Learning Chinese — frequently asked questions
52 questions people really ask when learning Chinese, with answers that stand on their own. Where there is more to say, the link comes underneath — not instead of the answer.
Getting started
Where to begin, how long it takes, which Chinese to learn, and what the levels mean.
How should I start learning Chinese?
With the sounds and with whole sentences, side by side. The sounds come first because Chinese words are told apart by their tone as well as by their consonants and vowels: 买 is to buy and 卖 is to sell, and nothing but the tone separates them. So learn pinyin, the Latin spelling that shows the tones, until you can read a syllable and say it with the right pitch. From the first week, alongside it, learn short sentences as wholes — 你好！我叫安娜。我是英国人。 — with the pinyin under each word, so that the characters are in front of you from the start without having to be known yet. Then come the few patterns everything else is built on: two nouns joined by 是, a question with 吗 at the end, and a measure word between a number and a noun. Characters are best learnt one word at a time, inside those sentences, rather than as a separate list.
What do levels 1 to 5 mean on this site?
They follow the numbered scale that learners of Chinese commonly use to describe where they are, in which 1 is the first step. That scale goes further; this site goes as far as 5. The levels are not an examination and not an official placement. No word lists published by any examining body were used, every placement of a word or a grammar point here is this project’s own judgement, and the site has no connection with the bodies that run such examinations. There is no official equivalence between these steps and the European scale from A1 to C2; as a rough guide only, 1 corresponds to the beginning of A1 and 5 to about B2. The yardstick for placing something is stated openly: not how hard it looks, but from what point you cannot get by without it. 电脑, computer, is two characters with plenty of strokes and sits at level 1, because it is everywhere; the written particle 之 has three strokes and is taught at level 5, because the everyday 的 does the same work for a long time before you need it.
Why does this site stop at level 5?
Because level 5 is roughly the point at which ordinary adult Chinese — notices, messages, articles, conversation at normal speed — becomes readable and followable with a dictionary to hand, and that is what this pair was built to get you to. Beyond it, what a learner mostly needs is volume: many more words, many more four-character idioms, and the written register met again and again in real texts. A site of explanations and word lists adds less per page there than reading does. It would rather cover the levels it has properly than spread itself thinly over more.
Is Chinese hard for English speakers?
It is hard in different places from a European language, and easy in some that surprise people. The grammar has no endings at all: a verb never changes for person, number or tense, a noun has no gender and, outside a few words for people, no plural, and there are no articles. 我去, 他去, 我们去 — the verb is the same every time. The basic order of subject, verb and object is the one English uses. What takes time is everything an English speaker cannot borrow: the tones, which have to be learnt with every word; a vocabulary with almost nothing in common with English; and a writing system learnt character by character, which does not spell out its sounds. None of it is beyond anyone. It is a language in which the first sentences come quickly and reading comes slowly.
How long does it take to learn Chinese?
There is no honest figure in hours, and a page that states one as a fact has taken it from somewhere it should not have trusted: it depends on what you already know, how often you practise and what you mean by having learnt it. Three things can be said. Speaking and listening usually run well ahead of reading, because the spoken grammar is simple while characters keep arriving one word at a time for years. The tones decide a great deal in the first weeks: time spent getting them right at the start is time you do not spend unlearning wrong ones later. And short, regular practice beats occasional long sessions, above all for characters, which fade quickly when they are not seen again. Measure progress by what you can do — order a meal, ask the way, read a menu — rather than by the calendar.
What is the difference between Chinese, Mandarin and Putonghua?
They name different things. “Chinese” is the umbrella: a family of spoken varieties that share a writing tradition but are not all understandable to one another when spoken. Mandarin is the largest group within that family, spoken across most of northern China and much of the southwest. Putonghua, 普通话, literally ‘common speech’, is the standard language built on it: its pronunciation is based on that of Beijing and its grammar on modern written Chinese. It is the language of schools, broadcasting and public life on the mainland, and it is what this site teaches. The same standard is called 国语 in Taiwan and 华语 in Singapore and Malaysia, with small differences in words and pronunciation. In Chinese, the language you are learning is usually just 中文 or 汉语: both are common, 汉语 is a little more formal and is the usual name for the language as a subject of study, and 中文 is the everyday word, used for the written language too.
