how to write presentation in chinese

How to Give a Presentation in Chinese?

From the Beginning to the End: How to Give the Perfect Presentation in Chinese

Written by Juliette Pitt

Giving a presentation can be nerve-racking in any language, especially if it is in Chinese! But not to worry, you’ve come to the right place, here are a couple of tips that can help you guide you to deliver the perfect presentation to your fellow colleagues!

#Opening 

When opening your presentation in Chinese, remember to start by expressing thanks to the host of the event and to the previous speakers. If you are at an event or meeting that has distinguished guests, it is also worth expressing thanks to them too.

For example, a good way to start is: 

• 尊敬的……，女士们，先生们，下午好! 我对……表示感谢。(zūnjìng de……, nǚshì men, xiānshēng men, xiàwǔ hǎo! wǒ duì……biǎoshì gǎnxiè）

After this it is usually good to introduce yourself and express which department you represent.

For example, you can say:

• 我是…，请允许我代表…。(wǒ shì…, qǐng yǔnxǔ wǒ dàibiǎo…)

Unlike in the West where perhaps one only says your name, it is best when delivering your presentation in Chinese to add a bit more and perhaps say a couple of words of who you are speaking on behalf of.

You could even go as far as to praise the previous speaker by remarking on their content.

For example, you could say:

• 他/她的发言条理清晰。(tā/tā de fǎyán tiáolǐ qīngxī)

After all the pleasant introductions, it is best to go straight into your intended speech. Our advice to you would be to avoid using humour , unless you are familiar with a couple of Chinese jokes, but it is best to avoid as some jokes are may be hard to translate and it might cross some cultural barriers.

A good structure to use when giving your presentation is  First, Second, Third . It is straight forward and provides your presentation with a good flow.

Here are a couple of key words and sentences that you may find useful to use:

• 本次会议的议题是…(běn cì huìyì de yìtí shì…)
• 首先…(shǒuxiān…)
• 再次…(zàicì…)
• 最后…(zuìhòu…)
• 首先，我们来看一下全球电子商务消费行为的调查结果。(shǒuxiān, wǒmen lái kàn yīxià quánqiú diànzǐ shāngwù xiāofèi xíngwéi de diàochá jiéguǒ)

Congratulations! You are nearly at the end of your speech! To end the talk, it is best to use some highly energetic and heroic words as a form of encouragement to your colleagues!

Also, it is important to summarize your main points and thank everyone for listening and for coming to attend your presentation!

For example, some useful sentences to incorporate towards the end are:

• 最后，我想说的是…( zuìhòu, wǒ xiǎng shuō de shì…)
• 感谢你们对本次会议的大力支持。(gǎnxiè nǐmen duìběn cì huìyì de dàlì zhīchí)
• 希望我们能够借此机会加强沟通。(xīwàng wǒmen nénggòu jiè cǐ jīhuì jiāqiáng gōutōng)
• 要实现这美好的愿景，我们只有埋头苦干。(yào shíxiàn zhè měihǎo de yuàn jǐng, wǒmen zhǐyǒu máitóu kǔ gàn.

So, there you have it, a quick guide on how to give your presentation in Chinese. Remember to stay calm and collected .

Its best to  practice your presentation with your colleagues first and perhaps with your Chinese teacher. You could even practice a joke with them or two, to see if they get it!

Good luck!  加油 ! If you have presented a talk or lecture before in Chinese, we’d love to hear all about your experience. Why not comment down below and share some useful tips!

Same great quality, bigger scale.

• Tips and Guides
• Chinese Culture
• Chinese Classes
• Chinese Language
• Hutong School
• Internship China
• Learning Chinese
• Holidays and Festivals
• Business in China
• Work From Home

Give a Presentation in Chinese

Yes you are right. This is an article about how to give a presentation in Chinese . It sounds ridiculous because you might be an expert since high school. But today what we are talking is to give a presentation not only in Chinese mandarin, also in Chinese way.

So you are already up on the stage. After your make sure the slides do work and clear your throat, how do you begin?

Like the common structure of your other presentation. You would firstly say Hi, “大家好，我是**( dà jiā hǎo，wǒ shì **)” Good morning/afternoon everyone, my name is ** . If you are new to people, introduce yourself by giving interesting take away message. If you want to make business with someone in China, you should probably introduce your family, share your education experience, list some results you achieved in your business, etc, letting people get to know you.

The topic 主题(zhǔ tí) of your presentation should be clear like in other languages. Let’s talk more about content内容(nèi rónɡ). Design of the slides could be a little changed as reading and recognizing Chinese characters is much faster than western characters so you could put some stuff on it but not too much. Reading word by word what was written on the slides is considered bad practice in China as well.

It is very important to understand that in China everything is related to relations关系(ɡuān xi). You cannot do something without relations in China. At the end of your presentation, it is necessary to show gratitude towards those people who had helped you. Here are some basic rules:

• Show pictures of people you worked together with
• Show pictures of groups while you organized events
• Show pictures of the panels that run events
• Show your partners (for business not only clients but also people you are buying from or working together with in general)

When you are done, it’s common to leave your contact data if you want to communicate with more people. Remember Twitter and Facebook are blocked in China. Use QQ or Wechat.

Leave a Reply Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published.

Your name *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

The Art of Giving Chinese Business Presentations

Ever felt those presentation jitters? You know, the sweaty palms, the racing heart, the sudden urge to fake a contagious illness? Now, imagine doing all that while trying to nail a complex business pitch in Mandarin Chinese. Talk about stress levels rising!

But here’s the thing. Mastering the art of a Chinese business presentation changes everything. It’s your key to unlocking deeper understanding and fantastic opportunities when conducting business in China. 

Maybe this is your first time presenting in Chinese, or maybe you’ve already survived a few awkward attempts. Either way, this guide is here to help you tackle those quirks of Chinese company culture and deliver a presentation that’ll impress even the most discerning audience. Get ready to transform your Mandarin presentation skills.

Decoding the Chinese presentation

Okay, let’s face it. Chinese presentations aren’t exactly a carbon copy of the PowerPoint extravaganzas you might be used to, simply because of the key differences between Chinese and Western business cultures . Think less flashy animations and more focus on clear structure and respect for hierarchy. Here’s what sets them apart.

Formality rules

If you normally rock a casual jeans-and-quirky-t-shirt vibe for your presentations back home, it’s time for a cultural switcheroo. Chinese business presentations favor a more formal style in both your attire and your language. Think dress pants, a skirt, and a button-down shirt — professionalism is key.

This doesn’t mean you can’t inject some of your personality, but a touch of modesty goes a long way in Chinese business culture.

Structure is king

Imagine your presentation as a delicious dumpling — it should have a clear beginning (the introduction), a flavorful middle (the main points), and a satisfying conclusion that ties everything together neatly.

Focus on delivering a clear, logical flow of information. This will help your audience follow your train of thought and retain the key takeaways.

Slides: Your Minimalist Best Friend

Forget cramming every fact and figure onto your slides. Chinese presentations lean towards simplicity, with visuals that support your points, not distract from them. Think clean, uncluttered layouts with easy-to-read fonts. Bullet points are okay, but use them sparingly and keep them concise. 

Images and charts can be powerful tools, but make sure they’re high-quality and culturally appropriate. Remember, your slides are there to complement your presentation, not replace it. Let your words and your charisma do the heavy lifting.

Remember : This might feel a little rigid at first, especially if you’re coming from a more freewheeling presentation style. But understanding these expectations is half the battle. Think of it as an opportunity to hone your focus and craft a truly impactful presentation. After all, when your audience is engaged and following along effortlessly, you’ll be well on your way to sealing the deal.

Related Reading: Simplified vs Traditional Chinese: Which Should You Learn for Business?

The power of preparation

We all know that winging it is rarely a winning strategy, especially with the added challenge of a presentation in Chinese. Remember that how you act during your presentation differs from how you act at Chinese business dinners . To really ace your Chinese business presentation, preparation is your BFF. Here’s why.

Know your enemy (aka your audience)

Imagine you’re a secret agent about to infiltrate an important meeting (except way less stressful, hopefully). The first thing you do is gather intel, right? The same goes for your Chinese business presentation. Who’s in the room shapes how you tailor your message. 

Are you presenting to a board of directors with decades of industry experience looking for a strategic overview? Or a group of potential clients who are new to the market and need a more fundamental explanation? Maybe it’s your own team in China, where building relationships and clear communication are key.

Understanding your audience’s background, interests, and level of Mandarin fluency helps you craft a presentation that resonates with them. This might mean using more technical language for seasoned experts or focusing on clear, concise explanations for a less familiar audience. Tailoring your content this way shows that you respect their time and expertise, making a positive impression from the get-go.

Double your knowledge

Being the expert on your topic is a must, but for a Chinese business presentation, you need to be fluent in BOTH English and Mandarin. This means prepping your notes in advance, translating key concepts and vocabulary terms, and practicing your delivery out loud.

Don’t be afraid to record yourself and listen back to catch any pronunciation stumbles. Anticipate potential roadblocks — what are the most likely phrases or technical terms you might struggle with in Mandarin? Practice these areas especially thoroughly.

Finally, have a backup plan in case your brain momentarily forgets a crucial word. Try using synonyms or paraphrasing the idea in a different way. You might even try explaining your big ideas in Mandarin to a rubber duck or a very patient cat just for extra practice! Remember, the more comfortable you are speaking Mandarin and explaining your ideas, the more confident you’ll be during your presentation.

Visuals are your friends

Even in a Chinese presentation, well-chosen visuals transcend language barriers. But remember, simplicity is golden. A striking graph can summarize complex data trends in a way that a paragraph of text never could. A well-placed image can spark an emotional connection with your audience or illustrate a concept more effectively than words alone. 

Infographics can condense a lot of information into a visually appealing format.

The key is to choose visuals that complement your message, not overwhelm it. Think quality over quantity, and make sure your visuals are clear and culturally appropriate. For instance, color symbolism can vary across cultures, so be mindful of the message your colors might be conveying. 

Don’t forget about the power of storytelling . A relatable anecdote or a relevant case study can liven up your presentation and make your points more memorable. Visuals can help you weave these stories into your presentation seamlessly, adding another dimension to your audience’s understanding.

Nailing your visuals

So, you’ve got your slides ready to roll, but hold up. Before you dazzle everyone with your visuals, let’s talk about cultural sensitivity — it’s kind of a big deal, especially in China.

We’ve mentioned the basics of being culturally appropriate in your visuals, but let’s go a bit deeper. Think about the symbolism behind those images and colors you’re using. What might seem harmless to you could carry a whole different meaning in Chinese culture. 

For example, if your images include a dragon, you might be on the right track, as dragons are considered one of the most significant symbols of birth and life in Chinese culture , so if your presentation is a chance for some new opportunities, the dragon works.

Now consider the flip side of that. You’ve found some pleasing pictures of White frangipani flowers, and you think they look great as part of your presentation. Unfortunately, those flowers are more commonly used for Chinese funerals rather than optimistic business presentations.

So, steer clear of any unintentional faux pas by doing a quick symbolism check. Make sure you know the Chinese symbols for death before you start adding images to your presentation.

And hey, let’s not forget about color choices. Did you know that certain colors can carry different meanings in China? Yep, it’s true! So, while that bold red might scream power and passion to you, it could be sending a completely different message across the table.

Lastly, the imagery preferences across different regions in China should also be considered. What resonates with audiences in Beijing might not hit the mark in Shanghai or Guangzhou. So, it pays to do a little research and tailor your visuals accordingly.

By paying attention to these finer details, you’re not just creating visually stunning slides — you’re showing your audience that you’ve put in the effort to understand and respect their culture.

Related Reading: Mastering WeChat: How to Use China’s Biggest Social Media for Business

It’s not just what you say, it’s HOW you say it

So, you’ve meticulously researched, your slides are flawless, and you could recite your presentation in Mandarin while you’re asleep. But there’s one more piece to the puzzle: how you deliver it. Remember, when presenting in a language that isn’t your native tongue, body language, tone of voice, and overall presence become even more important.

Body language speaks volumes

Picture a presenter slumped over, fidgeting, and staring at their shoes. Not exactly oozing confidence, right? Good posture, eye contact, and a touch of animated Chinese hand gestures go a long way. But in Chinese presentations, where formality is valued, your body language takes on extra significance.

Standing tall and avoiding overly exaggerated movements conveys a sense of professionalism and respect. However, a warm smile and a friendly nod can help bridge cultural gaps and show your audience that you’re approachable and eager to connect. Remember that a smile is universally understood.

The power of your voice

Imagine listening to a monotone speaker. SNOOZE-FEST. Now imagine an overly theatrical one with wild fluctuations in volume. That’s too distracting.

Aim for a clear, well-projected voice with a moderate pace. When explaining crucial points, a slight emphasis in your tone will naturally draw the attention of your audience. A little enthusiasm goes a long way, but avoid sounding rushed or frantic.

Think of yourself like a radio host — you want to be engaging but also calm and confident. Short pauses can be your friend, helping your audience process information and giving you a chance to catch your breath.

The cultural X-factor

All business presentations happen within a cultural context, and China is no exception. While Western presentations often reward bold statements and individual charisma, Chinese presentations place more value on respectful demeanor, saving face, and building relationships (“ guanxi “). What does this mean for you? 

Well, it means you might want to tone down an overly enthusiastic style or avoid overly self-deprecating humor that could be misinterpreted. Instead, focus on sincerity and genuine appreciation as you present to your Chinese audience. Showing your audience that you’ve made an effort to understand their culture will go a long way in establishing trust. 

Don’t be afraid to open your presentation with personal notes and small talk — asking about a recent trip or holiday or referencing a previous conversation can show warmth and help build rapport.

Interactive elements (get the crowd going)

It’s time to spice up those presentations with a little audience interaction — Chinese style! You know how much the Chinese love a good group dynamic, right? So, why not invite some questions along the way?

Turn your presentation into a friendly chat rather than a one-sided lecture. It shows you’re open to hearing what they’ve got to say. Who knows, you might even get some unexpected insights!

You might also consider throwing in a fun activity or two. How about a quick round of “Guess the Market Trends” or “Spot the Business Opportunity”? Get those brains buzzing and watch the energy in the room soar.

So, go ahead, break the ice, and get everyone involved. Not only will it make your presentation more entertaining, but it’ll also leave a lasting impression that you’re not just here to talk at them but with them.

A final tip

If you feel yourself getting flustered during the presentation, don’t let it spiral into a panic. Take a deep breath, sip some water, and use a simple phrase like “请稍等” (please wait a moment) to collect your thoughts. Everyone makes mistakes, and a brief pause won’t derail your presentation; it will simply make you seem human.

Essential Mandarin phrases for your presentation

Remember, a smooth and confident delivery can make or break your presentation. Mastering a few key Mandarin business phrases will not only showcase your language skills but also show your audience that you’ve put in the effort to connect with them culturally. Here are some essential expressions to add to your presentation arsenal.

English : Hello everyone.

Pinyin : Dàjiā hǎo.

Chinese : 大家好。

English : Thank you for your attention.

Pinyin : Xièxie nǐmen de guānzhu.

Chinese : 谢谢你们的关注。

English : Now, let’s move on to the next topic.

Pinyin : Hǎo de, wǒmen jìnxíng xià yīgè huàtí.

Chinese : 好的，我们进行下一个话题。

English : Do you have any questions?

Pinyin : Nǐmen yǒu wèntí ma?

Chinese : 你们有问题吗？

English : Thank you for your time.

Pinyin : Gǎnxiè nǐmen de shíjiān. 

