Mike's relations with Julie's family had been poor for as long as he could remember, but this evening felt different. Perhaps it was the beer, or perhaps it was discovering how much he had in common with her older brother. But regardless of the cause, as the evening and drinks wore on Michael felt as if a weight had been lifted. While he still might not see eye-to-eye with his new family on politics, at least he was starting to feel like less of an outsider.

Learning Chinese? The bad news is that we can't really help you handle your in-laws. Or perhaps we can help you figure out what to call them. And actually being fluent in Chinese might help you handle their deadpan jokes about murdering the foreigner in his sleep. But beyond the basics, you're pretty much on your own. Still... why not take a listen to our latest intermediate Chinese podcast? And be sure to signup for your free account with us if you haven't yet.
 said on
October 19, 2011
Hi everyone,

Just a quick note -- Echo and I are a bit crunched for time to get a lesson out today, but will have two more coming out this week, starting Thursday evening. If Sinica comes out Friday that means a Saturday lesson, otherwise you can expect back-to-back publication Thursday and Friday evening Beijing-time.

Sorry for the wait,

--david

 said on
December 4, 2011
This is a good lesson for getting a feel for stressed and unstressed syllables in Chinese - particularly the unstressed ones like 身上 - but I was nearly tricked by the last line. I have come across 行了 before, and (to my ear at least) that is very similar to this dialogue's 行啦 which I had not come across before. Does anyone know whether the meaning of the sentence would be very different if it were the former instead of the latter? Or in this situation would it be a case of 用“行了”不行?

谢谢 !

麦特