Should I learn Cantonese instead — and what about the other varieties?
That depends on where you want to use it. Cantonese, 粤语 or 广东话, is spoken in Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau and in many Chinese communities abroad, and in speech it differs from Putonghua roughly as much as two separate European languages do: a speaker of one does not simply follow the other. It has more tones, many words of its own and a grammar that differs in a great many small ways. Other large groups include Wu, to which the speech of Shanghai belongs, Min, spoken in Fujian and widely in Taiwan and Southeast Asia, and Hakka. Most people in mainland China who grew up speaking one of these also speak Putonghua, which is taught in every school, and that is the language a learner can use everywhere. If you are moving to Hong Kong or have Cantonese-speaking family, Cantonese may be the better first choice; otherwise start with Putonghua. Nobody expects a learner to speak a regional variety, and local words are best picked up where they are spoken.
Should I learn to speak first, or to read?
Chinese lets you separate the two more easily than most languages, because a character does not tell you its sound and pinyin tells you nothing about meaning. Some learners concentrate on speaking with pinyin alone for months and add characters later; others learn to read with little speaking. For most people the best way lies in between: speak from the start, and learn the characters of the words you already say, so that each character arrives attached to a sound and a meaning you know. A character met with no word behind it is the hardest kind to remember. This site is laid out for exactly that: every sentence is written in characters, and every word has its pinyin under it until you no longer need it.
Tones and pinyin
The four tones, the letters that do not sound the way they look, and how this site writes the pinyin.
What is pinyin?
Pinyin, 拼音, ‘spelled sounds’, is the standard way of writing Putonghua in the Latin alphabet on the mainland. It is used to teach children to read, in dictionaries, beside the characters on many signs, and above all for typing: it is the most common way of entering Chinese on a keyboard or a phone. It is not a second writing system — books, newspapers and messages are written in characters — but it is the key to the sound of every character, which the character itself does not give you. Learn it early and properly, because its letters do not always mean what they mean in English: q sounds roughly like the ch in ‘cheese’, x roughly like the sh in ‘she’, c like the ts in ‘cats’, and zh roughly like the j in ‘jam’ said with the tongue tip raised and drawn back. Read Qīngdǎo the English way and nobody will recognise the city.
How do I learn the tones if I am not musical?
You do not need to be. Tones are not notes on a scale: they are shapes of pitch relative to your own voice — high and level, rising, low, and falling — and everyone already uses shapes like these in English. Say ‘Yes?’ as a question and your voice rises much like a second tone; say ‘Yes!’ firmly and it falls like a fourth. What is new is that in Chinese the shape belongs to the word, not to your mood. Some things help. Learn every word with its tone from the first day, never the bare syllable. Learn two-syllable words as pairs of tones, because that is how tones are actually heard: 中国 is first plus second, 北京 third plus first, 谢谢 fourth plus neutral. Exaggerate at first, since a slightly overdone tone is understood and a flat one is not. Draw the shape in the air with your hand as you say it. And record yourself and compare it with a native speaker. Many people who think they are tone-deaf find, after a few weeks of attention, that they can hear the difference after all.
Do the tones really matter, or will people understand me anyway?
Both are partly true. In a clear situation a listener can often guess a word said with the wrong tone — at a ticket counter, the context does much of the work. But a wrong tone gives a different word, not an accent, and enough of them make speech hard to follow. Some pairs matter every day: 买, to buy, and 卖, to sell; 汤, soup, and 糖, sugar; 问, to ask, and 吻, to kiss. A sentence said with all its tones flattened sounds to a Chinese ear rather as an English sentence would if every vowel in it were said the same way. Get the tones right while your vocabulary is small: it is much harder to correct a habit than to form one.
Why is nǐhǎo said níhǎo?
Because two third tones in a row do not stay that way in speech: the first of them rises and sounds like a second tone. 你好 is said níhǎo, 很好 is said hén hǎo, and 水果, fruit, is said shuíguǒ. This site, like dictionaries, writes the original tones here and leaves the change to you, for two reasons: it is regular, so it is easy to apply; and writing it would hide what each word’s own tone is. One more thing about the third tone: before any other tone it is usually said simply low, without the rise at the end, and the full dip and rise is heard mostly when it stands alone or ends a sentence. The words 一, one, and 不, not, are the exception to this way of writing: their changes are written as they are spoken.