Chinese : 感谢你们的时间。

Bonus Phrase:

English : Please forgive me for any mistakes in my Chinese.

Pinyin : Duìyú wǒ de hànyǔ chūcuò dé dìfāng, qǐng dàjiā duōduō bāohan.

Chinese : 对于我的汉语出错得地方，请大家多多包涵。 

There are quite a few ways to say sorry in Chinese , so it’s worth practicing a few different options in case you make more mistakes than you expect.

Own your Chinese business presentations (and impress everyone)

You’re now armed with the knowledge to tackle any Chinese business presentation with confidence. Remember, success lies in understanding your audience, preparing meticulously, and conveying your message with clarity and cultural awareness. Don’t be afraid to let your personality shine through — warmth and sincerity go a long way in bridging language gaps within the context of Chinese company culture.

Of course, presenting in Mandarin is an impressive feat, but your journey towards true fluency doesn’t end here. If you’re ready to take your Mandarin skills to the next level and discover the full potential of conducting business in China, you need to take the right next steps.

For example, are you struggling to figure out where your Mandarin skills stand? Feel like your progress has stalled?

It could be you’re encountering specific grammar points or vocabulary gaps that are holding you back. Maybe you’re unsure of the best learning methods for YOU, or you’re simply not seeing the results you crave despite all your efforts. 

The Mandarin Fluency Scorecard can help. This free (and fast) assessment sheds light on your current Mandarin proficiency and identifies areas where you can make the most significant improvements. Imagine having a personalized roadmap to fluency tailored to your unique learning style and goals. That’s exactly what the Mandarin Fluency Scorecard offers.

Wouldn’t it be awesome to have a clear roadmap of where you are and exactly what to focus on next for maximum results?

Take the FREE Mandarin Fluency Scorecard. This short assessment takes less than a minute to complete and delivers valuable insights into your Mandarin strengths and weaknesses. You’ll receive a personalized report that outlines your current level, identifies areas for improvement, and provides a custom learning plan to get you on the fast track to fluency.

Stop spinning your wheels and take a targeted approach to mastering Mandarin. Take the Mandarin Fluency Scorecard today and unlock your full potential for success in Chinese business presentations and beyond.

Yes! Take the Scorecard!

Featured Categories

Popular posts.

Related Posts

We use cookies to optimize your experience. Read more about our Privacy Policy here.

5 Expert Tips to Ensure a Successful Chinese Presentation

Recently updated on February 21st, 2024 at 07:51 pm

What makes a good Chinese presentation? Here are some tips, tools, and secrets to ensure a successful Chinese presentation.

Table of Contents

Tip 1: keep it short and impactful, tip 2: use presentable slides and visuals, text expansion, speaker’s notes, screen captures, tip 4: hire simultaneous interpreters, tip 5: practise, frequently asked questions, tips for a successful chinese presentation.

Your clients will get bored very quickly if your Chinese presentation goes on for a very long time. The best way to avoid this is to try to keep your presentation short and to the very point.

While making a business presentation, your job is to present the information, in such a way that your clients take an interest in listening to what you have to say. If your client can understand and enjoy your presentation, then, your work is done.

Research suggests that visuals can improve learning by up to 400 percent because humans can process visuals 60,000 times faster than text. Slides should contain only essential information. Use graphic design elements to highlight key points and colours to stand out from the background. Fonts should be large enough to be seen in the back of the room.

Tip 3: Translate the Presentation

Finding Chinese presentation translators is not very difficult, getting the right one is what matters in the end. I would suggest searching for a professional online translation agency that offers presentation translation services . There are many reputed translation agencies on the Internet and with a little research, you would be easily able to find the right one for yourself.

Ensure that any units of measures, money, times, dates, and addresses are converted to the forms familiar to your audience. Another thing to take into consideration is the use of images, signs, and symbols. Since you are presenting to a foreign audience, you have to be sure that your choice of images, symbols, etc. does not connote any form of offensive meaning to your audience.

In addition, engage PowerPoint Presentation Specialist for PowerPoint Slides Design services to create visually interesting images by doing what a movie director would do – storyboarding, sketching, drawing.

Translated content can expand considerably in relation to the source language and may not fit into the text boxes designed for the source language.

If the presentation has speaker’s notes, be sure to include them in the translation scope. However, sometimes they’re excluded from the content to be translated depending on preferences.

Make sure graphics containing a lot of texts are formatted properly after translating and localizing them into Chinese.

If your presentation includes screen captures from your product, and if you have a translated version of it and can send us the foreign language captures, we will take care of replacing the source captures with the target language captures and make sure it all looks good.

Good simultaneous interpreters are so hard to find that companies often get burned because the interpreters either are not qualified or cancel at the last minute.  Even if a person is a professional translator, he/she may not have the skills and mastery of both languages and cultures to offer suitable interpretation services.  Further, simultaneous interpretation requires sophisticated headsets and broadcasting equipment that many companies aren’t familiar with.  For these reasons, you should work with a professional Chinese translation company.

Even the most experienced translators need to practise their presentations four to five times. The more you practise, the more credible you will be, and the less anxiety you will experience. As you practise, anticipate questions that your listeners may ask and think about additional material that you know about the content.  Having additional knowledge about the topic will also help reduce anxiety.

Before your Chinese presentation, make sure to check out the place, where the presentation is going to be taken place. Also, have a look at the entire setup and make sure you have checked all your equipment. Before anyone arrives, go to the stage and practise what you are about to say, in your presentation.

How to Say Presentation in Chinese?

There are several ways of saying presentation in Chinese: 演示、报告、PPT.

What’s a Good Opening for a Chinese Presentation?

When opening your presentation in Chinese, it’s suggested to start by expressing thanks to the guests, the host of the event, etc.

For example, a good way to start is:

Distinguished [surname and title], ladies and gentlemen, good afternoon. 尊敬的……，女士们，先生们，下午好! zūnjìng de……, nǚshì men, xiānshēng men, xiàwǔ hǎo）

How Do You End a Chinese Presentation?

A good way to end a Chinese presentation is to smile, slightly bow towards the audience, and say “谢谢 (Thank you)/谢谢大家 (Thank you everyone)” confidently.

Skyrocket Your Sales with Effective Chinese Translation Services for the Furniture Industry

7 Chinese Copywriting Tips to Take Your Sales Pitch from Good to Great

The Best Chinese Transcription Services to Repurpose Your Content in 2024 (100% Done by Humans)

Chinese Copywriter Team consists of talented linguists, project managers, localization engineers, and SEO experts. Since 2012, we have been providing translation, localization, and marketing services for various international businesses targeting the Chinese markets as well as Chinese businesses expanding their global reach.

Leave a Comment Cancel reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.

How-To Geek

How to change language in microsoft powerpoint.

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

Are Dual-SIM Phones Worth It?

You can now add checkboxes in microsoft excel, this all-in-one linux distro isn’t for everyone, but it cured my distro-hopping habit, quick links, how to change text language in powerpoint, change default text and interface language in powerpoint, key takeaways.

Select text, and then click the "Review" tab and select Language > Set Proofing Language to choose the language of any selected text. To change PowerPoint's default language used for its interface as well as any text you insert, head to Options > Language.

Creating a PowerPoint presentation in a different language? You can change the text language (used for spelling corrections) or the interface language (used for menus). Here's how.

The instructions below will work for all recent versions of Microsoft PowerPoint. This includes the version of PowerPoint included with a Microsoft 365 subscription .

By default, PowerPoint will use the same language to check your presentation's text and grammar as your Office installation's default language. However, you can customize the text language used for any text you insert into PowerPoint.

To do this, open your PowerPoint presentation and select any text you've inserted. Next, press Review > Language > Set Proofing Language on the ribbon bar.

In the "Language" box, select a language from the list provided and press "OK" to save your choice.

The text you've selected will now use this language to check for spelling and grammatical errors. If you want to change back at any point, repeat these steps and select your usual language instead.

Related: How to Turn Off Spell Check as You Type in Microsoft Office

PowerPoint uses your default locale language (such as U.S. English) to choose the text for menus and buttons. It also uses this language to set the default proofing language for any text you insert.

If you're in a locale with multiple languages, however, you may want to switch between them. For example, if you're based in the United States, you may wish to use Spanish as your default proofing language for presentations.

This will mean that any text you insert uses this language---you won't need to change it manually. Likewise, you may want to change your interface language to match.

You can change both of these options to use an alternative language in PowerPoint's settings menu. To start, open PowerPoint and select File > Options.

In the "PowerPoint Options" window, select "Language" on the left.

On the right, choose a new language in the "Office Display Language" section and press the "Set As Preferred" option.

This will determine the language used for menus and buttons.

Next, choose a new proofing language in the "Office Authoring Languages And Proofing" section. Press "Set As Preferred" to make it the default proofing language for PowerPoint in the future.

Adding a New Language Pack

If you don't see a language you want to use as your interface or proofing language, you'll need to install the language pack for it first.

To do this, press File > Options > Language in PowerPoint and select either of the "Add A Language" buttons.

Next, select the language you want to use from the pop-up list and press the "Install" button.

Microsoft Office will take a few minutes to download the new language pack. If you're prompted to, press "OK" to confirm and begin the installation.

Once the language pack is installed, select it from your list in the "Office Display Language" or "Office Authoring Languages And Proofing" sections. You'll need to press "Set As Preferred" to make it your default interface or proofing language.

When you're ready, click "OK" to save your choice. PowerPoint will exit and relaunch to display the new language.

Related: How to Change the Language in Microsoft Word

• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft PowerPoint

What are your chances of acceptance?

Calculate for all schools, your chance of acceptance.

Your chancing factors

Extracurriculars.

Ultimate Guide to the AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam

Do you know how to improve your profile for college applications.

See how your profile ranks among thousands of other students using CollegeVine. Calculate your chances at your dream schools and learn what areas you need to improve right now — it only takes 3 minutes and it's 100% free.

Of the eight foreign language exams offered by the College Board, the AP Chinese Language and Culture exam is one of the more popular language exams, taken third most frequently after the AP French Language and Culture Exam and the AP Spanish Language and Culture Exam. If you’re planning to take the AP Chinese Language and Culture exam, whether you have taken the AP class, are a native-speaker, or have self-studied, read on for a breakdown of the test and advice on how to best prepare for it.

What Does the AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam Cover? 

The AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam assesses what the College Board groups into three types of skills: Interpersonal, Interpretive, and Presentation skills. It also assesses a student’s knowledge of Chinese culture. 

This particular exam has six learning objectives:

• Engage in spoken interpersonal communication
• Engage in written interpersonal communication
• Comprehend information from a variety of audio, visual, and audiovisual resources
• Comprehend information from a variety of written and print resources
• Plan, produce, and present spoken presentational communications 
• Plan and produce written presentational communications

How Long is the AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam? What is the Format?

The AP Chinese Language and Culture exam is approximately two hours and 15 minutes. The exam is split into four separate parts, each of which assess a different skill. 

Unlike most AP exams, the Chinese Language and Culture exam is administered entirely on a computer. You will read text on the screen, type on a keyboard, listen to recordings through headphones, and speak into a microphone. You won’t have the need to write on paper, although you may use paper to take notes during the exam, which will be collected but not scored. 

In terms of text display and input, the AP exam computer will offer you options. 

Character display options: 

• Traditional characters
• Simplified characters

All text displayed on the screen is available in traditional and simplified form, and you can change between the two if necessary. 

Input methods: 

• Microsoft Pinyin IME (MSPY), based on Hanyu Pinyin
• Microsoft New Phonetic IME, based on Zhuyin Fuhao (Bopomofo)

In addition, students who choose to type with Hanyu Pinyin will have the option to choose between traditional and simplified characters. 

Take a look at the table below to get an understanding of the four parts that make up the AP Chinese exam, and then some sample questions to familiarize yourself with what to expect. 

AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam Format

Source: College Board 

Sample AP Chinese Questions

Section 1a: multiple choice listening.

25-35 Questions | 20 Minutes | 25% of Score

Rejoinder questions make up about half of all of Section 1A. These questions assess your ability to use set phrases and social formula, and communication of intent and attitude.

Listen to the audio file of this question .

The other part of Section 1A are Listening Selection questions, such as the sample question below. These questions assess comprehension and inference.

Listen to the following question here . 

Section 1B: Multiple Choice Reading

35-40 Questions | 60 Minutes | 25% of Score

In this section, the readings will be in Chinese, and the questions posed will be in English. 

Section 2A: Free-response Writing

2 Questions | 30 Minutes | 25% of Score 

There will be one question asking you to narrate a story, and another asking you to produce an email response. 

Section 2B: Free-response Speaking

2 Questions | 11 Minutes | 25% of Score

Section 2B has a Conversation question, and a Cultural Presentation question. The former assess spontaneous interpersonal communication skills in Chinese, and the latter directly assesses cultural knowledge and presentational communication skills.  

Example of a conversation question:

Here’s an example of a Presentation question:

AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam Score Distribution, Average Score, and Passing Rate

Takers of the AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam are assessed as two groups: the total group, which is comprised of all test takers; and the standard group, which are students who  generally receive most of their foreign language training in U.S. schools, who don’t regularly speak or hear Chinese, and haven’t lived for more than one month in a Chinese-speaking country. In other words, the standard group is those who haven’t had much exposure to the language outside of the classroom. 

The College Board’s data shows that in 2019, 60% of total test takers scored a 5—the highest AP exam score, but only 16.3% of those in the standard group scored the full 5. The average score for the total group was a 4.19, and for the standard group, a 2.95. 

This is important to note, since your score will be considered not just against all test takers, but against those with similar levels of exposure to Chinese outside of the classroom. So don’t let the overall scores intimidate you! 

Best Ways to Study for the AP Chinese Language and Culture Exam 

Step 1: assess your skills.

It’s important to start your studying off with a good understanding of your existing knowledge. Take a practice test to assess your initial knowledge of the material. Although the College Board does not provide a complete practice test, you can find sample questions with scoring explanations included in the course description . Additionally, the multiple-choice questions from the 2007 exam are available online here . You may also find practice or diagnostic exams in many of the commercial study guides.

Step 2: Know what to expect

A good place to begin is The College Board’s AP Chinese Language and Culture course description , which covers everything from learning objectives to sample questions. 

You can find a variety of Chinese texts at multiple comprehension levels available from Chinese Breeze and you can find news stories written for student-level Chinese comprehension at The Chairman’s Bao . You can also prepare for the exam by reviewing the College Board’s Exam Practice Tips and by previewing the exam’s sample audio files .

For a more specific idea of where to focus your studying, you may consider using a commercial study guide. Because the AP Chinese Language and Culture course has not been updated in over five years, many study materials are available. Barron’s AP Chinese Language and Culture with MP3 CD, 2nd Edition provides a very comprehensive guide to the exam content including two full-length practice exams with all questions answered and explained, along with an MP3 CD containing exemplary conversations and oral presentations. 

Barron’s is the top-rated choice for AP Chinese Language and Culture studying, but some reviewers note that it assumes an already advanced-level of Chinese language knowledge and presents much of its content solely in Chinese, including information about Chinese culture. Another solid option is the Strive For a 5: AP Chinese Practice Tests which receives good reviews for the volume of practice material it includes, but some users note that the audio files are difficult to download.

Step 3: Practice Multiple-Choice Questions

Once you have your theory down, test it out by practicing multiple-choice questions. You can find these in most study guides or through online searches. You could also try taking the multiple-choice section of another practice exam.

