English Phrase/Word In Mandarin Chinese

Da jia hao
Hello Ni Hao
How are you? Ni Hao Ma?
A. Very Well Hen (Very) Hao (Good or well)
B. Not so good Bu (Not/ No) tai (So) hao (Good)
Long time no see Haojiu (Long time) bu (No) jian (to see)
Good morning Zaoshang (Morning) hao (Good)
Good evening Wanshang (Evening) hao (Good)
Good Bye Zai(Again) jian (To see)
What’s your name? Ni jiao (You are called) shen me (what) ming zi (Name)?
I am called Wo(I/Me) jiao (to call/to be called)….
Ex. Wo jiao Kezia
The Personal Pronouns in Mandarin Chinese
I/Me (1st person pronoun) Wo
You (2nd person pronoun) Ni
She/Her, He/Him, It (3rd Person pronoun) Ta
Like Xi Huan
We/ Us Women
You (All) Nimen (Plural pronoun for “you”)
They/Them Tamen
Pronouns in phrases/sentence:
1. I like you “Wo xihuan ni”
2. I like her “Wo xihuan ta”
3. He likes me “Ta xihuan wo”
4. You like him “Ni xihuan ta”
5. We like you all “Women xihuan nimen”
6. You all like us “Nimen xihuan women”
7. We like them “Women xihuan tamen”
8. They like us “Tamen xihuan women”
9. You all like them “Nimen xihuan tamen ”
10. I like them “Wo xihuan tamen”

Numbers: (Note: )
1 to 10
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
ling yi(e) er (ar) san si (seh) wu liu (liou) qi(chee) ba jiu shi
Tips on pronunciation:
iu : iou
liu: liou
Jiu: jiou
11 to 100: (NOTE: 25 is “er shi wu”, 35 is “san shi wu”, 45 is “si shi wu”, but 15 is “shi wu” not yi
shi wu.)
10 - shi 11 - shi yi 99 - jiu shi jiu
20 - er shi 21 - er shi yi 100 - yi bai
30 - san shi 33 - san shi san Hundred is “bai”
40 - si shi 46 - si shi liu 101 - yi bai yi
50 - wu shi 56 - wu shi liu
60 - liu shi 66 -liu shi liu Note: To prevent misunderstanding, to state serial list of
70 - qi shi 72 - qi shi er numbers, instead of using “yi yi” for 1 1, you can
80 - ba shi 87 - ba shi qi replace it with “yao yao”
 1(yao) 1(yao) 0 (ling) 1 (yao) 2 (er) 1 (yao) 3 (san)
How to connect a subject of a sentence to a noun using “shi”, and how to connect the subject to
an adjective using “hen”?
Note: “shi” is used to connect noun, it is not used to connect noun to an adjectives
“hen” is used to connect nouns to adjectives
“shi” “hen” Another examples:
1. I am a teacher 1. She is beautiful He is generous
Wo shi laoshi hen
2. You are a student 2. They are kind He is an engineer
shi hen
3. They are Americans 3. You are smart She is attractive

