The Shanghai bar scene starts with happy hour, but you won??t get the invite if you can??t tell the crew what time you get off work??and you won??t be able to bow out of taking early morning ???bai jiu??? shots unless you can moan about what time you have to go in the next day?? All this can be solved if you accept our humble lesson by clicking below??

Don??t get me wrong, your ability to say ???chicken??? and ???noodles??? is gold-star worthy, but if variety is the spice of life, then Chinese food is the spice rack. In this ???tantalizing??? lesson we??ll help you order some traditional dishes??without looking at that take-a-way menu.

Not a normal show, but one you??ll memorize word-for-word and print out as well. Our producer, Aric, abuses his power (which we tell him he has) by stopping to get his American Chinese menu translated into Mandarin??get some of these dishes down and impress the entire restaurant back home.

Clich?¡ì? as it might be, a good ???long time no see??? does wonders for reconnecting with old ???peng you???. We??re also going to make you sound more like a local by sharing a better way of saying ???how are you??? as well as ???I??m fine?????we just keep on giving.

Now we like mahjong and karaoke as much as the next person, but unless you pay attention to this lesson about hobbies, you??ll make those your only activities while you??re in China.

So someone asks you what you??ve been up to and you tell them ???I??ve been studying Chinese?????in Mandarin!!! How many cool points awarded to your side? Uber??at least in our book. In this lesson, Ken and Jenny help out in explaining your studies.

Mandarin tones got ya down? Perk up! We understand. In today??s lesson, our GM Steve comes in and offers up the wrong tones so you can start hearing the difference, which puts you on your way to correcting others mistakes, which is always an ego stroke.

We assume that as a beginner, you won??t be able to decipher the bus schedule from the airport, so put off breaking into that duty-free for 10 minutes or so and get yourself far, far away from the mayhem that is an Asian airport.

We can only ignore so many requests for ???chat-up lines??? until we break??which we did today. In this soon-to-be most popular episode, we give you some saucy lines to use at the pub this weekend??and withdraw any consequences thereof. (Also included will be ???Go away, you arrogant jerk!??? Ouch.)

You proudly made it out of the airport, into a taxi and found your way to the hotel! While you??ve been busy taking an orange out of the basket, we??ve added another installment to our ???Traveler??s Audio Phrase Book??? by aiding you and your jet-lagged self (drink water) in checking into your hotel.

With these basic sentences you??ll be able to sound like a pro even if you only started studying Chinese five minutes ago. Careful with W?¡ì? l?¡ì?i f?¡ì? qi?¡ì?n though ?¡ìC showing off could get you into trouble??

When the countdown to midnight begins, you never know who you??re going to be standing next to. Make sure you aren??t lost for words if you happen to see the New Year in with a Chinese friend by listening to this podcast.

???So??what do you do???? While that might sound like a ???Single??s Night??? introduction, we mean it??seriously (you should see our faces right now). In this beginner lesson, Ken and Jenny help you identify the 9-to-5 by giving you job titles??and so, so much more.

So you??ve moved up into the Basic Level and you??re feeling pretty good about yourself??so good, you ask your non-English speaking Chinese friend how they??re doing. ???Well???, they answer in Mandarin, ???horse-horse, tiger-tiger???. Make sense to you? Fortunately, it does to Ken and Jenny. In this lesson, they??ll explain that aforementioned phrase, along with many other useful ones to keep in your pocket??just make sure to take them out before putting them in the washing machine.

99.9% of us eat Chinese food before ever coming to China (of course, here we just say ???food???). So it should come as no surprise that everything revolves around a meal. In this Beginner??s lesson, Ken and Jenny bake up a tasty session on how to invite someone, and also how to turn down politely.