The College Board Course Description includes many practice multiple choice questions along with explanations of their answers. As you go through these, try to keep track of which areas are still tripping you up, and go back over this theory again. Focus on understanding what each question is asking and keep a running list of any vocabulary that is still unfamiliar.

Step 4: Practice Free-response Questions

You can begin your preparations for the free-response section by brushing up on your vocabulary and grammar. Make sure you have a solid selection of verbs to fall back on in both conversational and formal tones, and practice using them in multiple contexts. Although you won’t officially be scored on your grammar, you’ll still need to be able to communicate effectively, so make sure you can get your point across.    

Look through The College Board’s past free-response prompts that date back to 2007, with sample responses and scoring commentary.  

This oral portion of the free-response is perhaps the hardest to prepare for, since it can be difficult to gauge your own speaking abilities. One suggested practice method is to record your own sample answers using the past exam prompts, and then replay them for yourself after you’ve reviewed the scoring criteria. You might also team up with a classmate to compare responses and offer each other some constructive criticism. Another less direct method of preparation is simply to make sure you are hearing and speaking as much Chinese as possible on a daily basis.        

Step 5: Take another practice test

Once you’ve put some studying in, take another practice test. You should see a steady progression of knowledge you’ve accumulated, and it’s likely that you will see patterns identifying which areas have improved the most and which areas still need improvement.

If you have time, repeat each of the steps above to incrementally increase your score.

For more about APs, check out these CollegeVine posts:

• The Hardest and Easiest AP Exams
• How Long is Each AP Exam?
• Should I Take AP/IB/Honors Classes?
• How to Choose Which AP Courses and Exams to Take
• Are All APs Created Equal in Admissions?
• What Should I Bring to My AP Exam (And What Should I Definitely Leave at Home)?

Want to know your odds of acceptance into your dream school? Our data-driven chancing engine will let you know just that, based on your GPA, test scores, extracurriculars, and other factors. We’ll also show you how you stack up against other applicants, and how to improve your chances. Sign up for your free CollegeVine account to discover your chances and gain access to everything you’ll need to make your college applications journey smoother and more successful!

Related CollegeVine Blog Posts

Giving a Business Presentation in China

Learn how to give a presentation

Now Playing: Lesson Audio

Want to Understand & Master the Chinese Dialogue 100%?

Get a breakdown of the dialogue and translations instantly with the Premium line-by-line Audio. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Vocabulary (Review)

Learn new words fast with this lesson’s vocab review list.

Get this lesson’s key vocab, their translations and pronunciations. Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account Now and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Lesson Notes

Unlock in-depth explanations & exclusive takeaways with printable lesson notes.

Unlock Lesson Notes and Transcripts for every single lesson. Sign Up for a Free Lifetime Account and Get 7 Days of Premium Access.

Lesson Transcript

Create a Free Lifetime Account to Access Audio Lesson Archives

Create a free lifetime account to access video lesson archives, create a free lifetime account to download this audio lesson, create a free lifetime account to download this video lesson, create a free lifetime account to create your dashboard, create a free lifetime account to try the basic lesson check list, create a free lifetime account to try the premium lesson check list, create a free lifetime account to try the review track, create a free lifetime account to try the dialogue track, create a free lifetime account to access this lesson’s grammar guide, create a free lifetime account to personalize your learning, create a free lifetime account to try the kanji close up, create a free lifetime account to try the pdf lesson notes, create a free lifetime account to try the pdf lesson transcript, create a free lifetime account to try this premium feature, create a free lifetime account to try my notes, create a free lifetime account to try my flashcards, high definition chinese video lessons, create a free lifetime account to access assessments, audio lesson archives, video lesson archives, download audio and video lessons, add lesson to dashboard, basic lesson checklist, premium lesson checklist, the review track, dialogue only track, grammar guide, mark this lesson complete, mark this lesson as favorite, kanji close up, pdf lesson notes, pdf lesson transcript, pop out audio player, control audio speed, glorious fullscreen video, read along with video lesson captions, complete assessments.

Our team of Chinese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video lessons weekly. That's a lot of Chinese language learning! All new lessons are FREE for the first 3 weeks before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and unlock our entire lesson archive today!

Our team of Chinese language specialists have been releasing new audio and video lessons weekly. That's a lot of Chinese language learning! All lessons are free for the first 2 weeks before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.

Want to learn offline or on-the-go? All our Audio and Video lessons can be easily downloaded with the click of a button. Load them onto your mobile device or simply listen offline from your computer. The choice is yours!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and start listening today!

Customize your learning with your very own Dashboard. Get lesson recommendations suited for your level, track your progress and store your favorite lessons and series all in one convenient place.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and create your personalized Dashboard today!

Having trouble staying on track? The Basic Lesson Checklist will help you stay organized and committed to your Chinese language goals!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and stay on the fast track to fluency with the Basic Lesson Checklist today!

Having trouble staying on track? The Premium Lesson Checklist will help you stay organized and committed to your Chinese language goals!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and stay on the fast track to fluency with the Premium Lesson Checklist today!

Listen and repeat with the Review Track. Hear the lesson vocabulary and main phrases and repeat after the native speaker – it's the best way to perfect your pronunciation!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and start perfecting your pronunciation today!

Don't have enough time for an entire lesson today? Listen to the Dialogue Only Track to hear the native Dialogue. Listening to a little bit of Chinese everyday, no matter how much, will greatly improve your listening comprehension. Guaranteed!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and unlock the power of the Dialogue Only Track today!

Access this Lesson’s Grammar Guide and unlock in-depth explanations, answers, examples, and a BONUS audio track.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get 7 Days of Premium Access including this feature.

Track your learning progress one lesson at a time! As you work your way through our lesson archives, we'll track your progress so you can see just how fast you're learning.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and to start your progress today!

Like this lesson? Want to listen again later? Mark this lesson as a favorite and create a handy shortcut in your Favorite Lesson list!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and start your learning today!

Take a closer look at the kanji characters used in the lesson Dialogue with the Kanji Close Up Practice Sheets! You'll learn the meaning, readings, and stroke order of each character. Plus, improve your writing with kanji stroke order practice sheets!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and master lesson kanji with the Kanji Close Up Practice Sheets today!

Follow along to our award winning lessons with detailed PDF Lesson Notes! These easy to print notes take a closer look at the grammar point and vocabulary words presented in the audio lesson. Plus, read more about Chinese cultural topics related to the lesson.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and get even MORE Chinese language help with the PDF Lesson Notes today!

Want to understand every single word and phrase you’ll hear in this lesson?

Here’s how: just access the complete PDF transcript and you’ll never miss a word. Get your FREE Lifetime Account and unlock this powerful study tool.

Like to multitask while you study? Pop out the Audio Player to play in the background while you work, play or follow along with our Premium Tools.

My Notes allows you to take notes while listening to our lessons. Come across an important verb conjugation breakthrough? Learn a handy mnemonic device? Make a note of it on the lessons pages and refer back to My Notes for quick reference!

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and start taking notes with My Notes.

Add this wordlist to your Premium Smart Flashcard Study Decks for faster memorization.

Didn't catch that last word? Want to slow down the audio so you catch every single syllable? You can! All our audio files can be slowed down and sped up to match your speaking and listening needs.

Sit back and enjoy the ChineseClass101 video learning experience in all its fullscreen glory. Our Chinese specialists are consistently producing and releasing new video series, with all lessons free for the first 2 weeks before going into our Basic and Premium Archive.

Want to read along and FULLY understand the Chinese in this lesson? Just turn on the Video Captions. You'll be able to read along as you watch – in Japanese or with English translations!

Improves reading, listening and comprehension skills – guaranteed!

Unlock our high definition video lessons that get you speaking, reading, writing and understanding Chinese in minutes. Clearer picture, clearer sound – all so you learn Chinese without missing a beat.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and learn Chinese with our fast, fun and easy video lessons.

How good is your Chinese? Let’s find out! Test your language skills with assessments. Unlock interactive assessments that test you on all of the Chinese you've learned so far.

Sign up for your Free Lifetime Account and access your Assessments today!

Learn Chinese in the fastest, easiest and most fun way

Create Your Free Lifetime Account

Or sign up using Facebook

Already a Member? Sign in Here

• Skip to primary navigation
• Skip to main content
• Skip to primary sidebar
• Skip to footer

StoryLearning

Learn A Language Through Stories

How to Write in Chinese – A Beginner’s Guide

You probably think learning how to write in Chinese is impossible.

And I get it.

I’m a native English speaker, and I know how complex Chinese characters seem.

But you’re about to learn that it's not impossible .

I’ve teamed up with Kyle Balmer from Sensible Chinese to show you how you can learn the basic building blocks of the Chinese written language, and build your Chinese vocabulary quickly.

First, you’ll learn the basics of how the Chinese written language is constructed. Then, you’ll get a step-by-step guide for how to write Chinese characters sensibly and systematically .

Wondering how it can be so easy?

Then let’s get into it.

Don't have time to read this now?  Click here to download a free PDF of the article

By the way, if you want to learn Chinese fast and have fun, my top recommendation is  Chinese Uncovered  which teaches you through StoryLearning®. 

With  Chinese Uncovered  you’ll use my unique StoryLearning® method to learn Chinese through story… not rules.

It’s as fun as it is effective.

If you’re ready to get started,  click here for a 7-day FREE trial.

How To Write In Chinese

Chinese is a complex language with many dialects and varieties.

Before we dive into learning to write Chinese characters, let’s just take a second to be clear exactly what we’ll be talking about.

First, you’ll be learning about Mandarin Chinese , the “standard” dialect. There are 5 main groups of dialects and perhaps 200 individual dialects in China & Taiwan. Mandarin Chinese is the “standard” used in Beijing and spoken or understood, by 2/3 of the population.

Second, there are two types of Chinese characters: Traditional and Simplified . In this article, we’ll be talking about Simplified Chinese characters, which are used in the majority of Mainland China.

There is an ongoing politicised debate about the two kinds of characters, and those asking themselves: “Should I learn traditional or simplified Chinese characters?” can face a difficult choice.

• For more on difference between Simplified and Traditional characters read this article
• To learn more about “the debate” read this excellent Wikipedia article
• If you want to switch Simplified characters into Traditional, you might like the fantastic New Tong Wen Tang browser plugin

First Steps in Learning Chinese Characters

When learning a European language, you have certain reference points that give you a head start.

If you're learning French and see the word l'hotel , for example, you can take a pretty good guess what it means! You have a shared alphabet and shared word roots to fall back on.

In Chinese this is not the case.

When you're just starting out, every sound, character, and word seems new and unique. Learning to read Chinese characters can feel like learning a whole set of completely illogical, unconnected “squiggles”!

The most commonly-taught method for learning to read and write these “squiggles” is rote learning .

Just write them again and again and practise until they stick in your brain and your hand remembers how to write them! This is an outdated approach, much like reciting multiplication tables until they “stick”.

I learnt this way.

Most Chinese learners learnt this way.

It's painful…and sadly discourages a lot of learners.

However, there is a better way.

Even without any common reference points between Chinese and English, the secret is to use the basic building blocks of Chinese, and use those building blocks as reference points from which to grow your knowledge of written Chinese.

This article will:

• Outline the different levels of structure inherent in Chinese characters
• Show you how to build your own reference points from scratch
• Demonstrate how to build up gradually without feeling overwhelmed

The Structure Of Written Chinese

The basic structure of written Chinese is as follows:

I like to think of Chinese like Lego . .. it's very “square”!

The individual bricks are the components (a.k.a  radicals ).

We start to snap these components together to get something larger – the characters.

We can then snap characters together in order to make Chinese words.

Here's the really cool part about Chinese: Each of these pieces, at every level, has meaning.

The component, the character, the word… they all have meaning.

This is different to a European language, where the “pieces” used to make up words are letters.

Letters by themselves don't normally have meaning and when we start to clip letters together we are shaping a sound rather than connecting little pieces of meaning. This is a powerful difference that comes into play later when we are learning vocabulary.

Let's look at the diagram again.

Here we start with the component 子. This has the meaning of “child/infant”.

The character 好 (“good”) is the next level. Look on the right of the character and you'll see 子. We would say that 子 is a component of 好.

Now look at the full word 你好 (“Hello”). Notice that the 子 is still there.

• The character 好 is built of the components 女 and 子.
• The character 你 is built from 人 + 尔.
• The word 你好 in turn is constructed out of 你 + 好.

Here's the complete breakdown of that word in an easy-to-read diagram:

Now look at this photo of this in real life !

Don't worry if you can't understand it. Just look for some shapes that you have seen before.

The font is a little funky, so here are the typed characters: 好孩子

What components have you seen before?

Did you spot them?

This is a big deal.

Here's why…

Why Character Components Are So Important

One of the big “scare stories” around Chinese is that there are 50,000 characters to learn.

Now, this is true. But learning them isn't half as bad as you think.

Firstly, only a few thousand characters are in general everyday use so that number is a lot more manageable.

Second, and more importantly, those 50,000 characters are all made up of the same 214 components .

And you already know one of them: 子 (it's one of those 214 components).

The fact that you can now recognise the 子 in the image above is a huge step forward.

You can already recognise one of the 214 pieces all characters are made up of.

Even better is the fact that of these 214 components it's only the 50-100 most common you'll be running into again and again.

This makes Chinese characters a lot less scary.

Once you get a handle on these basic components, you'll quickly recognise all the smaller pieces and your eyes will stop glazing over!  

This doesn't mean you'll necessarily know the meaning or how to pronounce the words yet (we'll get onto this shortly) but suddenly Chinese doesn't seem quite so alien any more.

Memorising The Components Of Chinese Characters

Memorising the pieces is not as important as simply realising that ALL of Chinese is constructed from these 214 pieces.

When I realised this, Chinese became a lot more manageable and I hope I've saved you some heartache by revealing this early in your learning process!

Here are some useful online resources for learning the components of Chinese characters:

• An extensive article about the   214 components of Chinese characters  with a free printable PDF poster.
• Downloadable posters of all the components, characters and words.
• If you like flashcards, there's a great Anki deck here and a Memrise course here .
• Wikipedia also has a sweet sortable list here .

TAKEAWAY : Every single Chinese character is composed of just 214 “pieces”. Only 50-100 of these are commonly used. Learn these pieces first to learn how to write in Chinese quickly.

Moving From Components To Chinese Characters

Once you've got a grasp of the basic building blocks of Chinese it's time to start building some characters!

We used the character 好 (“good”) in the above example. 好 is a character composed of the components 女 (“woman”) and 子 (“child”).

Unlike the letters of the alphabet in English, these components have meaning .

(They also have pronunciation, but for the sake of simplicity we'll leave that aside for now!)

• 女 means “woman” and 子 means “child”.
• When they are put together, 女 and 子 become 好 …and the meaning is “good”.
• Therefore “woman” + “child” = “good” in Chinese 🙂

When learning how to write in Chinese characters you can take advantage of the fact that components have their own meanings.

In this case, it is relatively easy to make a mnemonic (memory aid) that links the idea of a woman with her baby as “good”.

Because Chinese is so structured, these kind of mnemonics are an incredibly powerful tool for memorisation.

Some characters, including 好, can also be easily represented graphically. ShaoLan's book Chineasy does a fantastic job of this.

Here's the image of 好 for instance – you can see the mother and child.

Visual graphics like these can really help in learning Chinese characters.

Unfortunately, only around 5% of the characters in Chinese are directly “visual” in this way. These characters tend to get the most attention because they look great when illustrated.

However, as you move beyond the concrete in the more abstract it becomes harder and harder to visually represent ideas.

Thankfully, the ancient Chinese had an ingenious solution, a solution that actually makes the language a lot more logical and simple than merely adding endless visual pictures.