Tips:
Days of the week in Mandarin & expressing dates (months and days) in Mandarin Chinese
(Note: To learn the days of the week, one should be able to count Chinese numbers)
Week - Xingqi (xhingqi) Month -Yue July - qi yue
Monday -Xingqiyi January -Yi yue August -ba yue
Tuesday -Xingqier February -Er yue September -jiu yue
Wednesday -Xingqisan March -San yue October -shi yue
Thursday -Xingqisi April -Se yue Nov. -shi yi yue
Friday -Xingqiwu May -wu yue Dec. -shi er yue
Saturday -Xingqiliu June -liu yue
Sunday -Xingqi ri (ir) tian (“ri”, means sun & “tian”, means heaven)
What day is today? Jintian(today) shi(verb to be “is”) xingqi ji(jiih) (a question phrase “what
day of the week”)?
Today is… Jintian(today) shi(is) Ex.: Jintian shi xingqier
What day is tomorrow? Mingtian(tomorrow) shi(is) xingqiji?
Tomorrow is… Mingtian (Tomorrow) shi xingqisan (wednesday)
What days was yesterday? Zou tian (yesterday) shi xingqiji?
Today is Friday Jintian shi xingqiwu
The days of the month (Hao Ri)
For the month we put the numbers from 1 to 12 before the chinese word “yue”(month). For the
days of the month we put number 1 to 31 before “hao” or “Ri”. “Ri”, is mainly used in written
Chinese like for forms or documents, and “hao” mainly used in spoken Chinese.
1st day “yi hao”
2nd day “er hao”
3rd day “san hao”
20th “er shi hao”
25th “er shi wu hao”
31st “san shi yi hao”
January 1st “Yi yue (January) yi hao (1st)”
February 14th “Er yue shi si hao”
November 18th “shi yi yue shi ba hao ”
December 25th “shi er yue er shi wu hao”
Learn sentences regarding dates.
1. Today is April 4th. = Jin tian shi si yue si hao (jin tian she se yuweh se hao)
2. Yesterday was February 3 = Zou tian shi er yue san hao
3. Tomorrow is May 12 = Ming tian shi wu yue er shi hao
4. What is the date today? = Jin tian(today) shi ji yue(month) ji hao (day)? (“ji” is used as question
word used to ask about a small number.)
5. What is the date tomorrow? = Ming tian shi ji yue ji hao?
6. What is the day today? = Jin tian shi ji yue ji hao?
7. Today is May 3 = Jin tian shi wu yue san hao
8. What is the date yesterday? = Zou tian shi wu yue er hao
9. What is the date tomorrow? = Ming tian shi wu yue si hao

TELLING TIME IN CHINESE

I. Telling time on the hour
To tell time on the hour, simply put the numbers before the Chinese word “dian”
For example: 1:00 - “yi dian”
2:00 - “liang dian”, not “er dian”. Chinese has two different ways of saying the number two. “er ” is only
used for counting doing math or sequence of numbers like a phone number, it is not used for
measurement. “liang” is used for measuring, like for example time.
3:00 - “San dian”
7:00 - “qi dian10:00 - “shi dian”
12:00- “shi er dian”
Adding minutes to the hour (simple add the Chinese word “fen’). Fen can be omitted unless the minute
part is 10 minutes.
7:05 “qi(7) dian(hour) ling(Zero) wu(5) fen(Minute)”
2:02 “Liang dian ling er fen”
8:17 “ba dian shi qi fen”
3:10 “san dian shi fen”
6:07 “liu dian ling qi fen” (since the minute part here is not ten you can omit )
11:10 “shi yi dian (hour part) shi fen”
2:49 “liang dian (hour part) si shi jiu fen”

“ban”, means half and can be used when the minute part is 30
Example: 10:30 “shi dian san ban fen” or “shi dian ban”
8:30 “ba dian ban” or “ba dian san ban”

“ke”, can be used to express a multiple of 15 minutes (not required)

1:15 “yi dian yi ke” or yi dian shi wu fen”
1:45 “yi dian san ke” (san ke means 3 quarters which is 45 minutes) “yi dian si wu fen”

“cha”, means lacking and is used to express the number of minutes until the next hour
3:50 “cha shi fen( si dian ” = lacking 10 minutes 4 o’clock or 10 minutes
before 4
2:55 “cha wu fen san dian” = lacking 5 minutes before 3 or lacking 5 minutes 3 o’clock
QUIZ TIME:
6:30 “liu dian ban” or “liu dian san shi fen” or “liu dian san shi”
8:15 “ba dian shi wu fen” or “ba dian shi wu”
8:50 “cha shi fen jiu dian ” or “ba dian wu shi fen”
What time is it now? “xian zai (now) ji dian (number of time or hour)?”
Now it’s 7:05 “xian zai qi dian ling wu fen”
AM or PM
In Chinese they split their night and day in 6 time periods.
1. Early morning
2. Before noon
3. Noon
4. Afternoon
5. Evening
6. The wee hours

How to learn and master Chinese vocabulary:

There are many words and characters in Chinese, but many of them are obscure and complicated, and
even native Chinese speakers rarely use them. Rather than spending your time memorizing random
characters in the word list, you should start with the words that you are going to use the most frequently.
The frequent you use this word