Why is yī sometimes written yí or yì, and bù sometimes bú?
Because these two very common words change their tone in speech, and on this site — as in many learners’ materials — the change is written, so that what you read is what you say. 不, not, is a fourth tone, but before another fourth tone it rises: 不是, 不去; before the other tones it stays as it is: 不好, 不来. 一, one, keeps its first tone when you count, in ordinal numbers such as 第一, in dates such as 一月, in telephone numbers, and at the end of a word, as in 统一. Before a fourth tone it rises — 一样, 一个 — and before the other tones it falls: 一起, 一天, 一年. In 一个 the measure word 个 is a fourth tone, which is why the number rises, even though 个 itself is usually said lightly after a number. Learn the rule once, and the forms soon become automatic.
What is the neutral tone?
A light, short syllable with no tone of its own, whose pitch depends on the syllable before it. Grammatical particles are neutral — 的, 了, 吗, 呢 — and so is the second syllable of many everyday words: 妈妈, 谢谢, 朋友, 喜欢. Pinyin shows it by leaving the tone mark out. In a few words it changes the meaning: 东西, with a neutral second syllable, is a thing, while dōngxī is east and west. How much neutral tone people use varies across the country: speakers from Beijing use a great deal of it, many speakers from the south rather less, and both are standard. This site writes the forms that standard dictionaries give.
Which Chinese sounds are hardest for English speakers?
Usually not the ones people expect. The first trouble is three rows of consonants that English hears as one or two: j, q and x, made with the tongue flat behind the lower teeth; zh, ch and sh, made with the tongue tip raised and drawn back; and z, c and s, made at the teeth. The second is the vowel ü, an ee said with rounded lips, as in 绿, green, and 女, woman — and it is written as a plain u after j, q, x and y, so qù and xué contain it too. The third is the i in zhi, chi, shi, ri, zi, ci and si, which is not an ee at all but a continuation of the consonant. And the fourth is the difference between b, d, g and p, t, k: it is not voice, as in English, but a puff of air. b is like the p in ‘spin’, p like the p in ‘pin’, and that alone separates 肚子, belly, from 兔子, rabbit.
What is the r at the end of some words?
It is called erhua, and it is written with the character 儿: 哪儿, where; 这儿, here; 一点儿, a little; 玩儿, to play. It is not a separate syllable. The r is fused onto the syllable before it, and an n or an i at the end of that syllable usually drops out, so 一点儿 is said roughly yìdiǎr. It is typical of Beijing and the north; many speakers from the south use it rarely and say 哪里 where a northerner says 哪儿. Both are standard Putonghua. Use it in the common words where it is usual, and resist adding it everywhere to sound more native: overdone, it sounds like a borrowed accent.
What does the pinyin under the Chinese on this site show, and how do I switch it off?
Every word in every Chinese sentence on this site has its pinyin under it, one block per word, so that the pinyin also shows where one word ends and the next begins: 图书馆, library, is one word and one block. Tone marks are written on every syllable that has a tone; a syllable without a mark is in the neutral tone. Two conventions are worth knowing. The change of two third tones is not written: 你好 appears as nǐhǎo and is said níhǎo. The changes of 一 and 不 are written as spoken: 一起, 不是. Names of people and places begin with a capital letter, and everything else is written small, even at the start of a sentence. To hide the pinyin, press the button marked ‘Pinyin’ in the header at the top of the page; press it again to bring it back. Your browser remembers the choice on this device, so it stays the same from page to page. A good habit is to read a sentence with the pinyin hidden first and show it only to check: reading a character yourself is how it sticks, and glancing down at the answer every time is how it does not.
Characters
Simplified or traditional, how many, how they are built, and how to look them up and type them.
Can I learn Chinese with pinyin alone, without characters?
To speak, yes; to read, no. Plenty of people hold conversations in Chinese without reading a character, because the characters are a way of writing the language, not part of its grammar. But Chinese is not written in pinyin, and pinyin on its own is a poor way to read: the language has relatively few distinct syllables, so many words sound alike and are told apart on paper only by their characters. shì is 是, to be, 事, a matter, 试, to try, 市, a city, and more besides; 权利, a right, and 权力, power, sound exactly the same. In speech the context sorts these out; in writing the characters do. If you mean to read at all, start with the characters of the words you already know, and let the pinyin carry you until you no longer need it.