Watch Me Write Chinese Characters

In the video below, which is part of a series on learning to write in Chinese , I talk about the process of actually writing out the characters. Not thousands of times like Chinese schoolchildren. But just as a way to reinforce my learning and attack learning Chinese characters from different angles.

My Chinese handwriting leaves a lot to be desired. But it's more about a process of reinforcing my language learning via muscle memory than perfecting my handwriting.

You'll also hear me discuss some related issues such as stroke order and typing in Chinese.

The Pronunciation Of Chinese Characters

The solution was the incredibly unsexy sounding… (wait for it…) “phono-semantic compound character”.

It's an awful name, so I'm going to call them “sound-meaning characters” for now!

This concept is the key to unlocking 95% of the Chinese characters.

A sound-meaning character has a component that tells us two things:

• the meaning
• a clue to how the character is pronounced

So, in simple terms:

95% of Chinese characters have a clue to the meaning of the character AND its pronunciation. 

到 means “to arrive”.

This character is made of two components. On the left is 至 and on the right is 刀.

These are two of the 214 components that make up all characters. 至 means “to arrive” and 刀 means “knife”.

Any idea which one gives us the meaning? Yup – it's 至, “to arrive”! (That was an easy one 🙂 )

But how about the 刀? This is where it gets interesting.

到 is pronounced dào.

刀, “knife” is pronounced dāo.

The reason the 刀 is placed next to 至 in the character 到 is just to tell us how to pronounce the character! How cool is that?

Now, did you notice the little lines above the words: dào and dāo?

Those are the tone markers, and in this case they are both slightly different. These two characters have different tones so they are not exactly the same pronunciation.

However, the sound-meaning compound has got us 90% of the way to being able to pronounce the character, all because some awesome ancient Chinese scribe thought there should be a shortcut to help us remember the pronunciation!

Let's look at a few more examples of how 刀 is used in different words to give you an idea of the pronunciation.

Even if sometimes:

• the sound-meaning character gives us the exact sound and meaning
• or it gets us in the ballpark
• or worse it is way off because the character has changed over the last 5,000 years!

Nevertheless, there's a clue about the pronunciation in 95% of all Chinese characters, which is a huge help for learning how to speak Chinese.

TAKEAWAY : Look at the component parts as  a way to unlock the meaning and pronunciations of 95% of Chinese characters. In terms of “hacking” the language, this is the key to learning how to write in Chinese quickly.

From Chinese Characters To Chinese Words

First we went from components to characters.

Next, we are going from characters to words.

Although there are a lot of one-character words in Chinese, they tend to either be classically-rooted words like “king” and “horse” or grammatical particles and pronouns.

The vast majority of Chinese words contain two characters.

The step from characters to words is where, dare I say it, Chinese script gets easy!

Come on, you didn't think it would always be hard did you? 🙂

Unlike European languages Chinese's difficulty is very front-loaded.

When you first learn to write Chinese, you'll discover a foreign pronunciation system, a foreign tonal system and a very  foreign writing system.

As an English speaker, you can normally have a good shot at pronouncing and reading words in other European languages, thanks to the shared alphabet.

Chinese, on the other hand, sucker-punches you on day one… but gets a little more gentle as you go along.

One you've realised these things:

• there aren't that many components to deal with
• all characters are made up of these basic components
• words are actually characters bolted together

…then it's a matter of just memorising a whole bunch of stuff!

That's not to say there isn't a lot of work involved, only to say that it's not particularly difficult. Time-consuming, yes. Difficult, no.

This is quite different from European languages, which start off easy, but quickly escalate in difficulty as you encounter complicated grammar, tenses, case endings, technical vocabulary and so on.

Making words from Chinese characters you already know is easy and really fun . This is where you get to start snapping the lego blocks together and build that Pirate Island!

The Logic Of Chinese Writing

Here are some wonderful examples of the simplicity and logic of Chinese using the character 车 which roughly translates as “vehicle”.

• Water + Vehicle = Waterwheel = 水 +车
• Wind + Vehicle = Windmill = 风＋车
• Electric + Vehicle = Tram/Trolley = 电＋车
• Fire + Vehicle = Train = 火＋车
• Gas + Vehicle = Car = 汽＋车
• Horse + Vehicle = Horse and cart/Trap and Pony = 马＋车
• Up + Vehicle = Get into/onto a vehicle =上＋车
• Down + Vehicle = Get out/off a vehicle =下＋车
• Vehicle + Warehouse = Garage = 车＋库
• To Stop + Vehicle = to park = 停＋车

Chinese is extremely logical and consistent.

This is a set of building blocks that has evolved over 5,000 years in a relatively linear progression. And you can't exactly say the same about the English language!

Just think of the English words for the Chinese equivalences above:

Train, windmill, millwheel/waterwheel, tram/trolley, car/automobile, horse and cart/trap and pony.

Unlike Chinese where these concepts are all linked by 车 there's very little consistency in our vehicle/wheel related vocabulary, and no way to link these sets of related concepts via the word itself.

English is a diverse and rich language, but that comes with its drawbacks – a case-by-case spelling system that drives learners mad.

Chinese, on the other hand, is precise and logical, once you get over the initial “alienness”.

Making The Complex Simple

This logical way of constructing vocabulary is not limited to everyday words like “car” and “train”. It extends throughout the language.

To take an extreme example let's look at Jurassic Park .

The other day I watched Jurassic Park with my Chinese girlfriend. (OK, re -watched. It's a classic!)

Part of the fun for me (annoyance for her) was asking her the Chinese for various dinosaur species.

Take a second to look through these examples. You'll love the simplicity!

• T Rex 暴龙 = tyrant + dragon
• Tricerotops 三角恐龙 three + horn + dinosaur
• Diplodocus 梁龙 roof-beam + dragon
• Velociraptor 伶盗龙 clever + thief + dragon (or swift stealer dragon)
• Stegosaurus 剑龙 (double-edged) sword + dragon
• Dilophosaurus 双脊龙 double+spined+dragon

Don't try to memorise these characters, just appreciate the underlying logic of how the complex concepts are constructed .

(Unless, of course, you are a palaeontologist…or as the Chinese would say a Ancient + Life + Animal + Scientist!).

I couldn't spell half of these dinosaur names in English for this article. But once I knew how the construction of the Chinese word, typing in the right characters was simple.

Once you know a handful of characters, you can start to put together complete words, and knowing how to write in Chinese suddenly becomes a lot easier.

In a lot of cases you can take educated guesses at concepts and get them right by combining known characters into unknown words.

For more on this, check my series of Chinese character images that I publish on this page . They focus on Chinese words constructed from common characters, and help you understand more of the “building block” logic of Chinese.

TAKEAWAY : Chinese words are constructed extremely logically from the underlying characters. This means that once you've learned a handful of characters vocabulary acquisition speeds up exponentially.

How To Learn Written Chinese Fast

Before diving into learning characters, make sure you have a decent grounding in Chinese pronunciation via the pinyin system. 

The reason for this is that taking on pronunciation, tones and characters from day one is really tough.

Don't get me wrong, you can do it. Especially if you're highly motivated. But for most people there's a better way.

Learn a bit of spoken Chinese first. 

With some spoken language under your belt, and an understanding of pronunciation and tones, starting to learn how to write in Chinese will seem a whole lot easier.

When you're ready, here's how to use all the information from this article and deal with written Chinese in a sensible way.

I've got a systematic approach to written Chinese which you can find in detail on Sensible Chinese .

Right now, I'm going to get you started with the basics.

The Sensible Character System

The four stages for learning Chinese characters are:

Sounds technical huh? Don't worry, it's not really.

This part of the process is about choosing what you put into your character learning system.

If you're working on the wrong material then you're wasting your efforts. Instead choose to learn Chinese characters that you are like to want to use in the future.

My list in order of priority contains:

• daily life: characters/words I've encountered through daily life
• textbooks: characters/words I've learnt from textbooks
• frequency lists: characters/words I've found in frequency lists of the most common characters and words

2. Processing

This is the “learning” part of the system.

You take a new word or character and break it down into its component parts. You can then use these components to create memory aids.

Hanzicraft.com or Pleco's built-in character decomposition tool are fantastic for breaking down new characters. These will be helpful until you learn to recognise the character components by sight. These tools will also show you if there are sound-meaning component clues in the character.

Use the individual components of a character to build a “story” around the character. Personal, sexy and violent stories tend to stick in the mind best! 🙂 I also like to add colours into my stories to represent the tones (1st tone Green, 2nd tone Blue etc.)

After the “input” and the “process”… it's time to review it all!

The simplest review system is paper flashcards which you periodically use to refresh your memory.

A more efficient method can be found in software or apps that use a Spaced Repetition System, like Anki or   Pleco .

An important point: Review is not learning .

It's tempting to rely on software like Anki to drill in the vocabulary through brute-force repetition. But don't skip the first two parts – processing the character and creating a mnemonic are key parts of the process.

It isn't enough to just learn and review your words… you also need to put them into use !

Thankfully, technology has made this easier than ever. Finding a language exchange partner or a lesson with a cost-effective teacher is super simple nowadays, so there's no excuse for not putting your new vocabulary into action!

The resources I personally use are:

• Spoken – iTalki
• Written – Lang-8
• Short form written – WeChat / HelloTalk

Importantly, whilst you are using your current vocabulary in these forms of communication, you'll be picking up new content all the time, which you can add back into your system.

The four steps above are a cycle that you will continue to rotate through – all the corrections and new words you receive during usage should become material to add to the system.

To recap, the four steps of systematically learning Chinese characters are:

By building these steps into your regular study schedule you can steadily work through the thousands of Chinese characters and words you'll need to achieve literacy.

This is a long-haul process! So having a basic system in place is very important for consistency.

You can find out a lot more about The Sensible Chinese Character Learning System and how to write in Chinese here .

Top Chinese Learning Links And Resources

• Chinese Language Learning Resource List – a curated list of tools and content available online and in print to help your Chinese learning, all categorised by usage type.
• Sensible Character Learning System – the full system outlined in a series of blog articles for those who want more detail and tips on how to refine their character learning.
• 111 Mandarin Chinese resources you wish you knew – Olly’s huge list of the best resources on the web for learning Chinese

I hope you enjoyed this epic guide to learning how to write in Chinese!

Please share this post with any friends who are learning Chinese, then leave us a comment below!

Language Courses

• Language Blog
• Testimonials
• Meet Our Team
• Media & Press

Our website uses cookies to provide you the best experience. By continuing to use our website, you agree to our use of cookies. For more information, read our Cookie Policy .

Download Your Free StoryLearning® Kit!

Discover the world famous story-based method that 1,023,037 people have used to learn a language quickly…, not interested.

What can we do  better ? If I could make something to help you right now, w hat would it be?

Which language are you learning?

What is your current level in [language]?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level]  [language] tips…

Where shall I send them?

We will protect your data in accordance with our data policy.

Download this article as a FREE PDF ?

What is your current level in Swedish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Swedish tips…

Where shall I send the tips and your PDF?

What is your current level in Danish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Danish tips…

What can we do better? If I could make something to help you right now, w hat would it be?

What is your current level in [language] ?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] [language] tips, PLUS your free StoryLearning Kit…

Download this article as a FREE PDF?

Great! Where shall I send my best online teaching tips and your PDF?

Download this article as a FREE PDF ? 

What is your current level in Arabic?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Arabic tips…

FREE StoryLearning Kit!

Join my email newsletter and get FREE access to your StoryLearning Kit — discover how to learn languages through the power of story!

Download a FREE Story in Japanese!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Japanese and start learning Japanese quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

What is your current level in Japanese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Japanese StoryLearning® Pack …

Where shall I send your download link?

Download Your  FREE   Natural Japanese Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Japanese Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Japanese grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Japanese Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in Portuguese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in German?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural German Grammar Pack …

Train as an Online Language Teacher and Earn from Home

The next cohort of my Certificate of Online Language Teaching will open soon. Join the waiting list, and we’ll notify you as soon as enrolment is open!

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Portuguese tips…

What is your current level in Turkish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Turkish tips…

What is your current level in French?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the French Vocab Power Pack …

What is your current level in Italian?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Italian Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the German Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Japanese Vocab Power Pack …

Download Your  FREE Japanese Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Japanese Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Japanese words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE German Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my German Vocab Power Pack and learn essential German words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE Italian Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Italian Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Italian words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE French Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my French Vocab Power Pack and learn essential French words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Portuguese StoryLearning® Pack …

What is your current level in Russian?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Russian Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Russian StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Italian StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Italian Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the French StoryLearning® Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural French Grammar Pack …

What is your current level in Spanish?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Spanish Vocab Power Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Natural Spanish Grammar Pack …

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the Spanish StoryLearning® Pack …

Where  shall I send them?

What is your current level in Korean?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Korean tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Russian tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Japanese tips…

What is your current level in Chinese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Chinese tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Spanish tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Italian tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] French tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] German tips…

Download Your  FREE   Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Portuguese Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Portuguese grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural Russian Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Russian Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Russian grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural German Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural German Grammar Pack and learn to internalise German grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural French Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural French Grammar Pack and learn to internalise French grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE   Natural Italian Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Italian Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Italian grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Download a FREE Story in Portuguese!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Brazilian Portuguese and start learning Portuguese quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in Russian!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Russian and start learning Russian quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in German!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in German and start learning German quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Perfect! You’ve now got access to the German StoryLearning® Pack …

Download a FREE Story in Italian!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Italian and start learning Italian quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in French!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in French and start learning French quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

Download a FREE Story in Spanish!

Enter your email address below to get a  FREE short story in Spanish and start learning Spanish quickly and naturally with my StoryLearning® method!

FREE Download:

The rules of language learning.

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Rules of Language Learning and discover 25 “rules” to learn a new language quickly and naturally through stories.

Download Your  FREE Spanish Vocab Power Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Spanish Vocab Power Pack and learn essential Spanish words and phrases quickly and naturally. (ALL levels!)

Download Your  FREE   Natural Spanish Grammar Pack

Enter your email address below to get free access to my Natural Spanish Grammar Pack and learn to internalise Spanish grammar quickly and naturally through stories.

Free Step-By-Step Guide:

How to generate a full-time income from home with your English… even with ZERO previous teaching experience.

What is your current level in Thai?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Thai tips…

What is your current level in Cantonese?

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] Cantonese tips…

Steal My Method?

I’ve written some simple emails explaining the techniques I’ve used to learn 8 languages…

I want to be skipped!

I’m the lead capture, man!

Join 84,574 other language learners getting StoryLearning tips by email…

“After I started to use your ideas, I learn better, for longer, with more passion. Thanks for the life-change!” – Dallas Nesbit

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level] [language] tips…

Perfect! You’ve now got access to my most effective [level]   [language] tips…

Find The Perfect Language Course For You!

Looking for world-class training material to help you make a breakthrough in your language learning?

Click ‘start now’ and complete this short survey to find the perfect course for you!

Do you like the idea of learning through story?

Do you want…?

Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Writing for a Chinese Business Audience

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

While many of the genres and conventions of business writing in English are found everywhere, some are unique to particular contexts, and may prove challenging to those attempting to do business in those contexts. Being able to create appropriate formal and informal written business documents in these contexts not only contributes to a more efficient business enterprise, but also enables the writer to be seen as knowledgeable and culturally sensitive.

This handout is designed to provide basic information on writing effectively in English for business audiences in the People's Republic of China. While the information in the handout is designed from the perspective of familiarity with the norms of North American business writing , it will also be helpful as a guide for anyone who is unfamiliar with business writing in China, including students from China. The information included below is meant to serve as a quick and ready reference sheet on Chinese business writing. Information borrowed directly from other writers are marked with one or more asterisks (*) and are listed at the end of the page.

