真的/zhen de/ junda

As Ryan and I were headed to our honeymoon (Catalina Island) we were listen to "What We Wish We'd Known When We Were Newlyweds" by John and Kimberly Bytheway. The title is pretty self explanatory so I won't go into detail. There was one part where they started talking about communication. Any of you know how important communication is to relationships. But how many of you have gone along with the other person because you didn't want to say what you were really thinking or feeling? For example, you want to go to In-N-Out and your significant other wants to go to McDonald's. You really don't want to go to the Golden Arches, but you do anyway because it's really not THAT big of a deal and their fries are pretty good. Well, the Bytheways told us about a phrase they used when they were just married and that phrase is "stern falter." If their spouse asked them what they wanted to do and threw the "stern falter" to the end of the question, it meant that they were to truly answer what they wanted, not what they thought the other might want to hear. Example, "Do you really want to go to McDonald's, stern falter?" And then the spouse could answer back his/her true feelings w/o fear. Ryan and I thought that was a good idea, so we stole it, but we changed the phrase to "zhen de." It's Chinese for "really." It has helped us out on so many occasions. Sometimes it is as trivial as where we want to eat, but we've also made bigger decisions (where to live, what to name the baby, etc.) with the help of "zhen de." I wrote it in the title as "junda" because that's how it is pronounced. I won't get into the specifics of Chinese and pin yin and the Romanized alphabet.... at least not for this post. Anyway, we thought this was helpful and just wanted to pass it on. Happy day!