But now I'm thinking you want to type pinyin into your itouch.

Here's the thread just in case:

http://chinesepod.com/connections/viewpost/frank/connect/Hey+iPod+users%21+Quick+question+for+you%21

...when your addiction to mandarin becomes contagious because other people are starting to respond to your mandarinized questions in your native tounge

hi calkins,

if you could send me that link, it would be great! thank you!

i'm really hoping to find something that will let me enter pinyin in the notes section of my itouch and so it will change to characters (like pinyin input using ms word or something like that)... maybe it just isn't available..

I constantly text message in pinyin as much as I possibly can with any friend who speaks mandarin. I sit on the train to and from work listening to cPOD, reading my Chinese Express textbook. I sit here for 2 or 3 hours each night just reading through all these comments, listening to random lessons and various things. When I have a shower I practise tones instead of singing.... I'd have to say I am currently addicted to learning Mandarin, and it's all Ken's fault. :)

when you would rather using 汉字to text message on your phone rather than 英语。

True story, my first mission in Beijing was to by a Chinese cell phone. Soon after I bought it, I sent an email to my office in Shanghai with my telephone number. Later in the day, I get a text message in English telling me to return to my hotel to pay for my airline tickets in country. But I have never sent a text message in my life ... I don't even carry a cell phone in the US. So I am trying to reply but my damn phone won't write English ... so out of frustration, I enter 行行 and send it. My first ever text message!

Now, while I have learned to use English on my cell phone, I actually prefer Chinese because it is quicker to do. Characters are full words. I only have to type a few letters of Pinyin.

when you agree with Azerdocmom about saving all the receipts, wrappers and tickets from your recent trip to china in hopes of someday being able to acutally read them! ha ha!

bazza,

thank you so much!! ..happy i didn't come so far yesterday night...its always so time-consuming looking up characters... or try "drawing" them nicely into the online "handwrite input" applets... (love those anyway!)

...you start dreaming about the cPOD website.

...and when you put them on flickr and add Chinese notes all over them. ;) http://www.flickr.com/photos/-bazza-/1854289093/

You know you're addicted to learning Chinese when...

you save practically every wrapper, bag and receipt or ticket from a recent trip to China just so that one day, some day in the distant future, perhaps, you just might be able to read them...you hope...

bingge, are you wanting to import a text file, with pinyin, into your iPod? If so, I have an old post with details on how to do that. I'll dig it up....

speaking of changing your ipod settings to hanzi, does anyone know an application for the itouch that will allow pinyin input? I thought maybe I saw it in another conversation (?) but wouldn't even know where to start looking... 谢谢

...your English gets worst by the day. hehe

gesang, I know exactly what you mean. I also when as far as typing up all the menus up. ;)

In characters and pinyin. :)

http://www.bazzanet.com/chineseipod.pdf

http://www.bazzanet.com/pinyinipod.pdf

Calkins, I bet you're glad you had that friend. Whenever I mess around with languages on my phone I always make sure I know which buttons to press and how many times to press them to get back to the English language option. :-)

still looking for menu-vocabs ;-)...

LOL Gesang....I did that on my cell phone once and was totally screwed! My Taiwanese friend had to fix it.

...and soon after this experience you start to look up the vocabulary used in the iPod menu...

When you change language settings on your iPod to chinese ...to see how much you are able to read there... (which may get you in serious trouble to re-change settings!!!)

...When you spend 300 pounds on studying material knowing fully well that you only have 250 a month at your disposal (needed for food, accommodation...). (I did that when I was still a student. Couldn't eat more than one meal a day for 6 weeks. Did me good, I admit.)

"and you can only ever seem to pull Bs in them, so your GPA takes a hit each semester!" Ouch. I used to sneak into Hebrew Classes...

"When your kids are unaware that there's non-Chinese programming on the tv, despite the fact that you're not Chinese and you live in the US..."

I wonder - do they understand the programmes?

"When you see a sign in Chinese in the distance, start to work out the characters, only to find out it is in English as you draw closer." I recommend glasses.

"When someone asks you a question in Spanish, and you reply with, 对不起，听不懂."

I tend to confuse wo3 with yo (=I). That's particularly embarrassing if you bear in mind that castellano is my mother tongue

"...you when wish Heroes also had a Chinese hero character" bazza, we should file a petition----

"... when you've emptied the Chinese studies shelf at your public library." Which in my case only consists of five books. But they've got 120 books for Arabic.

