John Pasden, the Praxis Language Senior Product Manager, gives us a behind-the-scenes-peek at how those popular podcasts in five languages gets made.

Home
8:00am
Kiss the wife goodbye and start hitting snooze.

8:30
I roll out of bed, get washed up and dressed quickly, and take my puppy Newton out for a quick walk. Then I hop on my too-ugly-to-get-stolen bike and fly through the back alleys behind Zhongshan Park, along Suzhou Creek to the office.

The Day Begins
9:00
I arrive in the office and greet the (mostly) cheerful, very international Praxis Language crew. Morning chatter in five languages buzzes in my ears as I check my e-mail, and then I start prepping with the ChinesePod staff for the day's podcast recordings. My mind is still a bit groggy, but there's nowhere I'd rather be working.

Language, Please
10:00
I snag a cup of coffee as I head into the meeting room with Ken Carroll and Jenny Zhu to discuss the day's lesson content. Dialogues in hand, we go over the key lexical items, important grammar points, and interesting cultural tidbits. More than a few jokes are passed around (no, it's not time for another fart lesson yet!), which may or may not find their way into the final podcasts.

11:00
I watch SpanishPod's latest grammar review video. JP Villaneuva and the SpanishPod team have done it again ... only they can make irregular verb conjugations hilarious. I then go over to discuss some production issues with ItalianPod and FrenchPod. In a system as complex as ours, the occasional hiccup is inevitable. It's a good thing I'm good with computers and plenty patient!

Lunch
12:30pm
I'm torn between a 50 kuai Subway sandwich (Sherpa's delivery) and a seven kuai bowl of Lanzhou lamian (again!). I go with the lamian ... this time. The cast of ItalianPod cracks me up with comparisons of the Tower of Pisa and the Taj Mahal as we lunch out on the terrace.

The Office
2:00
I meet with the cast of EnglishPod to go over the latest dialogues. After a little American vs. Canadian vs. British English sparring, we decide on some ways to spice up the dialogues while keeping the language high-frequency and ultra-useful. We can't wait to unleash these new English lessons upon the unsuspecting internet.

3:00
Jenny and Ken finished their podcasts in the morning, and now it's my turn. I get charged up with a cup of coffee and chat with Jenny about the day's topics as we head into the studio. Jenny knows that caffeinated look in my eye and urges me to kick off the recordings.

4:30
The tech team wants some clarification on the backend functionality for the new language testing system we're developing. We go over some screenshots and diagrams. "This is not why I learned Chinese," I think, as all the discussion of database structure and XML generation scripts starts to give me a headache, but being crystal clear on every detail of the project is essential, so I stay focused.

5:30
I review some new ChinesePod dialogue ideas, rejecting one for being too boring, and praising another for its funny twist ending. Then I respond to some comments on the website... the grammar-hungry Newbies are restless! Meanwhile co-worker Amber (of hit cultural podcast "Dear Amber") relates some of the online drama that has gone on in the community that day, and she shares some of her ideas for future podcasts. My wife calls to make sure I won't be working late. She'll be waiting for me in a restaurant near our home in Zhongshan Park.

Dinner
6:30
I join my wife and some friends for Korean barbecue.

Home Again
8:00
I take Newton out to play while my wife hits the books.

9:00
I do a bit of web-surfing (ChinaSMACK was amusing today), RSS reading (gotta stay up with the latet in tech developments), and blogging. I feel bad for neglecting my own website, Sinosplice, of late, but I jot down some notes for future blog posts. I listen to some podcasts while I work at my computer. Today I go with a FrenchPod Newbie lesson. I have yet to get past the Newbie level (perhaps because I'm not terribly convinced of the usefulness of French in the modern world), but I enjoy soaking in the foreign vowel and consonant sounds.

10:30
My wife and I get in bed, each with a book. We discuss our options for weekend recreation (go-karting?), then we talk about our plans to visit Japan next year. I get an SMS from a friend in a bar who wants me to translate some random Chinese phrase for him (it means "playboy"). My wife and I end the night with our noses in our books.

Sleep
Midnight
Time for bed!

Our Take
Whether debating tomatos vs. tomatoes or database structure, John manages to juggle his varied duties and keep his day an enviably solid nine to six. Need some help parsing the finer points of a sentence or got another joke for the Praxis crew? Tell John what you think.