Should I learn simplified or traditional characters?
Simplified characters are used in mainland China, Singapore and Malaysia; traditional characters in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, and in many Chinese communities abroad. The simplified forms have fewer strokes in many common characters — 学 for 學, 马 for 馬, 门 for 門 — while a great many characters, such as 人, 大, 中 and 好, are the same in both. Choose the set used where you expect to read; for Putonghua as it is used on the mainland, that is simplified, and it is what this site uses. Once one set is secure, reading the other is mostly a matter of exposure, since the words and the grammar are the same, and many simplifications follow a pattern: the component for speech on the left of 說 and 話 has the same short form in every character that contains it, as in 说 and 话.
Do I have to learn to write characters by hand?
That depends on what you need Chinese for, and it can be decided later. Much everyday writing happens on phones and keyboards, where you type pinyin and choose the character, and a learner can read, type and manage daily life with recognition alone. Many native speakers find that they can still read characters they can no longer write from memory, and there is an expression for it: 提笔忘字, ‘pick up the pen and forget the character’. Writing by hand does two things for you, though. It makes you look closely enough to tell similar characters apart — 己, oneself, and 已, already; 人, person, and 入, to enter; 未, not yet, and 末, end — and many people find that it helps them remember. If you do write, learn the stroke order from the start: it keeps handwriting legible, and it is what lets handwriting input on a phone recognise a character you cannot type because you do not know its sound.
How many characters do I need to read a newspaper?
Fewer than the size of a dictionary suggests, more than a beginner hopes — and the number of characters is not really the right measure. Large dictionaries list tens of thousands of characters, but most of them are rare, historical or used only in names; the list of characters for general use on the mainland runs to several thousand, and only part of that is common. Use is very uneven: a small set of characters such as 的, 是, 不, 人 and 在 turns up on every line, so the first few hundred you learn cover a large part of any page. That share flatters you, for two reasons. The rarer characters are the ones that carry the content, so a text in which you know nearly every character can still be one you do not understand. And knowing the characters is not knowing the words: you may know 开, to open, and 心, heart, and still need to be told that 开心 means happy. Newspapers also use a written register with function words of its own, such as 之, 其 and 于. As an order of magnitude only: comfortable newspaper reading means characters in the low thousands and the many thousands of words they form. It is a goal for the upper levels, not a number to count towards.
Are Chinese characters pictures?
A few began as pictures; most did not. Characters such as 人, person, 山, mountain, 日, sun, and 木, tree, grew out of drawings, and a few more combine pictures into an idea: 休, to rest, is a person beside a tree. But the great majority of characters are built from two parts, one that hints at the meaning and one that hints at the sound. 青 gives the sound in 请, please, with the component for speech; in 清, clear, with water; in 晴, sunny, with the sun; and in 情, feeling, with the heart. The hint is often only approximate — the tone may differ, and over the centuries some sounds have drifted a long way — but it is real, and seeing characters as built from a limited set of recurring parts is what makes thousands of them learnable. A memorable story about a shape helps with one character; knowing what the parts actually do helps with all of them.
What is a radical, and how do I look up a character I cannot read?
A radical, 部首, is the component under which a character is filed in a dictionary, and it is usually the part that hints at the meaning: 河, river, 海, sea, and 洗, to wash, share the three dots for water; 吃, to eat, 喝, to drink, and 叫, to call, share the small box for a mouth. Paper dictionaries are arranged by radical and then by the number of remaining strokes, which is why learners once spent long minutes counting strokes. Today there are quicker ways to find a character whose sound you do not know: draw it with your finger in the handwriting input that phone keyboards for Chinese generally offer; point a phone camera at it with a dictionary or translation app; or, if you know a word it appears in, type that word in pinyin and look at the character from there. Knowing the common radicals still pays, because it lets you guess roughly what an unknown character is about.
How do I type in Chinese?