The topics discussed in this handout are:

Letters and Memos

• Style considerations

Two important notes must be made:

• This handout is designed only for business writing in mainland China, not for writing based in Hong Kong or in Taiwan (the Republic of China).
• Since English is a foreign language in Chinese contexts, and not an adopted second language as it is in India, the standards for letters and memos below will not always apply. If you are writing from an organization in an Anglophone (English-speaking) country, the standards of business writing in Anglophone countries may be expected. Conversely, if you are writing within a Chinese context-as a member of a Chinese company, for example-the Chinese norms may apply. In either case, if you are writing to a Chinese audience, apply the information on style and social consdierations below to the standard that you choose. Check with colleagues for the standard practices of your company.

The purposes of business letters and memos in China parallel the purposes they serve in North American businesses: introducing a candidate for employment, requesting information, making complaints, disseminating information to an office, proposing projects, making sales, and so on.

• Make sure that your letterhead includes a fax number. If it doesn't, type it directly beneath the letterhead. Faxing continues to be an important component of doing business in China.
• If a letter is generated on organizational letterhead, enter a document number on the far right side of the page, below the letterhead. This number identifies the letter's place in the organization's history of letters, as well as other information. North American use of reference numbers is not as common as it is in Chinese companies.
• Beneath the document number but on the left side of the page, type only the name of the addressee's organization (not the address), followed by the name and appropriate title of the individual addressee. Chinese names are traditionally written with the surname (family name) first, followed by the given name. If your addressee has already written it with the given name first, though, continue to follow that form.
• Write a salutation ("Dear ______:") as you would in a North American letter, then body of the letter, with an introductory paragraph, body paragraph(s), and a closing paragraph.
• The sender name and date are typed toward the right side of the page, without a complimentary close. Dates are typed immediately under the sender name, in year-month-day format without commas (ex: 2007-05-16), rather than in the month-day-year North American format (May 16, 2007). Use of numbers instead of month names is a more regular occurrence.
• As with a North American letter, type "CC" for anyone receiving an additional copy of the letter, followed by their names. A list of enclosures is optional.

YOUR ORGANIZATIONAL LETTERHEAD

New Millennium Electronics

Ms. Chang Biyu

Dear Ms. Chang:

I am writing to provide more information on the sales presentation taking place on Friday, June 15.

The merchandise samples, brochures, and presentation slides have all been prepared, and our sales team is in the process of tailoring their presentation to the particular needs of your company. I have enclosed a copy of the brochure and photographs of the merchandise samples for you to inspect. Right now, we believe the presentation will take about one hour. If you would like more or less time, we are very flexible and would be happy to accommodate you.

Please do not hesitate to e-mail ([email protected]) if you have any questions. I am looking forward to meeting you in person on the fifteenth.

• Memos are printed on organizational letterhead, and in many cases, all contact information (address, e-mail address, telephone, and fax number) is included. If any of these are missing, type them on the bottom after your name, not on the top.
• Memorandum numbers, comparable to the letter reference numbers noted above are included near the top of the page, underneath organizational letterhead, on the left side of the page. Enter the date immediately below the memorandum number.
• Below the date and in the center of the page, type the subject (you don't need to say “subject” or “re”), and below that, type "From" and your name. Unlike North American memos, there is no explicit mention of the recipient's name.
• Type the body of the memo.
• Type your name again along the left side of the page. Include contact information if it is not included in the letterhead.

Memorandum #60320

June 15 Sales Presentation Preparations

Photographs of the merchandise to be displayed during the June 15 sales presentation will be circulated over the next week, along with copies of the sales brochure. Please enter your comments on both in the feedback form below this memo, and send them to me by 5:00 p.m. on Monday, May 21.

[email protected]

As is the case in nearly every country, Chinese businesses use A4 paper (210 × 297 mm/8.27 × 11.7 inches), rather than the 8 ½ × 11 inch (215.9 × 279.44 mm) letter and 8 ½ × 14 inch (216 × 356 mm) legal sizes that are standard in the United States and Canada. You will also find B5 paper (6.9 × 9.8 inches, 176 × 250 mm) in use on occasion, although not nearly as often as A4. Format your documents accordingly, by changing the paper size used by Microsoft Word (click File, then Page Setup; click the Paper tab, choose the paper size from the pull down menu, then click OK). You can also format PDF files, by clicking File, then Page Setup, and choosing A4 from the Size pull down menu before clicking OK—but this is not something you will be forced to do, since Adobe Reader and Adobe Acrobat both re-size pages to automatically fit the user’s paper size. Web pages and other electronic documents that are not meant for print follow universal display standards, and do not need to be formatted differently.

For domestic mail in China, it is important to use only 260 mm × 185 mm (10.24 × 7.28 inch) envelopes. Domestic mail sent in envelopes that do not correspond to this size will be returned.

Style Considerations

For the most part, the norms of North American business writing are valued in Chinese business writing. There are, however, some subtle but important variations in discourse that your writing should reflect, enabling you to better connect with your audiences.

“Cold calling” as it is understood in North America happens far less often in Chinese contexts.* This does not mean that strangers do not communicate with one another to open talks for business, of course. It does mean that a writer will refer to any commonalities they share with their addressee. This can be a reference to a common acquaintance:

My long-time colleague, Mr. Li Jianguo, has often mentioned the quality of your company’s electronics repairs.

It can also take the form of an assumed awareness of the addressee’s particular circumstances (an important strategy in sales letters):

Your firm is growing, so of course you would be interested in finding out how to access new overseas markets.

Official communications, letters and other written communications that are not primarily personal, come under the general heading of the term “gongwen.” Within gongwen, there are three kinds of relationships: superior to subordinate (“xiaxing”), equal to equal (“pingxing”), and subordinate to superior (“shangxing”). What constitutes “xiaxing” (ex., a memo announcing layoffs) and “shangxing” (ex., a human resources report to a supervisor) is usually obvious across cultures, but “pingxing” encompasses most sales writing, as well as official letters. In each case, remain conscious of the language that you use to convey deference, respectful leadership, or equality of status.**

Use titles and family names in all your business correspondence. Do not use given names by themselves.

Notes and References

* Boraks, David. “Chinese Business Culture: Doing Business in the Chinese-Speaking World.” 31 May 2007. http://chinese-school.netfirms.com/doingbusiness.html

**Zhu, Yunxia. “Business Writing in Mainland China: A Look at the Development of Sales Genres.” Intercultural Communication, 3. 2000. 31 May 2007. http://www.immi.se/intercultural/nr3/zhu.htm

How to write in Chinese – a Beginner’s Guide

How to write in Chinese

• 1.1.1.1 The following table shows the 6 most fundamental strokes in Chinese writing.
• 1.1.1.2 Stroke Name
• 1.1.1.3 Stroke

How to write in Chinese – A Beginner’s Guide in Chinese Writing

Learning Chinese can be a bit scary and seems impossible at the first glance . They just seem like scary blocks of words if you don’t know the idea of how they were formed.You will have no idea where to start.

Chinese characters are built on radicals which are similar to alphabets in English. However, unlike English alphabets, each radical has its own meaning.The radicals are combined into characters and the characters combined into words. If you think the radicals are the most basic part of the Chinese writing, you are wrong.

Before you start learning Chinese writing, you need to know how to write them first. Strokes are the classified set of line patterns that are arranged and combined to form Chinese characters.Once you’ve mastered the strokes and learned the logic behind the radicals, learning Chinese writing will become a lot easier.

In this blog, I’m going to teach you the most basic of Chinese writing – strokes, and explain some of the logic behind the common radicals.

How many characters are there in Chinese Writing?

Before we start, let me give you an overview of the amount Chinese characters in Chinese writing. There are over 50,000 Chinese characters . Don’t worry you don’t need to know them all. Even an educated Chinese person know around 8000 characters.   The highest level of HSK requires you to know 2600 characters only. You will be able to read about 98% of everyday written Chinese with this amount. And it will even be more comforting if you know the fact that you will be able to read 70% of the Chinese writing once you learn the 250 most used Chinese Characters.

As if how you should motivate yourself to learn Chinese, you can read in our previous blog: I want to learn Chinese .

Understanding strokes and strokes orders in Chinese writing

By now you probably know the importance of radicals in Chinese writing. But Chinese writing is not as simple as typing on the keyboard “ How to type Chinese Characters on the keyboard “. You will be able to type if you know the pinyin and the characters. 

But for writing on the paper is another thing.  Just knowing the pinyin is not enough . You need to know the strokes to know how these radicals are constructed. That’s not all, you also need to know the correct stroke order and the direction to be able to write each character correctly.

Besides, many educated Chinese people take pride in their ability to write the Chinese characters in the right order. If they see you can write in the right order, they will be impressed and  treat you as a real educated person.

Among a lot of strokes, there are only 13 basic strokes that you need to know. Once you get a hold on these 13 strokes, the rest are just the combinations of these 13. After you have learned the strokes and the strokes orders, you will know how to write a character in correct stroke order no matter how complex the character is .

The following table shows the 6 most fundamental strokes in Chinese writing.

The second table shows the 5 strokes with the hook

These 11 strokes are the most basic strokes in Chinese writing. The rest of the strokes are just the combinations of the above ones.Now that you have learned all the basic strokes, let’s move on to which stroke and in which order you need to write. The picture below shows you the 8 rules that you need to follow in Chinese writing.

You can read more about the stroke: Chinese Stroke

After you’ve learned all of the strokes and stroke order rules, you will now be able to write any character even if you don’t know what they mean!

Understanding Chinese radicals

Let’s move on to the Chinese radicals! The radicals can be considered as the pillar of the Chinese language learning . Each radical has its own meaning.

• “心” is a  Character which represents the  “heart”.
• When it acts as a radical,  “心 ” can usually be seen together with the “heart-related” characters .
• Some of the examples are  “想 – xiǎng (think),怒 – nù (angry)，感 – gǎn (feel, sense)” which are all somewhat related to emotion, feeling, mind, thinking or thought.
• If 心 radical is written below the character ，it is called 心字底 (xīn zi dǐ, meaning 心 at the bottom)。
• If it is written on the left side , it is usually written as “忄” and we call it 竖心旁 (shù xīn páng). e.g.: 快-kuài (quick)，慢- màn (slow)，情- qíng (feelings, emotions).
• Some radicals are also used for their phonetic sounds.
• 青 qīng radical can be seen in a lot of Chinese characters which sound ” qīng “ . They are called phonetical radical because the words with 青 radical are pronounced in similar phonetic sound with only tonal difference . 
• 请 – qǐng (to ask, to request ), 情 – qíng (feelings, emotions), 清  – qīng (clear, distinct ). 

Chinese characters with similar radicals

Another interesting fact about Chinese writing is that the Chinese characters are written as pictures in the past like the Egyptians! Those characters derived from images are called “pictogram”. Many of the easy Chinese characters are pictograms! Then they slowly transformed into the systematic words we are using today.

Transformation of Chinese characters

If you want to explore more simple characters, check out: 40 easy Chinese Characters

Connection between the strokes and the radicals

After you’ve learned about the strokes and the radicals, some of you might still be confused about ” how are these 2 related” ? So I’m going to explain it to you by using the example of “火 – huǒ” (fire) radical .

the connection between the stroke and the radical 

As you can see in the picture above, “火 – huǒ” (fire) radical has 4 strokes . “火 – huǒ” ( fire ) radical is usually found together with the characters related to ‘fire’. E.g., ” 灯 – dēng” (lamp), “炒 – ” （fry ), “烟 – yān” (smoke), ” 炎 – yàn” （flame), ” 炉 – lú” (stove) and “烤 – kǎo” (roast), all of which have something to do with fire. But as I’ve mentioned earlier, sometimes radical represents the phonetic sound of the character instead of the meaning.

So in short, “the strokes let us know how to write” whereas ” the radicals give us the meaning behind each character for us to memorize more easily” .

Summary of Chinese writing

In conclusion, I would like to summarize what we have learned earlier.

• In Chinese writing, you need to learn the strokes and strokes orders first .
• Only then, you will know how to write Chinese characters in the correct way.
• After that, you also need to study the radicals and the logic behind them.
• You can also make good use of pictograms image to help you remember the characters easily.

That way, you won’t need to do rote learning ( writing the characters again and again until you remember them) for Chinese characters. I hope this blog motivates you to start Chinese writing right now!

Knowledge is good but the act of presentation is better. Why not start a free trial and start to learn mandarin today! For more learn Chinese materials, please stay tuned with us!

Related posts:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed .

How to Introduce Yourself in Chinese: All You Need to Know

Learning how to introduce yourself in Chinese is definitely the very first skill that you’ll need in order to make a great first impression to win over new Chinese friends .

Sure, if you’ve ever done a Chinese language course, you’ve probably spent a considerable amount of time learning how to introduce yourself in Chinese. But if you were to meet a Chinese for the first time at this very moment, would you be prepared to speak about yourself in a natural, convincing way? Probably not.

Let’s face it. You have to deal with awkwardness, nervousness, and shyness. Not to mention that the pressure feels much higher when you’re supposed to introduce yourself in a foreign language like Chinese. But fear not! This article will help you get off to a good start with your new Chinese friends, associates, and acquaintances by hitting all the introduction marks and coming up with neat sentences for your very first Chinese self-introduction.

Table of Contents

How to introduce yourself in chinese – an overview.

In Chinese, a self-introduction is called 自我介绍 (zìwǒ jièshào) . In theory, introducing yourself in Chinese should be quite simple as it’s not too different from how you would introduce yourself in any other language: you start with hello, say your name, and then tell people a little bit about yourself.

In practice, however, there are certain cultural differences and unique concepts you need to be aware of when introducing yourself in Chinese. Since you only get one shot at making a first impression, it’s important to learn how to do it right.

We’ll start by teaching you the three-piece basic Chinese self-introduction, then cultural subtleties, and finally a ton of extra introductory phrases you can use to talk about yourself when you first meet a Chinese speaker, whether the encounter is social, educational, or strictly business. These simple but powerful phrases will boost your Chinese-speaking skills and give you confidence in your early Chinese conversations. 

So, read on to learn all the essential steps to a perfect Chinese self-introduction.  

Basic Self-introduction  in Chinese

Chinese introductions are pretty straightforward on a basic level, so keep it simple: smile, extend a hand, and respond appropriately to the person you’re meeting or the one you’re being introduced to.

Here’s the 3-step Chinese introduction method that will get you through most situations. You can learn it right away.

1. Start with a Greeting – “Hello” in Chinese

First thing first: greetings. They are how almost any conversation in Chinese will start.

This is true – whether you’re meeting a Chinese person for the first or the hundredth time – you’ll want to use an appropriate greeting to start off the conversation on the right foot!

你好 (Nǐ hǎo)

A basic, middle-of-the-road greeting in Chinese is  你好 (Nǐ hǎo) . 你 (nǐ) means “you”, and 好 (hǎo) means “good”, so this expression literally translates to “you good”. Both of the syllables in this word should be pronounced using the third tones, with the first one slightly faster than the latter. You can use this well-wish at any time of the day, and it’s almost as universal as the English “hi” or “hello.”

If you don’t know how to read Pinyin (the standard Romanization of Chinese) yet, You can read our guide here to learn the basics of Pinyin .