If you keep taking chinese classes - for credit because the department won't let you audit them, and they are 6 credits a semester, and...

chinese isn't even your major,

and you can only ever seem to pull Bs in them, so your GPA takes a hit each semester!

and my cat is the first to hear me try out new words in Chinese, lol

If you twitch whenever someone mispronounces a word in Chinese (上海, 北京, 风水, 阴阳...) >_< and not to mention they have no concept of tones...

Oh wow, I have only been learning for about three weeks now, but I am guilty of about half of these.

I feel validated.

When your kids are unaware that there's non-Chinese programming on the tv, despite the fact that you're not Chinese and you live in the US...

...you install the Chinese version of QQ.

When you see a sign in Chinese in the distance, start to work out the characters, only to find out it is in English as you draw closer.

When you go on to you tube and watch Jolin songs cause it has the chinese characters kareoke style. and get very excited when you can spot a few.

When you forget to eat lunch because you're too busy reading all the Cpod conversations. God I'm hungry!

When you want to quit your day job and become a full-time professional ChinesePoddie.

(If there's anyone out there that would pay for such work, please contact me asap).

When someone asks you a question in Spanish, and you reply with, 对不起，听不懂.

When you stop to pay tolls and under the quarters in your ashtray you find your flashcard for ashtray. When you get pulled over and the officer comments on your sticky note that says "insurance" and after happily telling the officer that it's a flashcard and it helps you learn Chinese he then asks "about how often do you see this flash card" (I got a warning)

you contemplate on jacking-up (injecting) freshly brewed Chinese medicine intravenously, as you desperately need a higher intake of anything Zhongguo!

You have just watced two chinese guys play snooker in a British tournament and wonder what are the characters for their names: Ding and Fu

You pay £10 to get a Chinese magazine from an ebay seller in Malaysia.

You direct your inept Chinese ability at anybody who has a hint of Asian origin, by asking: "Ni hao ma?", "Ni shi Zhongguo ren ma?" and you get a reply from them saying: "sorry! I do not have a clue what you are talking about, I am from Bengal!"

-your little daughter tells you: 我爱你,马. with a big smile.

-you find in your shoutbox at last.fm messages like:

I'm pretty sure you lived in China...

-everybody stares at you either because you're listening to the fix on your way to work (or anyway else) or because you don't wear your earphones and make "strange sounds" as usual (empty batteries)

You watch the final of the English Snooker Masters tournament which has Ding yunhui in it hoping he will say some words of Chinese without the voiceover completely obscuring it.

How about saying a few words in Chinese to random people as you go about your daily routine, confidently assuming they do not speak the language, and feeling emotionally ripped-off because they cannot reply to you!! :-D

By the way, only signed up last month, CP rocks!!

AuntySue,

Do you realize what you just wrote ?

It's open to some huge misinterpretations !

Being addicted yourself is one thing, drawing your dog into the addiction is another and more sinister thing. We must found the Anonymous Chinese Students Association, and allow dogs into it.

So can I, I've done it dozens of times :-)

All dogs seem to have a special appreciation of Chinese. Try it on any dog you meet in the street, they love to listen to the language, and if they are running around freely they'll come over close to listen. It must be their primal language, something deep in their genetic history.

Interesting. My dogs are also bilingual; they know 来 and 坐下 among others. Sometimes people at the dog park ask me why I am telling my dog to lie down from a hundred yards away, and he runs towards me instead.

However, unlike the rest of you I am definitely not addicted to Chinese; I can quit any time I want...

Urbandweller, it's funny you mention that. I greet my puppy with "wo xihuan ni. ni xihuan wo ma? dui a! ni shi wo de yi zhi gou ye wo de bao bei", etc.... Of course my family thinks I'm crazy, but whatever. I think my dog is the only family I have that appreciate's my Chinese anyway! That's why he's so happy when I greet him.....对不对？

your wife and children try to distract you from seeing any shop or restaurant that has Chinese characters on the sign 'cos they know you are going to try to translate them!

when you find flash cards or post-its with characters scribbled on them in weird random places all over your house and in the pockets of your clothing!

or speaking anything chinese to your pets!!!

when you find yourself saying "Wo ai ni" to your pets...

when every time you go into a bookstore you have to check out the language and travel sections looking for chinese books...magazines..cds...dvds...calenders...people!