With a pinyin input method, which every current computer and phone already has: add Chinese (simplified) as a keyboard in the system settings. You type the pinyin of a word without tone marks, the input method offers a row of characters and words with that sound, the space bar takes the first one and a number key picks another. Typing nihao offers 你好 straight away. A few things are worth knowing from the start. Type whole words rather than single syllables: shi alone offers dozens of characters, while shijian puts 时间, time, near the front. The letter ü is typed as v: nv for 女, lvse for 绿色. Many input methods accept just the first letters of a common phrase, such as nh for 你好. Phones also offer handwriting and a layout with nine keys. One side effect is useful and one is a trap. The useful one: the input method shows you the characters of every word you type, which is reading practice. The trap: choosing the wrong one of several characters with the same sound, a slip native speakers make too — 的, 得 and 地 are the classic case.
Why are there no spaces between words?
Because Chinese is spaced by character, not by word: each character takes up the same square, and the reader groups them into words. 我喜欢喝茶。, I like drinking tea, is five characters and a full stop in a row, and a reader sees four words — I, like, drink, tea — without thinking about it, because they know the words. A learner has to know the words to see them, which is one more reason to learn characters inside words rather than on their own. A great many words in modern Chinese have two characters, many have one, and some have three or four. On this site the pinyin helps: each block of pinyin under a sentence is one word, so 图书馆, library, shows as a single block, and where one block ends another word begins.
What do the Chinese punctuation marks mean?
Most are the familiar marks in a wider form that takes up the space of a character: the comma ，, the question mark ？ and the exclamation mark ！. A few are different. The full stop is a small circle, 。. There is a second comma, the enumeration comma 、, which separates the items of a list: 苹果、香蕉和橙子, apples, bananas and oranges. Titles of books, films and articles stand in double angle brackets, 《》, where English uses italics. Quotation marks on the mainland are “”, and an ellipsis is six dots, ……, filling the space of two characters. There is no space after a mark, and none between words.
Grammar
Where Chinese grammar is simpler than English, and the places where an English speaker most often goes wrong.
Why does Chinese have no tenses?
Because Chinese verbs never change their form, so there is nothing to build a tense out of. Time is said in other ways, and only when it matters. A time word does most of the work: 我明天去上海, I am going to Shanghai tomorrow; 我小时候住在北京, I lived in Beijing as a child. Where English marks time on the verb, Chinese marks something else: whether an action is complete, whether it is under way, whether you have ever done it. Those are the aspect particles — 了 for something done, 过 for an experience, 在 before the verb for something in progress, 着 for a lasting state. They are not tenses in disguise: 了 can appear in a sentence about tomorrow — 明天下了课我给你打电话, I will ring you tomorrow after class — and the sentence about a childhood above needs none at all. The question to ask is not ‘when?’ but ‘is it done, going on, or ever done?’.
What does le actually mean?
Not ‘past tense’, which is the explanation that causes most of the trouble. 了 does two different jobs depending on where it stands. Straight after a verb it marks the action as completed, typically with an object that has a number or a description: 我买了两本书, I bought two books. At the end of a sentence it marks a new situation, a change from how things were: 下雨了, it has started to rain; 我饿了, I am hungry now; 他不去了, he is not going any more. That second kind often has nothing to do with the past. And many past events take no 了 at all: habits, descriptions, and above all the negative, which uses 没 and drops 了 — 我没买, I didn’t buy it.
Why do I need a measure word between a number and a noun?
Because in Chinese a number cannot stand directly before a noun. English does something similar with ‘three cups of tea’ or ‘two pairs of trousers’; Chinese does it with every countable noun. 三本书, three books; 一张桌子, a table; 两杯茶, two cups of tea; 一个人, a person. The pointing words take one too: 这本书, this book. Which measure word goes with which noun is partly about shape — 张 for flat things such as tables, tickets and sheets of paper, 条 for long, thin ones such as roads, rivers and trousers — and partly a matter of learning noun and measure word together. 个 is the general one, understood almost everywhere when you do not know the right word; using it is a forgivable slip, leaving the measure word out is not.
How do I say yes and no in Chinese?
There is no single word for either. The usual answer to a yes–no question repeats its verb or adjective, with 不 or 没 for no: 你去吗？ — 去。 or 不去。; 你有时间吗？ — 有。 or 没有。. Some words come close to ‘yes’ in particular situations: 对, that’s right, agrees that something is true, and 好 or 行, all right, accepts a suggestion. A negative question works the other way round from English: to 你不去吗？, aren’t you going?, the answer 对 means ‘right — I’m not’. Answering with the verb avoids that confusion, and it is one of the things that makes a learner sound natural early on.
