posted by mariama.leblanc on November 8, 2011 | 4 comments
Hi, I tried to listen to pop up cantonese both online and through subscribing to the itunes podcasts. Neither of these worked. Is there something wrong with my computer or internet connection, or is their something I need to download before I can listen to these podcasts? I am pretty computer stupid so thanks for any help that forum members can provide. I am using a macbook and live in China.Thanks,Mariama
Mariama,Here's a link to one of the recent podcasts. Can you try downloading it and letting us know if you have any trouble? If so there may be something we can do:http://data.popupcantonese.com/54/beginner-the-sleeping-beauty.mp3And sorry for the trouble, but this is definitely a Chinese government thing. :(Best,--david
sokuban111 on December 21, 2011 | reply
I'm also in Mainland China and I also cannot access the podcasts. I'm pretty sure I was fine back in July or so, though I might have been in Hong Kong then, I can't remember very well.The link doesn't really seem to work either for some strange reason... I normally shouldn't have a problem downloading an mp3 file; I doubt it's blocked since it didn't time out, today might just be a bad day for the internet. (Or maybe you moved the file)
We've been hosting the mp3 files on Amazon S3 and have heard from a lot of people having problems. Usually the download starts and then times out after a certain time, or the download just takes hours or days to complete after a certain amount.The behavior seems specific to Amazon S3 and doesn't seem to be a deliberate attempt to censor our website, since it isn't targeting our private server at least.We're planning to shift audio hosting to a dedicated non-Amazon server within a week or two, which will hopefully solve this problem for people.
sokuban111 on January 9, 2012 | reply
I just tried (the normal podcasts) now and they work.Thanks.I've perhaps got into a nice dilemma though now, over the past couple of months that I hadn't been using this site, my Cantonese has improved enough that I find the Elementary lessons too easy. I tried listening to an "advanced" lesson and well... if I try hard I can sorta understand the gist of what they are saying, but since there is no explanation (if I understand correctly), then it's tough to learn much from them at my level. Perhaps Intermediate would be the level for me, but there aren't any Intermediate lessons yet.Either way, it's a nice feeling to have a tangible improvement now.