When you think up schemes to get yourself sent to prison, because in there you'd have more spare time to study Mandarin.

When you have "xin tai ruan" as your music on hold at work.

When you start a company with a name like...(Chinese name...DBA...English translation of Chinese name)

When you feel happy inside as you realize that you must have leart and forgotten this new character at least six times, because that means that it will be slightly easier to learn it for the seventh time

When you force your chinese friends on MSN to type in Chinese even though they can type in English.

Chinesepod is my school now. The other kind of school was half a lifetime ago (and I have a Master's Degree).

When you're known at school as the "weird kid that learns Chinese"

You get upset when your friend points out, in Chinese that "z" makes a "j" like sound and you almost scream "It's not Chinese, that's Pinyin"!

gavintgh, of course not. :) I don't have the power to kick anyway. ;)

When your purchase criteria for DVDs is finding the small print on the back that says: 配音： 国语， 字幕： 英 (or the English equivalent).

When the new Chinese players enter the NBA at the top of you're favorite players list even though you've never seen them play a game before in your life, simply because they are....you guessed it!

When you buy a subscription to Chinese cable even though you can watch all you want and more for free on the Internet!

When you add CCTV-4 (China Central TV) to your cable channel lineup ..... by the way, it was free !!!

很有趣的一场讨论,最有效的方法是,和他们聊天!

Funny discuss, the best way to learn chinese is to pratice,to chat with them!

BTW, I am new and glad to joint this forum.

PS:

To Bazza:

You won't kick me away because I am chinese,right? ^_^

...when hearing other people immitate the chinese language as a joke makes you very upset and annoyed, so you ask them to zip-it in chinese...

"你是一个笨蛋. 请停说."

when you are eating dinner and you yell out 服务员 just for the hell of it.

Hi ardillita, I think you mean "website" instead of "page." If so, the best way to learn is to listen to the lessons. If you are new at Chinese, go to the top of this page, click on "lessons," and then any lesson you see. Hope this helps! Welcome to chinesepod!

...when you wake up and words from last night's Cpod dialogues are stuck in your head, repeating over and over and over and over again...driving you insane until you replace them with the new day's lessons...but it's a vicious circle.

hello i am new in this page, can someone help to me to understand how can i learn fron this page? thanks a lot

...when your video iPod irreparably froze and you secretly rejoice because now you have an excuse to upgrade to an 80G iPod that will now store EVERYTHING from your RSS feed with plenty of room to spare! Teehee ^_^

You buy a quad-band cell phone from China with half the features at three times the price, and half the time doesn't ring just automatically forwards calls to voice mail just because it has Simplified AND Traditional character support!

...you actually begin to think "Bazza" is also a Chinese word since you see it just as much as any other word when studying Chinese here. ;)

when you are up for the Chinese guy in the UK snooker on the TV even though his opponent has a surname that's Irish like your own!

When you start writing your own blog in Chinese... and buy a URL to boot: http://www.kanbudong.org (it's true)...

when you are the only non-Chinese kid in Chinese Saturday school at age 7. 20 years ago.

you get excited when there's a bit of Chinese featured in an American tv series.

brooke

I got your post right away because I was so excited this morning to see email from ChinesePod in my inbox that I devoured the newsletter first thing. Your quote is very poetic and rightfully featured : )

when you used to be published as a freelance writer, but now all that's published are clips from your most recent posts on being addicted to Chinese...

(If you didn't get that one, check this month's newsletter. I had to blink twice and pinch myself - then have a good laugh about it all... *grin*)

When you read a topic like this and with each response find yourself thinking, "I do that!" and "I thought of that"

when you read a topic like this and with each response find yourself thinking, "I should do that!" and "Why didn't I think of that?"

When you spend your lunch time at work blogging on the Chinesepod site

..you start your own group on 88groups.

When you accost Asian featured people at work and start up a conversation in the hope that they speak mandarin

... you have last.fm with "Now playing: 二手玫瑰’s Similar Artists" and continue listening to Cantopop etc. because it's in Chinese.

... when you've emptied the Chinese studies shelf at your public library.