Why do I need hěn to say ‘I am happy’?
Because a Chinese adjective works like a verb: it needs no 是, and normally cannot take one. ‘I am happy’ is 我很高兴; 是 links two nouns, as in 我是老师, I am a teacher. The 很 is there for a reason that is not obvious: a bare adjective in a simple statement sounds like a contrast — 这个贵 suggests ‘this one is the expensive one, unlike that one’ — so 很 is added to make it a plain description. In that position it is said lightly and means little; stress it, and it means ‘very’. In questions and negatives it is not needed: 你累吗？, are you tired?; 我不累, I’m not.
What is the difference between bù and méi?
Both mean ‘not’, and they divide the work between them. 不 negates what you do as a rule, what you will or want to do, and qualities: 我不喝酒, I don’t drink alcohol; 我明天不去, I’m not going tomorrow; 今天不冷, it isn’t cold today. 没 or 没有 says that something did not happen, or has not happened yet: 我昨天没去, I didn’t go yesterday. And the verb 有, to have, is negated only with 没: 我没有时间, I have no time. A useful pair: 他不来 is a refusal or a plan, he isn’t coming, while 他没来 reports a fact, he didn’t come.
Why do time and place come before the verb?
Because Chinese sets the scene before the action, in a fixed order: who, when, where, and then what happens. ‘I’m eating at home tomorrow’ is 我明天在家吃饭 — subject, time, place, verb. English can put the time and the place at the end; in an ordinary Chinese sentence they cannot go there. The time word may also come first, before the subject, when it is the frame for everything that follows: 明天我在家吃饭. What comes after the verb is kept for the object and for the complements — how long, how well, with what result — which is where Chinese says things that English says elsewhere.
Why are there three different words pronounced de?
Because 的, 地 and 得 sound the same and do three different jobs, which the writing keeps apart. 的 joins something to the noun that follows it: 我的书, my book; 很贵的衣服, expensive clothes; 昨天来的人, the people who came yesterday. 地 turns a description into a manner and stands before the verb: 慢慢地说, to speak slowly. 得 follows a verb and introduces a comment on how it was done: 她说得很快, she speaks fast. Since you cannot hear the difference, it is a matter of writing; in quick messages native speakers mix them up too, but careful writing keeps them apart. Learn 的 first — you will meet it on every line.
What are complements, and why do verbs need them?
They are the words after a verb that say what came of it, and English often has no separate word for what they do. 看 is to look; 看见 is to see — to look and have it reach you. 找 is to look for; 找到 is to find. 听 is to listen; 听懂 is to understand what you hear. Without the complement Chinese says only that you tried: 我找了半天 is ‘I looked for ages’, with no word on whether you found anything, and 我找到了 is ‘I found it’. Put 得 or 不 between the verb and its complement and it says whether the thing can be done: 看得懂, able to read and understand it; 听不懂, unable to follow what is said. Complements are one of the larger areas of Chinese grammar, and leaving them out is a frequent reason why a learner’s Chinese sounds translated.
What is the bǎ sentence for?
It moves the object in front of the verb, so that the sentence can say what was done to it. 我把作业做完了, I have finished my homework; 请把门关上, please shut the door. Three conditions keep it in check. The object is definite, something both speakers know about. The verb does something to it — moves it, changes it, finishes it, puts it somewhere. And the verb cannot stand alone at the end but needs something after it: a result, a direction, a place or 了. Verbs of feeling and perception, such as 喜欢 or 看见, do not take it at all. English has no equivalent, which is why learners tend to avoid it; but for putting, moving and handing things over, Chinese uses it so naturally that avoiding it sounds odd: 把钥匙放在桌子上, put the keys on the table.
How do I ask a question in Chinese?
In three main ways, none of which changes the word order. Add 吗 to the end of a statement: 你是老师吗？, are you a teacher? Put a question word where the answer will go — Chinese does not move it to the front: 你去哪儿？, where are you going?, literally ‘you go where?’; 这是什么？, what is this? Or offer the positive and the negative together: 你去不去？, are you going or not? A question with a question word, or with the positive and negative together, needs no 吗 on top: one question marker is enough. And the answer takes the place of the question word, in the same order: 我去超市, I’m going to the supermarket.