您好 (Nín  hǎo )

A more formal version of “hello” in Chinese is 您好 (Nín hǎo) . When respect is called for, replace the 你 (nǐ) – “you” in 你好 (Nǐ hǎo) with its honorific form 您 (nín) to help you sound humble and polite. (This polite form is particularly common in Beijing)

Now, before discussing other essential phrases, it’ll be helpful to know the basic rule of thumb when to use 您 (nín) over 你 (nǐ) in Chinese .

• When talking to  family, friends, or colleagues , you’re expected to use the informal 你 (nǐ). And in casual social situations, it’s perfectly acceptable to use 你 (nǐ) right away to address people near your age – even if they are strangers .
• When you’re introducing yourself to someone who’s older or has higher social status than you (e.g. teacher, manager, officer), use the honorific form of “you” instead and say 您 (nín). You also need to use the formal form of address with people you’re in a professional relationship with , such as your business partners, clients, or customers.
• When you’re in doubt, start with the honorific form – 您 (nín) and don’t take the initiative to break the relationship out of 您 (nín). You can switch to 你 (nǐ) when the other person tells you to address him/her otherwise.

And don’t worry, Chinese people are aware that the cultural nuance could be quite tricky for foreigners, so they always accept the use of 你 (nǐ) with no grudges!

大家好 (Dà jiā hǎo )

Both 你 (nǐ) and 您 (nín) are singular only – they can’t be used to address more than one person.

If you’re greeting a group of people – it doesn’t matter what your relationship is – say 大家好 (Dàjiā hǎo) . This is a polite Chinese equivalent of “hello everyone” (literally, “everyone good”).

Time word + 好 ( hǎo )

You could also choose your greeting according to the time . Though less common, it’s totally fine to replace the fitting pronouns with a time word depending on the time of the day before the word 好 (hǎo).

For instance, you may say 早上好 (Zǎoshang hǎo )  – “morning good” for the morning, 下午好 (Xiàwǔ hǎo )  – “afternoon good” for the afternoon and 晚上好 (Wǎnshang hǎo )  – “evening good” for the evening. You could also say 晚安 ( Wǎn’ān )  – “evening peace”, but that’s generally used to say goodbye when it’s late at night or when you’re heading to bed.

Lastly, if you’re talking to someone on the phone, answer or greet them with 喂 (Wèi) – “hello”. In other contexts, however, 喂 (Wèi) is a pretty rude way of getting people’s attention.

To learn about all the ways you can greet people in Chinese, check out our guide to  Saying “Hello” in Chinese: 21 Chinese Greetings to Sound like a Native Speaker .

2. Introduce Your Name – “My name is …” in Chinese

While you might not want to further your conversations with street vendors or restaurant waiters, meeting a local in a cafe or a fellow guest in your hotel is a great place to make a Chinese friend.

“What’s your name?”  is the first question you can expect to hear when meeting someone for the first time. There are several ways to ask it in Chinese.

The most common question you’ll get is 你叫什么？ (Nǐ jiào shénme) . This translates to “You are called what?” and is considered rather informal.

A slightly more formal version of this question is 你叫什么名字？( Nǐ jiào shénme míngzi )  – “You are called what name?”. Alternatively, they’ll ask  你的名字叫什么？(Nǐ de míngzi jiào shénme)  – “Your name is called what?”.

If you hear any of these questions, it means the person wants to know your name – 名字 (míngzi), although you can’t really be sure if the person wants to know your full name or just your first name.

我叫… (Wǒ jiào …)

The typical way to answer “What’s your name” in Chinese is to begin your sentence with 我叫… (Wǒ jiào …)  – “I am called…” and then say your name.  It’s fine to answer with either your full name or your first name.

In return, it’s always polite to ask for the other person’s name. You could repeat the question or simply ask 你呢？(nǐ ne)  – “and you?” for informal situations or 您呢？(nín ne)  – “and you?” for formal situations after you’ve introduced your name. This is a quick way to return the question that you’ve just been asked. (Read more about “ bounce-back questions ”)

我的名字叫… (Wǒ de míngzi jiào …)

Once you’re feeling confident, you may expand the sentence a bit. To do so, simply replace the 我 (wǒ) – “I” in 我叫… (Wǒ jiào …) with the phrase 我的名字 (wǒ de míngzi)  – “my name”. This adds a formal element to your name introduction.

And again, you have the option to include your full name or just your first name in the answer, depending on the formality of the meeting.

我是… (Wǒ shì …)

You could also say  我是   (Wǒ shì)  and then state your name in response to “What’s your name?” in Chinese. 是 (shì) is the verb “to be”, so it’s like saying “I am…” in English. Although this method may be a slightly less common way of introducing yourself in Chinese, it’s still perfectly acceptable and is easier to learn.

我的名字是… (Wǒ de míngzi shì …)

The last method may be the most straightforward way of introducing your name for those who speak English as a first language: You can say 我的名字是… (Wǒ de míngzi shì …)  followed by your name. This is the exact equivalent to the English “My name is…”.

When answering “What’s your name?” or when you’re the one initiating the conversation, you can introduce yourself in Chinese by using any of the four expressions above. And whichever expression you use, don’t be afraid to sound silly. You’ll be understood by following our directions, and in nearly any Chinese-speaking area even the feeblest attempts to speak Chinese will be appreciated!

Your Name in Chinese Most Chinese people will have a hard time pronouncing a foreign name. If you haven’t picked a Chinese name yet, follow our guide to give yourself a Chinese-sounding name, or you can transliterate your name into Chinese to help them pronounce and remember your name better. For instance, instead of introducing yourself as “Elijah”, you could ask them to call you 伊利亚 (Yī lì yà). Read our full guide to learn how to say your name in Chinese .

我姓… (Wǒ  xìng  …)

Now, here’s an interesting fact:

Chinese people generally don’t refer to each other by their first name unless they’re close. To address those who they don’t know well or in a hierarchically higher position, the person’s family name or job title is often used. For instance,

• 李先生 (Lǐ xiānsheng) – Mr Li
• 张经理 (Zhāng jīnglǐ) – Manager Zhang
• 王老师 (Wáng lǎoshī) – Teacher Wang

Admittedly, you’ll be less likely to get asked about your family name being a foreigner, if it does come up, however, someone may ask 您贵姓？(Nín guì xìng)  – “(What’s) your noble family name?”, or in informal contexts:  你姓什么？(Nǐ xìng shénme)  – “You’re surnamed what?”. This means the speaker wants to learn your last name – 姓 (xìng), specifically.

To respond to these questions, begin your answer with 我姓… (Wǒ xìng …)  – “My surname is…” (literally, “I am surnamed”), then state your last name.

3. Express Pleasure to Meet Them – “Nice to meet you” in Chinese

Once you’ve exchanged your names info and shaken hands, it’s a good idea to follow it up with “nice to meet you”. The most universal way to express pleasure upon meeting someone  in Chinese is to say 很高兴认识你 (H ěn gāoxìng rènsh i  nǐ ) .

In this expression, 很 (hěn) means “very”, 高兴 (gāoxìng) means “glad”, and 认识 (rènshi) means “to know or to be acquainted with someone”. So the sentence translates to “Very glad (to) know you” or something similar to “Very glad (to) make your acquaintance”.

Watch out for the pronoun use here. To say “nice to meet you” to a senior person or someone important, switch to the honorific pronoun 您 (nín) and say 很高兴认识您 (H ěn gāoxìng rènsh i  nín ) . And when you’re addressing a group of people – 很高兴认识大家 (H ěn gāoxìng rènshi d àjiā ) .  

If someone says “glad to meet you” ahead of you, you can simply respond 我也是 (wǒ yě shì)  – “I am (glad) too” (literally, “I also am”) to indicate that you’re pleased to meet them too.

Of course, there are a handful of ways to end an introduction politely in Chinese, which I will teach you in a later section. But for most situations, you can just stick to 很高兴认识你/您/大家 (Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ/nín/dàjiā).

Chinese Self-introductions in a Nutshell

• The most common and simple way to introduce yourself in Chinese is to say “我叫 (Wǒ jiào)” followed by your name.
• Alternatives include “我的名字叫 (Wǒ de míngzi jiào)”, “我是 (Wǒ shì)” or “我的名字是 (Wǒ de míngzi shì)” followed by your name.
• “你好 (Nǐ hǎo)” can be used for either “hi” or “hello.” When respect is called for, use “您好 (Nín hǎo)”. When introducing yourself to a group of people, greet them with 大家好 (Dàjiā hǎo).
• Conclude your self-introduction in Chinese with “很高兴认识你/您/大家 (Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ/nín/dàjiā)”.    

Basic Chinese Introduction Examples

• 你好, 我叫威廉, 很高兴认识你。 Nǐ hǎo, wǒ jiào Wēi lián, hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ. Hi, my name is William. Nice to meet you.
• 您好, 我的名字叫爱丽丝, 很高兴认识您。 Nín hǎo, wǒ de míngzi jiào Ài lì sī, hěn gāoxìng rènshi nín. Hello, my name is Alice. Nice to meet you (honorific).
• 大家好, 我是詹姆斯·布雷迪, 很高兴认识大家。 Dàjiā hǎo, wǒ shì Zhān mǔ sī · Bù léi dí , hěn gāoxìng rènshi dàjiā. Hello everybody, I am James Brady. Nice to meet you all.

Chinese Etiquette to Introduce Yourself

It’s great to know the phrases to say when introducing yourself in Chinese, but how you say those phrases will make or break your self-introduction.

There are cultural differences to be aware of. They’re subtle, so if you miss them, it probably won’t be counted against you as a foreigner. But paying attention to details like these can give you an extra social edge when you first meet a new Chinese friend.

Read the Context

To establish a good rapport from the very beginning, you should learn the typical Chinese introduction phrases, and understand how to adapt the tone and content of the introduction according to the person you’re meeting, whether it’s a social or a professional encounter, a casual or formal setting.

So, choose the version of the Chinese introduction wisely ! Use the correct phrases to eliminate the awkwardness that sometimes happens when people meet for the first time.  If you’re unsure, lean toward formality . You can always ease into a more laid-back approach after the ice is broken.

Be Friendly

Be friendly in any situation. You can show through your gestures that you’re glad to meet them. 

Unlike Japanese and Koreans, Chinese people never bow when meeting someone. Eye contact, a firm handshake, a smile, and a few standard phrases will be enough. (And please, no hugs or kisses!)

One thing you do have to take note of is the order of the handshake – there are some strict conventional rules. Don’t move in for the handshake if you are meeting ladies and people in a higher position of authority or age. Instead, wait for them to reach out first. But if you’re meeting your peers, you don’t have to worry about who reaches out first (generally, whoever reaches out first is considered more polite).

And if you are not sure when to extend your hand, you can just hold it and let your conversation partner take the initiative. Sometimes a simple nod of the head will show that you acknowledge the other person and that you’re happy to make their acquaintance.

Address Properly

In China, people either introduce themselves by their family names or full names. Chinese family names are typically one character /syllable in length and easily recognizable. You can also take cues from the expression 我姓… (Wǒ xìng …) – “My surname is …” which is specifically used to introduce one’s family name.

If someone only tells you their family name, it means they are not ready to be your friends yet and would prefer you to address them by their family name + title (e.g. Mr. Wang, Professor Li, Engineer Zhou, etc). So don’t ask for their first name – it’s considered rude in Chinese culture .

When Chinese people volunteer their full name, the family name comes first and the first name comes second. 

If you have a Chinese name, it’s customary to introduce your full name because your Chinese family name is – let’s get real – not your real family name. For example, if your Chinese name is 安龙 (Ān lóng), you should introduce yourself as 安龙 (Ān lóng), not Mr 安 (Ān) or just 龙 (Lóng). If your name is transliterated from English, however, you don’t need to change the order of names.

People with experience of living in the West would sometimes reverse the Chinese name order when interacting in English to conform to the common Western practice. If you are not sure whether a switch has been made when you meet Chinese people and they introduce themselves by full names, it’s perfectly acceptable to ask which of their names is their family name or their given name.

Beyond the Basics – Talking about Yourself in Chinese

You nailed the initial three pieces of the Chinese self-introduction. Great job!

Now you’ve said 你好, 我叫… (Nǐ hǎo, wǒ jiào …) – “Hello, my name is …”, and you’ve smiled, nodded, shaken hands, and expressed delight about meeting your new Chinese friends or associates, you’re ready to take the conversation to the next level!

From here we get into the fun stuff. You can start adding information about yourself, using short sentences that explain where you’re from, what you do, what you like, and so on.

Sharing basic information about you will help people get to know you better when you first introduce yourself. This is especially valuable as you start to make more Chinese-speaking friends and acquaintances.

Here are some sentences you can use to tell more about yourself in Chinese.

1. Introducing Where You Are from

Being a foreigner in China always sparks the imagination of the Chinese. It’s a good idea to let people know where you’re from as the next step of your Chinese self-introduction. Even if you don’t use it during the initial self-intro, your new Chinese friend will probably ask you anyway, so memorizing a few of these phrases is extremely useful.

There are a few ways to ask “where are you from?” in Chinese.

If you hear 你是哪个国家的？(Nǐ shì nǎ gè guójiā de)  – literally, “You are of which country?” or 你是哪国人？(Nǐ shì nǎ guó rén)  – “You are which country person?”, this means the person wants to know your country of origin.

我是…人 (Wǒ shì … rén )

The usual answer to questions about your country of origin is 我是…人 (Wǒ shì … rén ) – I come from … (literally, “I am … person”).  

Simply start the sentence with 我是 (Wǒ shì) , say the name of your country, and add the word 人 (rén)  – “person” afterward.

For example,

• 我是 美国 人。 Wǒ shì Měiguó rén. I am from America. Literally, “I am America person.” 
• 我是 加拿大 人。 Wǒ shì  Jiānádà  rén. I am from Canada. Literally, “I am Canada person.”

Not sure how to say your country in Chinese? Practice with our complete list of country names written out in Chinese (plus abbreviations) .

You may also get asked 你是哪里人？(Nǐ shì nǎli rén)  – literally, “You are where person?” or 你来自哪里？(Nǐ lái zì nǎli)  – “You come from where?” These questions are similar to the English “where are you from?”.

You may still respond with your country of origin, but you’re welcome to name your city, state, or prefecture as well if it’s a major or well-known one like Paris or California. To do so, simply substitute the name of the specific place for the country.  

• 我是 巴黎 人。 Wǒ shì Bālí rén. I am from Paris. Literally, “I am Paris person.”
• 我是 加利福尼亚 人。 Wǒ shì Jiālìfúníyà rén. I am from California. Literally, “I am California person.”

我来自…  (Wǒ lái zì   …)

You can also phrase your answer as 我来自  (Wǒ lái zì)  – “I come from” and the name of the place. It sounds slightly more formal than the 我是…人 (Wǒ shì … rén) structure, but English speakers might find it easier to remember.

• 我来自 法国 。 Wǒ lái zì Fǎguó . I come from France.
• 我来自 巴黎 。 Wǒ lái zì Bālí . I come from Paris.
• 我来自 美国 。 Wǒ lái zì Měiguó . I come from America.
• 我来自 加利福尼亚 。 Wǒ lái zì Jiālìfúníyà . I come from California.

Don’t forget to ask the same questions in return or simply ask 你呢？(nǐ ne) or 您呢 (nín ne) – “and you?” to keep the conversation going.

If you are American, one of the most common questions you’ll get asked from curious Chinese people is which US state you’re from. You can learn how to say your state in Chinese here.

2. Introducing Where You Live

Now that your new Chinese friends know where you’re from originally, they may want to know some additional information about your current status. For example, where you live at the moment.