...you when wish Heroes also had a Chinese hero character.

when the rhythm from every noise that you hear, from the rustling of your bedsheets to the straw in your cup, reminds you of Chinese words...

when you never watch American movies anymore, only Chinese ones...

when you spend hard earned money on an external hard drive to contain all of your Chinese stuff, just so your laptop will continue to work so that you can earn more money to spend on more Chinese stuff...

you read the chinese printing of the Da Vinci Code (just for you Bazza)

you watch Survivor China and actually get upset by the way everyone pronounces "fei long" 飞龙

you spend more time at work listening to CPod than you spend on actual work (don't tell my boss)

you come up with a Chinese name for yourself that is more than just a transliteration of your given name

When everyone at your workplace stares at you as if you were some sort of idiot because you are constantly working on your Chinese pronounciation OUT LOUD.

When your mother (who has no interest in learning Chinese and has lived in America for 20 years and still can't speak good english) answers your call with "nǐ hǎo"...

When your work computer doesn't have asian fonts installed and you get upset because you don't have access to install them.

When you supposedly speak fluent English, fluent Spanish, understand Italian, Portugese and French, but need some time to respond to simple conversation because your innitial reaction is to respond in Chinese!!!

When you go to a Houston Rockets NBA game just because you know there will be a lot of Chinese there.

我越读越担心， 除了"爱上了我的老师"以外所有的帖都描述我的情况 (病态?)。 难道连我上瘾了。

...you keep your old mobile phone together with your new one, just because you don't know how to download Chinesepod on the new one..

...you get closer when you see some asian looking people on the street, just to see if they speak chinese

...you are extremely disappointed when you find out they speak korean/japanse etcetera

...you lie in bed listening to Chinesepod as a way to relax before you go to sleep..

..when your friends and coworkers quickly scurry away after someone accidentally drops the C word (chinese/china) in your presence.

...you've fallen hopelessly in love with your Chinese teacher. (*winks at John*)

说的对。

买两个MP3播放器 ， 一个是听TheFix的， 一个是听播客的， 这样的做法算不算上瘾吗? 顺便说一句, 这两个MP3的内存的确不够。

如果真的上瘾，你要用汉语留言、 在公司笔记什么的

shitouguaiwu, that's until you go buy another mp3 player 'cos yours has (have!) run out of 内存

wildyaks,

learners who have moved to China do not count as they already achieved a state of maximum immersion.

Different game, different league, different drug.

... when half your hard drive is taken up by a directory called "chinesepod" and you would not even think about deleting anything from that directory to make more room for other things AND its the first directory that gets backed up.

... you wonder what happed to episode 0048.

wildyaks, It's a slow addiction to catch but if you stay with it you will eventually catch the bug.

...you know the Lost writers were pulling a fast one with the Chinese tattoo storyline.

When the only thing you read in the parish magazine is the short paragraph of two lines at the front in Chinese just above the Hindi (I think) addressed to our ethnic minorities

all of which just goes to show that I am not addicted...- Why do I bother learning the language???

I downloaded the chinese pdf version of my digital camera manual.

Even my trolley/suitcase had a Chinese version that came with lots of cool and beforehand unknown vocab (like "torsion test" - 抗扭试验). Too bad I lost it later.

..you buy something new and you check to see if the manual has a Chinese section.

When you constantly bore friends who have no interest in languages with tales of how chinese characters are just like a jigsaw puzzle .....

You go on a holiday to Shanghai just because some Chinese based podcasting company has an office there.

Henning: I even use printer cartridge instructions as a bookmark to my Chinese grammar book...

When you learn that 'chao fan' can be so much more than just a tasty meal...

henning, the English title of the company is Gro-Wel Mold & Plastics Co. Ltd. ;)

...you've slept in by half an hour but you still find time to look at ChinesePod whilst you quickly get dressed, hoping that today's lesson will download in time before you have to leave for work.

...when you ask your Chinese collegue for translations of the most obscure vocab ("burned beamer lamp", "Printer Cartridge", "Coctoral Colloquium",...)

Mike:

You think that keeping the Mandarin version of the instructions for my new webcam is pathological? Doc?

rsmith,

my try:

"Gewei Plastic Moulds Ltd."

...when you are totally exhausted from work, but absolutely must check the latest lesson on CPod before collapsing into bed.

...instead of singing in the shower, you practice your Chinese tones.

...you say 'Ni Hao?' to every Japanese, Thai and Korean person you meet.

And that means...

(Sorry, I'm not that good at Chinese yet!)

You keep the packaging from an ink cartridge because it has chinese on it