Does Chinese have plurals and articles?
No articles at all, and almost no plurals. 我买了书 can be ‘I bought a book’, ‘the book’ or ‘books’; the context settles it, and a number with its measure word adds precision when it matters: 三本书. The suffix 们 makes the plural pronouns — 我们, 你们, 他们 — and can be added to some words for people, as in 同学们, which a teacher says to a class. It is not a plural ending for everything, and it is never used together with a number: three students are 三个学生. What English does with ‘a’ and ‘the’, Chinese does with 这 and 那, with 一个, which comes close to ‘a’, and with word order: something already known tends to come early in the sentence, and something new late.
Why are there several words for ‘can’?
Because Chinese separates three things that English puts into one word. 会 is a skill that has been learnt: 我会游泳, I can swim. 能 is being able to in the circumstances: 我今天不能游泳, I can’t swim today — because of a cold, say, or a closed pool. 可以 is permission: 这儿可以游泳吗？, can you swim here — is it allowed? The edges overlap, especially between 能 and 可以, but the core is clear. And 会 has a second use worth knowing early, for what is likely: 明天会下雨吗？, will it rain tomorrow?
Words and everyday use
Which words come first, how to greet and address people, and what to make of idioms.
Why don’t people say nǐhǎo all the time?
Because 你好 is a greeting for people you do not know, or do not know well: a first meeting, a stranger you need something from, the start of a call or a message to someone new. Between friends, family and colleagues it can sound oddly formal. People who know each other greet in other ways: with the other person’s name or title alone, said warmly — 王老师！ — with 早 or 早上好 in the morning, or by remarking on what the other person is doing: 上班去啊？, off to work?; 回来了？, back already? Older people may ask 吃了吗？, have you eaten?, which is a greeting and not an invitation, and a short answer is all it needs. 您好 is the respectful form, for older people, for customers and in formal situations. As a learner, use 你好 freely — it is never wrong to a stranger — and listen to how the people around you greet each other.
Why don’t close friends always say thank you?
Because between people who are close, thanks for small things can sound distant, as if the other person were a stranger who has to be thanked. Among family and good friends a favour is part of the relationship, and a formal 谢谢 for passing the salt can come across as cool. With strangers, in shops and at work, 谢谢 is used much as ‘thank you’ is in English, and a learner should use it: nobody minds it from someone who is learning. The usual replies are 不客气 and 不用谢, both ‘you’re welcome’, and among friends 没事, ‘it’s nothing’. In the same way, 请 is not sprinkled over every request the way ‘please’ is; requests are softened instead with 一下 or 吧: 你帮我看一下, could you have a look for me?
How should I address people?
Usually by family name and role rather than by first name: 王老师, teacher Wang; 李经理, manager Li; 张医生, doctor Zhang. The family name comes first, in a name as in a title: 王明 is a Mr Wang whose given name is Ming. 先生 and 女士, Mr and Ms, are polite and formal. In everyday life people often use family words for strangers: 阿姨, auntie, for a woman of about one’s parents’ age, and 叔叔, uncle, for a man; children say them to any adult. 师傅, master, is a respectful way to address a driver, a mechanic or a cook. Among colleagues and friends, 小 or 老 before a family name is friendly and common: 小王 for someone younger, 老王 for someone older — neither of them is rude.
Why do people answer a compliment with nǎlǐ nǎlǐ?
Because accepting praise head-on can sound immodest, and the traditional reply turns it aside. Told 你的中文很好！, someone may answer 哪里哪里, literally ‘where, where?’, meaning ‘not at all’, or more casually 还行, ‘it’s all right’. Many people today simply say 谢谢, which is perfectly polite, and 哪里哪里 can sound a little old-fashioned or playful. The same instinct shows in how people speak of their own things: an invitation to a full dinner may be phrased as 吃个便饭, ‘have a simple meal’. A learner whose Chinese is praised after two sentences should take it as encouragement rather than as a verdict.
Which Chinese words should I learn first?
The ones every sentence leans on: the pronouns 我, 你 and 他; the verbs 是, 有, 在, 去, 来, 要 and 想; the pointing words 这 and 那; the question words 什么, 谁, 哪儿, 几 and 多少; numbers, the measure word 个, days and times; and the phrases that open and close every encounter — 你好, 谢谢, 对不起, 再见. With these and the question particle 吗 you can already ask, answer and buy things.