If they are interested in your current place of residence, they might ask you 你住在哪里？(Nǐ zhù zài nǎli)  or 你住在哪儿？(Nǐ zhù zài  nǎr )  – literally “You live in where?”.

Both 哪里 (nǎli) and 哪儿  (nǎr) mean “where”, with 哪儿  (nǎr) used more often in northern China. You can navigate your way around China town or any place in China easily with this question word. Learn more Survival Chinese .

我住在… (W ǒ zhù zài  …)

The best way to answer the question is to say 我住在 (W ǒ zhù zài )  – “I live in” and the name of the city or region where you live.

• 我住在 伦敦 。 Wǒ zhù zài Lúndūn . I live in London.
• 我住在 北京 。 Wǒ zhù zài Běijīng . I live in Beijing.

If you want to tell people you were born or grew up in one place, but live in another, you can use the conjunction 但 (dàn)  – “but” to connect the two sentences, like

• 我是英国人, 但 我住在澳大利亚。 Wǒ shì Yīngguó rén , dàn  wǒ zhù zài Àodàlìyà. I am British, but I live in Australia.
• 我来自纽约, 但 我住在得克萨斯. Wǒ lái zì Niǔyuē , dàn  wǒ zhù zài Dékèsàsī. I am from New York, but I live in Texas.

3. Introducing Your Age  

As in many parts of the world, asking someone about their age is generally considered impolite in China, especially if you’re a man asking a woman her age. Nevertheless, you can volunteer your age when introducing yourself in Chinese, and your conversation partner will probably do the same.

我…岁 (Wǒ … suì)

Here’s how you would say how old you are in Chinese: start with the pronoun 我 (wǒ) – “I”, followed by the number of your age, and end with 岁 (suì) , which means “years of age”.

For example:

• 我 二十五 岁。 Wǒ èr shí wǔ suì. I am twenty-five years old. Literally, “I twenty-five years of age.”

To tell people your age, simply substitute the number that corresponds to your age in the orange font.

You’ll notice that in English, you use the verb “to be” (am) when describing how old you are (and in some languages, you use the verb “to have”). In Chinese, however, you must drop the verb entirely and connect the subject directly with the age . So, it’s like saying “I ___ years old.” Read more about the topic-comment structure in Chinese .

Okay, to fully introduce yourself in Chinese and state your age, you’ll need to know Chinese numbers. You can follow our complete tutorial here to learn the Chinese numeral system .

At some point, you might still need to ask “how old are you?” in Chinese. And the way you compose this question should be dependent on the age of the person you’re talking to.

To ask about a kid’s age in Chinese, simply say   你几岁？(Nǐ jǐ suì?)  

But for inquiring about an adult’s age in Chinese, you should say 你多少岁？(Nǐ duōshǎo suì)  or 您多少岁？(Nín duōshǎo  suì)  – if you want to show an extra level of respect.

Both 几 (jǐ) and 多少 (duōshǎo) are Chinese question words for numbers. So all these questions translate to “You, what number years of age?”, literally. The difference is that 几 (jǐ) is reserved for small numbers, while 多少 (duōshǎo) is used to inquire about big numbers.

As with many expressions in Chinese, there are a few more ways to inquire about a person’s age. You can follow our complete guide here to learn the various ways of saying and asking age in Chinese .

4. Introducing Your Profession 

The Chinese love talking about jobs and careers. It’s not uncommon for people to ask about each other’s profession during Chinese introductions, especially if it’s a social encounter where people are doing networking.

Some of the first and most common conversations you’ll have in Chinese will require you to answer the question 你是做什么的？(Nǐ shì zuò  shénme de ) , which roughly translates to “what is that you do?” or “what do you do for a living?”

Another way to approach this subject is to ask  你在哪里工作？( Nǐ zài nǎlǐ gōngzuò ) , or more colloquially  你在哪里上班？( Nǐ zài nǎlǐ shàngbān ) , both of which mean “where do you work?” 

When answering these questions with your profession or telling someone about your job, there are a few structures you can use.

我是一名… ( Wǒ shì yì míng …)

This is the most common way to say what you do in Chinese: start the sentence with 我是一名 ( Wǒ shì yì míng) , which means “I am a”, and then add your profession or job at the end of the sentence.

• 我是一名 医生 。 Wǒ shì yì míng  yīshēng . I am a doctor.
• 我是一名 律师 。 Wǒ shì yì míng  lǜshī . I am a lawyer.
• 我是一名 工程师 。 Wǒ shì yì míng  gōngchéngshī . I am an engineer.

If you are a student, you can say

• 我是一名 学生 。 Wǒ shì yì míng  xuésheng . I am a student.

Keep in mind that you need to add a measure word between a number (a/one) and a noun in Chinese. And the best measure word for professions in this context is 名 (míng) . For example, you wouldn’t just say 一医生 (yì yīshēng) for “a doctor”, you would say 一名医生 (yì míng yīshēng), which translates to “a [measure word] doctor”.

A quick grammar usage note: like some languages, you can drop “a” (一名 [yì míng]) before the job in Chinese sometimes and just say 我是 (Wǒ shì) + profession (e.g. 我是医生 [Wǒ shì yīshēng]), however, this does not sound natural to Chinese people when you introduce your profession. So better slip 一名 (yì míng) in the middle of the sentence!

我在…工作/上班 (Wǒ zài … gōngzuò /shàng bān )

To tell your conversation partner about the company, institution or location where you’re currently employed, you’ll say  我在…工作 (Wǒ zài … gōngzuò )  or 我在…上班 (Wǒ zài … shàng bān ) . Both 工作 (gōngzuò) and 上班 (shàngbān) mean “work” in Chinese (工作 [gōngzuò] is slightly more formal), so these expressions are the Chinese equivalents of “I work at/in …”.

• 我在 银行 工作。 Wǒ zài yínháng  gōngzuò. I work in a bank.
• 我在 欧莱雅 上班。 Wǒ zài Ōu lái yǎ shàngbān. I work at L’Oréal.

Remember to substitute the name of your workplace in the orange font. 

我在…上学/读书 ( Wǒ zài  … shàngxué / dúshū )

Students can say where they’re studying by swapping out “work” – 工作 (gōngzuò) or 上班 (shàngbān) with “study” – 上学 ( shàngxué )  or more colloquially 读书 ( dúshū ) .

• 我在 北京大学 上学。 Wǒ zài Běijīng dàxué  shàngxué. I am studying at Peking University.
• 我在 纽约大学 读书。 Wǒ zài Niǔyuē dàxué  dúshū. I am studying at New York University.

See? One easy switch and you’re ready to tell people about your education situation.

Lastly, to say you’re a freelancer, say 我是自由职业 (Wǒ shì zìyóu zhíyè) . And if you’re unemployed, say 我没有工作 (Wǒ méiyǒu gōngzuò)  – “I don’t have a job”. Or if you’re currently looking for a job – 我正在找工作 (Wǒ zhèng zài zhǎo gōngzuò) .

Since “What’s your job?” is a question you might get asked all the time in China, it’s a great idea to memorize the name of your profession in Chinese before embarking on your Chinese conversation journey. That way, you won’t get flustered when it comes up!

To understand what your new friend does for a living, you’ll want to have a solid vocabulary base of Chinese professions. You can practice the names of popular professions in Chinese with our guide here.

5. Introducing Your Family

Family is yet another evergreen small talk topic that you should be prepared to address when introducing yourself in Chinese.

But before learning how to introduce your family, you should know that family is so important in Chinese culture that Chinese has a specific word for almost every family relationship. For example, elder brother and younger brother.

So here’s some key relationship vocabulary.

In China, asking about a person’s family shows a desire to understand the person better. You may get asked if you have any brothers or sisters:

• 你有兄弟姐妹吗？ Nǐ yǒu xiōngdì jiěmèi ma? Do you have any siblings? Literally, “You have brothers (and) sisters ma?”

or how many brothers or sisters you have:

• 你有几个兄弟姐妹？ Nǐ yǒu jǐ gè xiōngdì jiěmèi? How many siblings do you have? Literally, “You have how many brothers (and) sisters?”

我有 (Wǒ yǒu) + number + 个  (gè)  + relationship

To say how many brothers and sisters you have, use the structure 我有 (Wǒ yǒu) + number + 个  (gè)  + relationship , which can be translated as “I have however many of a certain type of relationship”. For instance,

• 我有 一 个 哥哥 。 Wǒ yǒu  yí  gè  gēge . I have an elder brother.
• 我有 两 个 妹妹 。 Wǒ yǒu  liǎng  gè  mèimei . I have two younger sisters.

Here, 有 (yǒu)  is the “have” in Chinese used to express possession, and 个 (gè)  is the measure word for counting people.

To connect multiple relationships, you can use the conjunction 和 ( hé )  – “and”.

• 我有一个哥哥 和 两个妹妹。 Wǒ yǒu yí gè gēge  hé  liǎng gè mèimei. I have an elder brother and two younger sisters.

And if you don’t have siblings, you can say

• 我没有兄弟姐妹。 Wǒ méiyǒu xiōngdì jiěmèi. I don’t have siblings.

To say that you don’t have someone (or something), simply start your sentence with 我没有(Wǒ méiyǒu) . 没 (méi) is the negation word for “have” in Chinese. (Read more about how to express possession in Chinese )

or you can say

• 我是独生子女。 Wǒ shì dú shēng zǐnǚ. I am an only child.

You may also get asked if you’re married in some situations.

• 你结婚了吗？ Nǐ jiéhūn le ma? Are you married?

To say that you’re married, say 我结婚了 (Wǒ  jiéhūn le )  – “I am married”. And if you’re not,  我还没结婚 (Wǒ  hái méi jiéhūn )  – literally, “I still haven’t married”, or  我单身 (Wǒ dān shēn )  – “I (am) single.”

If you’re currently dating someone, you can use the sibling sentence structure.

• 我有一个女朋友。 Wǒ yǒu yí gè nǚ péngyou. I have a girlfriend.
• 我有一个男朋友。 Wǒ yǒu yí gè nán péngyou. I have a boyfriend.

You can also use the sibling sentence structure to talk about your children if you have any.

• 我有三个孩子。 Wǒ yǒu sān gè háizi. I have three kids.
• 我有一个儿子和两个女儿。 Wǒ yǒu yí gè érzi hé liǎng gè nǚ’ér. I have a son and two daughters.

You can even introduce your four-legged family members using this structure. Just make sure to change the measure word 个 (gè), which is reserved for people, to appropriate measure words for animals, for example, 只 ( zhī ) for cats  and 条 ( tiáo ) for dogs .

• 我有两 只 猫。 Wǒ yǒu liǎng  zhī  māo. I have two cats.
• 我有三 条 狗。 Wǒ yǒu sān tiáo  gǒu. I have three dogs.

A quick grammar tip: Mandarin has two words for the number “two”: 二 (èr) and 两 (liǎng). When it comes to counting people and objects, always use 两 (liǎng). For example, to say “two kids”, you would say “两个孩子 (liǎng gè háizi)”, not “二个孩子 (èr gè háizi)”. Read more about when to use 两 (liǎng) over 二 (èr) .

6. Talking about Your Languages 

Since you’re introducing yourself in Chinese, your new Chinese friends will likely be interested in finding out how you’ve learned their native language and what led you to take it up.

First, you may get asked, “how long have you been learning the Chinese language?”.

In Chinese, this question may sound something like 你学了多久中文？ (Nǐ xué  le duō jiǔ  Z hōngwén )  – literally, “You’ve learned how long time Chinese?” or  你汉语学了多长时间 ？(Nǐ Hàn yǔ xué le duō cháng shíjiān )  – “You, Chinese learned how long time?”

我学了 (Wǒ xué  le ) + time duration + 中文 (Z hōngwén )/汉语 (H ànyǔ )

To respond, say 我学了 (Wǒ xué  le ) – “I’ve learned” first, followed by the time duration and then the word 中文 (Z hōngwén )  or 汉语 (H ànyǔ )  – “Chinese”.

• 我学了 三个月 中文。 Wǒ xué le  sān gè yuè  Zhōngwén. I’ve been learning Chinese for three months.
• 我学了 半年 汉语。 Wǒ xué le  bàn nián Hànyǔ. I’ve been learning Chinese for half a year.

In Chinese, several words are used to refer to “the Chinese language”. The word 汉语 (Hànyǔ) means the language of Han Chinese people (the largest ethnic group in China that comprises approximately 92% of its population), in contrast with the languages of the non-Han Chinese peoples in China (e.g. Tibetan , Uyghur , etc). 汉语 (Hànyǔ) is, therefore, the accurate, scientific term for the language. However, the most popular term for the Chinese language is 中文 (Zhōngwén), which translates to “China language”, literally.

If you can respond to the first question, chances are you’ll also be asked  你在哪里学的中文/汉语 ？(Nǐ zài n ǎlǐ xué de Zh ōngwén/ H ànyǔ )  – “Where did you learn Chinese?” (literally, “You in where learned Chinese”)

我在…学的中文/汉语 (W ǒ zài  …  xué de  Z hōngwén /H ànyǔ )

To reply to this question, simply swap out the question word 哪里 (nǎlǐ) – “where” in the question with the name of the place, like

• 我在 北京 学的中文。 Wǒ zài Běijīng xué de Zhōngwén. I learned Chinese in Beijing.
• 我在 学校 学的中文。 Wǒ zài xuéxiào  xué de Zhōngwén. I learned Chinese at school.
• 我在 网上 学的汉语。 Wǒ zài wǎng shàng  xué de Hànyǔ. I learned Chinese online.

People might also ask you “why are you learning Chinese?” – 你为什么学中文/汉语？(N ǐ wèi shénme xué Zh ōngwén /H ànyǔ ).

To prepare to answer the question, take a look at these common examples:

我学中文/汉语是因为… (W ǒ xué Zh ōngwén /H ànyǔ shì yīnwèi  …) – “ (The reason) I learn Chinese is because … ”

• 我喜欢中国文化。 Wǒ xǐhuan Zhōngguó wénhuà. I like Chinese culture.
• 我想去中国工作。 Wǒ xiǎng qù Zhōngguó gōngzuò. I want to work in China.
• 我的女朋友是中国人。 Wǒ de nǚ péngyǒu shì Zhōngguó rén. My girlfriend is Chinese.
• 我的爸爸来自中国。 Wǒ de bàba lái zì Zhōngguó. My dad comes from China.

You will see more examples of how to talk about what you like, what you want, as well as introducing other people in the following sections, so don’t stress if you don’t get it yet!

Lastly, you might get asked 你会说哪些语言？ (Nǐ huì shuō nǎxiē yǔyán)  – “What languages do you speak?” (literally, “You can speak which languages?”)

我会说 (Wǒ huì shuō)

To answer, you can say 我会说 (Wǒ  huì shuō )  – “I can speak”, and then the names of the languages. Remember to use the conjunction 和 (hé) – “and” for linking multiple languages.

• 我会说 英语 , 法语 , 和 西班牙语 。 Wǒ huì shuō  Yīngyǔ ,  Fǎyǔ , hé  Xībānyáyǔ . I can speak English, French, and Spanish.

You can also say what languages you’re studying by saying  我正在学… (W ǒ zhèng zài xué  …)  – “I am studying …”. For example, as a Chinese learner, you could say 

• 我会说 英语 和 法语 , 我正在学 中文 。 Wǒ huì shuō  Yīngyǔ  hé  Fǎyǔ , wǒ zhèng zài xué  Zhōngwén . I speak English and French, (and) I am learning Chinese.