Are there any English words in Chinese?
Relatively few, and that is part of what makes Chinese vocabulary hard at first. A handful were borrowed by sound — 咖啡, coffee; 沙发, sofa; 巧克力, chocolate — but Chinese much prefers to translate a new idea by its meaning, with characters it already has. A computer is 电脑, an ‘electric brain’; a mobile phone is 手机, a ‘hand machine’; a fridge is 冰箱, an ‘ice box’; a film is 电影, an ‘electric shadow’. That is also the good news: once you know a few hundred characters, new words often explain themselves, and 电, electricity, turns up again in 电话, telephone, and 电视, television. Foreign place names are mostly written by sound, as in 伦敦, London, and so are people’s names, with characters chosen for their sound and, where possible, a pleasant meaning.
How can I tell tā for ‘he’ from tā for ‘she’ when I hear it?
You cannot, and nor can anybody else: 他, he, 她, she, and 它, it, are one word in speech, and the difference exists only in writing. In conversation the context makes it clear who is meant, just as it does in English with ‘you’ for one person or several. When speaking, this works in your favour — one word to remember instead of three. When listening, it matters only when a story has two people in it, and that is where Chinese speakers tend to use names. The same fact explains a slip that some Chinese speakers of English make, mixing up ‘he’ and ‘she’: their own language never asks them to choose when they speak.
Why are there two words for ‘two’?
Because 二 is the number you count with and 两 is the amount you count out. When you count, read out a number or name a digit, it is 二: 一、二、三; 十二, twelve; 第二, second. Before a measure word, two of something is 两: 两个人, two people; 两本书, two books. In larger numbers both appear: twelve is always 十二, while two hundred is heard as 两百 and as 二百. A useful rule of thumb: if a measure word follows, use 两.
What are chengyu, and should I use them?
Chengyu, 成语, are fixed expressions, mostly of four characters, many of them drawn from classical texts or old stories, and they pack a whole idea into a small space: 一举两得, ‘one move, two gains’, much like ‘killing two birds with one stone’; 入乡随俗, ‘entering a village, follow its customs’, much like ‘when in Rome’. They keep the grammar of classical Chinese rather than of the modern language, so they are learnt as wholes. They are frequent in writing, in speeches and in the news, and educated speakers use some in conversation too. For a learner, understanding comes first: you will meet them long before you need to produce them, and a chengyu used in the wrong register, or slightly wrongly, sounds stranger than plain words would. Learn the common ones as vocabulary, and use one once you have heard it used.
This site
Where the material comes from, who it is for, and what it is not.
Can I use this site as a complete beginner?
Yes. The grammar begins with pinyin and the four tones, every explanation is written in English, every Chinese word in every sentence carries its pinyin, and each topic says which level it belongs to — so you can stay at level 1 until it feels secure and move on when it does. You do not need to know a single character to start.
Why does this site teach the mainland standard?
Because one standard has to be chosen for the pinyin, the characters and the vocabulary to fit together, and Putonghua in simplified characters, written with pinyin, is the standard of mainland China and the one most widely taught to learners elsewhere. It says nothing about one standard being better than another. If you mean to use your Chinese in Taiwan, almost everything here still applies: the grammar is the same, most words are the same, and the differences lie mainly in the character set, some vocabulary and some pronunciations, which are best picked up where they are used.
Where does the material on this site come from?
Every explanation, example sentence, word list and exercise was written for this site. Nothing is taken from a textbook, a grammar, a dictionary, a flashcard deck or another learning site — not even a list of words for a level, because the selection and arrangement of a list is protected even where the single words are not. That is also why the levels of words and grammar here are this project’s own judgement, and say so.
Does this site prepare me for a Chinese exam?
No, and that is a statement of fact rather than modesty. The site has no connection with any body that sets or marks examinations, it used none of their word lists and follows none of their syllabuses, and it does not claim to predict anybody’s result. Its levels follow a numbering that learners commonly use, and every placement on it is this project’s own judgement. It explains, gives examples and asks questions. What you practise here helps with any exam, because it is the same language; but a certificate comes from an examining body, not from here.