7. Talking about Your Interests and Hobbies 

Hobbies might not be the first topic you’ll touch upon when you introduce yourself in Chinese, but it’s certainly the most extensive one. Once you’re past the basics and need something interesting to talk about, you can share your passions to inspire further conversation.

Two common ways to ask someone about their hobbies in Chinese are

• 你平时喜欢做什么？ Nǐ píngshí xǐhuan zuò shénme? What do you like to do in your free time? Literally, “You ordinary time like to do what?”
• 你的爱好是什么？ Nǐ de àihào shì shénme? What’s your hobby? Literally, “Your hobby is what?”

我喜欢… ( Wǒ xǐhu a n  …)

You can answer the questions or speak about your hobbies and interests in various ways, but the easiest one is the expression 我喜欢… ( Wǒ xǐhu a n  …)  – “I like” and then list a noun or a verb.

Here’s a bunch of examples.

• 我喜欢 足球 。 Wǒ xǐhuan zúqiú . I like football.
• 我喜欢 旅行 。 Wǒ xǐhuan lǚxíng . I like traveling.
• 我喜欢 看小说 。 Wǒ xǐhuan  kàn xiǎoshuō . I like reading novels.
• 我喜欢 学外语 。 Wǒ xǐhuan xué wàiyǔ . I like learning foreign languages.

Useful Chinese Words and Phrases Related to Hobbies

Even if you don’t think of your interests as “hobbies,” you can describe them as such anyway.

我的爱好是… ( Wǒ de àihào shì  …)

Alternatively, you can say 我的爱好是 ( Wǒ de àihào shì )  – “My hobby is” then name a noun/verb or two.

• 我的爱好是 钓鱼 。 Wǒ de àihào shì diàoyú . My hobby is fishing.
• 我的爱好是 跑步 和 骑行 。 Wǒ de àihào shì  pǎobù  hé  qíxíng . My hobbies are running and cycling.

我对…很感兴趣 (W ǒ duì … hěn gǎn xìngqù )

You can also use the expression 我对…很感兴趣 (W ǒ duì … hěn gǎn xìngqù )  – “I am very interested in …” to let people know that you have a keen interest in something or doing something. Simply name the “thing” in the blank.

• 我对 汉字 很感兴趣。 Wǒ duì Hànzì hěn gǎn xìngqù. I am very interested in Chinese characters.
• 我对 中国文化 很感兴趣。 Wǒ duì  Zhōngguó wénhuà  hěn gǎn xìngqù. I am interested in Chinese culture.
• 我对 学中文 很感兴趣。 Wǒ duì xué Zhōngwén hěn gǎn xìngqù. I am very interested in learning Chinese.

我擅长… (Wǒ shàn cháng  …)

Lastly, if you want to tell people that you are good at something, you can say 我擅长 (Wǒ shàn cháng )  and then whatever it is that you excel at.

• 我擅长 做菜 。 Wǒ shàncháng  zuòcài . I am good at cooking.
• 我擅长 网球 和 乒乓 。 Wǒ shàncháng  wáng qiú  hé pīngpāng . I am good at tennis and table tennis.

Well, try not to show off too much. Revealing one or two of your strengths is great, but listing all your amazing abilities in your Chinese self-intro will probably annoy others and make you seem over-confident. After all, humility is the king of all virtues!  

8. Talking about Your Plans

And finally, you can include your plans in your Chinese self-introduction. For instance, what you want to do in the future, what new skills you’re trying to acquire, or where you’re traveling to this summer.

Here are some example sentences for talking about your plans in Chinese.

• 我想 去中国旅行 。 Wǒ xiǎng qù Zhōngguó lǚxíng . I want to take a trip to China.
• 我想 来上海实习 。 Wǒ xiǎng lái Shànghǎi shíxí . I want to do an internship in Shanghai.
• 我想 说流利的中文 。 Wǒ xiǎng  shuō liúlì de Zhōngwén . I want to speak fluent Chinese.
• 我打算 考 HSK 。 Wǒ dǎsuàn  kǎo  HSK . I plan to take the HSK exam.
• 我打算 在中国开一家公司 。 Wǒ dǎsuàn zài Zhōngguó kāi yì jiā gōngsī . I plan to start a business in China.
• 这个夏天 我打算 参加一个中文课程 。 Zhè gè xiàtiān wǒ dǎsuàn  cānjiā yì gè Zhōngwén kèchéng . I plan to take a Chinese course this summer.

A quick grammar note: the verb 打算 (dǎsuàn) is used to tell what you plan to do. It’s most commonly used in situations where you’ve already made up your mind. It’s definite (or almost definite). Don’t use it for instances where you’re just randomly thinking about something. In that case, use 想 (xiǎng) instead.

Unlike in English where you normally need a preposition like “to” to connect different verbs in a sentence, in Chinese, you can string the verbs together without any linking word to describe a sequence (e.g. want to do, plan to do). Read more on how to connect verbs in Chinese .  

Concluding Your Chinese Self-introduction

All good things come to an end, don’t they?

Earlier we learned how to use the set phrase 很高兴认识你 (Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ) to conclude your self-introduction. Here are a few more ways to end a conversation gracefully in Chinese.

• 认识你很高兴。 Rènshi nǐ hěn gāoxìng. Nice to meet you.

Here, you can rearrange the word order as 认识你很高兴 (R ènsh i nǐ  h ěn gāoxìng )  – literally, “Knowing you (I’m) very glad.” to express the pleasure of meeting someone when the conversation is over.

• 很高兴见到你。 Hěn gāoxìng jiàn dào nǐ. Nice to meet you. Literally, “Very glad (to) meet you”.
• 见到你很高兴。 Jiàn dào nǐ hěn gāoxìng. Nice to meet you. Literally, “Meeting you (I’m) very glad.” 

Alternatively, you can end with the phrase 很高兴见到你 (H ěn gāoxìng jiàn dào nǐ )  – “Very glad (to) meet you” or the other way around – 见到你很高兴 (J iàn dào nǐ  h ěn gāoxìng )  – “Meeting you (I’m) very glad”, two other popular ways of saying “Nice to meet you” in Chinese.

• 请(您)多多关照。 Qǐng (nín) duō duō guānzhào. Please look after me often.
• 请(您)多多指教。 Qǐng (nín) duō duō zhǐjiào. Please guide me often.

Modesty is viewed as a great virtue in Chinese culture. Chinese people like to keep a low profile both in regard to their own achievements, status as well as their interactions with others.

So in professional contexts, you could say 请(您)多多关照 (Q ǐng [nín]   duō duō guānzhà o)  – “Please look after me often” or 请(您)多多指教 (Q ǐng [nín] duō duō zhǐjiào )  – “Please guide me often” at the end of your self-introduction as a way of promoting modesty when you meet new Chinese colleagues or work contacts. It may not be common to say something like this in your culture, but in China, a humble concluding phrase like this can go a long way toward forging a bond!

If you’re excited about establishing a new friendship with someone and plan to meet them again, go ahead and ask for their phone number or WeChat (China’s WhatsApp-like messaging and social media app). Try being direct – it works pretty well in Chinese.

• 我们留个电话吧。 Wǒmen liú gè diànhuà ba. Let’s leave a phone number (to each other).
• 我们加个微信吧。 Wǒmen jiā gè wēixìn ba. Let’s friend each other on WeChat.

To say goodbye in Chinese, simply say 再见 (z àijiàn ) . But if you have another planned meeting with your new Chinese friend at some time soon, it would be more appropriate to say  回头见 ( huí tóu jiàn ) , which means “see you later” or “see you soon”.

How to Introduce Yourself in a Business Setting  

Throughout the article, we’ve already given you various pointers on how to introduce yourself in professional contexts, but it’s important to go deeper into them here if you ever have to introduce yourself in Chinese in a formal business setting.

1. Use the Formal Way of Addressing

Unless someone proposes to use 你 (nǐ), always use the formal way of addressing 您 (nín).

2. Introduce Your Last Name As Well As Your First Name

With regard to introducing your name, there is little difference between China and elsewhere. It is considered polite to give your full name on formal occasions.

If you have a Chinese name, say your last name before your first name. If your name is transliterated into Chinese, then keep the original name order.

3. Give a Brief Summary of Your Job

When you introduce yourself in a business setting, mention the company or organization you work for as well as your job position or the name of your profession in your Chinese self-introduction.

To do so, use the structure 我在…担任…  (W ǒ zài …  dānrèn …) , which translates to “I work as … in/at …” (literally, “I in … take on the position of …”), for example,

• 我在 谷歌 担任 软件工程师 。 wǒ zài  Gǔgē  dānrèn  ruǎnjiàn gōngchéngshī . I work as a software engineer at Google. Literally, “I in Google take on the position of a software engineer.”

4. Use Formal Words and Longer Sentences

Introducing yourself in a formal business setting will require you to use the formal form of Chinese words/phrases and longer sentences.

For example, instead of 我叫… (Wǒ jiào) – “I am called …” or 我是… (Wǒ shì) – “I am …” for introducing your name, it would be more appropriate to use the longer version  我的名字叫…  (Wǒ de míngzi j iào)  – “My name is called …” or  我的名字是…  (Wǒ de míngz i  shì)  – “My name is …”

And instead of saying 我在…上班 (Wǒ zài … shàngbān) – “I work in/at …” for telling people where you work, rephrase it as 我在…工作 ( Wǒ zài … gōngzuò)  or 我在…担任…  (W ǒ zài …  dānrèn …)  – “I work as … in/at …”.

To conclude your self-intro, you could say 非常荣幸认识您 (F ēicháng róngxìng rènsh i  nín )  – “Very honored to meet you” instead of 很高兴认识您 (Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nín) – “Nice to meet you” to add a dash of humbleness.

5. Wait for Your Turn to be Introduced

In China, people in a lower position of authority or age will be introduced to the higher first. When it’s your turn to be introduced, stand up, smile, and look at the people also being introduced with ease.

Wait for the person of higher standing to initiate the handshake. Some Chinese people think handshakes are only for equals, so if that person doesn’t automatically offer you their hand, don’t offer yours to offend them! Just nod politely.

6. Use Both Hands to Present Your Business Card

Business cards are called 名片 (míngpiàn) in Chinese (literally, “name cards”), and they are an important part of Chinese work culture. 

When you present your business card, say  这是我的名片 (Zhè  shì wǒ de míngpiàn )  – “This is my business card”, and hold the top edge of the card with both hands to show the recipient respect.

When you are offered a business card, accept it with two hands as well. Make sure to read the person’s name and title on the card before you put it away. Show interest in what they do and act at least a bit impressed with their job title.

Example of Chinese Self-introduction in a Formal Setting

• 您好，我的名字叫大卫·摩根。我在宜家担任销售经理，这是我的名片。非常荣幸认识您。 Nín hǎo, wǒ de míngzi jiào Dà wèi · Mó gēn. Wǒ zài Yíjiā dānrèn xiāoshòu jīnglǐ, zhè shì wǒ de míngpiàn. Fēicháng róngxìng rènshi nín. Hi, my name is David Morgan. I work as a sales manager at Ikea. Here’s my business card. I am very honored to meet you.

Always remember that a self-introduction at a party or a business meeting will be different. You can be casual with friends or people of your age, but should always be formal in the business world. If need be, learn how to be even more prepared to give a strong and professional self-introduction for a Chinese job interview!

How to Introduce Someone in Chinese 

Now that you’ve learned how to introduce yourself in Chinese, in both an informal setting and a formal setting, you’re ready to try and introduce someone else, such as your family, friends, or colleagues.

Here are some typical expressions you can use to introduce other people. Use them to earn extra points with your new Chinese friends!

• 这是 我的妻子 。 Zhè shì wǒ de qīzi . This is my wife.
• 这是 我的丈夫 。 Zhè shì wǒ de zhàngfu . This is my husband.
• 这是 我的儿子 。 Zhè shì wǒ de érzi . This is my son.
• 这是 我的女儿 。 Zhè shì wǒ de nǚ’ér . This is my daughter.
• 这是 我的朋友马修 。 Zhè shì wǒ de péngyou Mǎ xiū . This is my friend, Matthew.
• 这是 我的同事珍妮 。 Zhè shì wǒ de tóngshì Zhēn nī . This is my colleague, Jenny.

Did you notice the pattern here? To introduce someone in Chinese, simply start the sentence with 这是 (Zhè  shì )  – meaning “This is” and finish it with the person you want to introduce.

If you aren’t sure whether your conversation partner has already met the other person, you can use the following phrases. (Simply swap out the name in the orange font for your friend)

• 你认识 巴尼 吗？ Nǐ rènshí  Bā ní  ma? Do you know Barney? Literally, “You know Barney ma?”
• 你见过 泰德 吗？ Nǐ jiàn guò  Tài dé  ma? Have you met Ted? Literally, “You have met Ted ma?”

Once you initiate the introduction, you might want to go on and tell others a bit more about that person. This is rather easy to do in Chinese, as you don’t have to conjugate the verbs like you would have to in many other languages.

In other words, you can just stick to the sentence patterns used for your self-introduction, change the subject to an appropriate one (or use the pronoun 他 [tā] for “he” and 她 [tā] for “she”) , and then you are good to go!

Here are some example sentences for introducing someone in Chinese.

• 我的妻子叫詹妮弗。她三十六岁。 Wǒ de qīzi jiào Zhān nī fú. Tā sān shí liù suì. My wife’s name is Jennifer. She is thirty-six years old.
• 她是英国人。她来自伦敦。 Tā shì Yīngguó rén. Tā lái zì Lúndūn. She is British. She’s from London.
• 我的丈夫是加拿大人。他叫山姆。 Wǒ de zhàngfu shì Jiānádà rén. Tā jiào Shān mǔ. My husband is Canadian. His name is Sam.
• 我的爸爸在多伦多工作。他是一名老师。 Wǒ de bàba zài Duōlúnduō gōngzuò. Tā shì yì míng lǎoshī. My dad works in Toronto. He is a teacher.
• 泰德住在纽约。他是一名建筑师。 Tài dé zhù zài Niǔyuē. Tā shì yì míng jiànzhùshī. Ted lives in New York. He is an architect.
• 泰德的儿子十五岁。他喜欢中国。他想学中文。 Tài dé de érzi shí wǔ suì. Tā xǐhuan Zhōngguó. Tā xiǎng xué Zhōngwén. Ted’s son is fifteen years old. He loves China. He wants to learn Chinese.

Note that while “he” and “she” are represented by different Chinese characters, they are pronounced the same. In a conversation, you’ll need the context to tell whether someone is talking about a male “tā” or female “tā”.

Introducing Yourself in Chinese: Quick Summary

Here’s a quick summary of the key introductory words and phrases you’ve learned from this article that you can use when introducing yourself in Chinese.

Example Self-introduction in Chinese

With the above Chinese introduction phrases under your belt, you’ll be able to make friends and acquaintances without any trouble at all. Just put the pieces together, mind the cultural differences, and practice till its second nature!

Here’s an example of a stellar self-introduction in Chinese for your reference.

• 你好，我叫谢尔顿。很高兴认识你。 Nǐ hǎo, wǒ jiào Xiè ěr dùn. Hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ. Hello, my name is Sheldon. Nice to meet you.
• 我是美国人。我来自得克萨斯，但现在住在加利福尼亚。 Wǒ shì Měiguó rén. Wǒ lái zì Dékèsàsī, dàn xiànzài zhù zài Jiālìfúníyà. I am American. I am from Texas, but currently I live in California.
• 我今年三十七岁，结婚了。这是我的妻子，她的名字叫艾米，她也是美国人。我们还没有孩子。 Wǒ jīnnián sān shí qī suì, jiéhūn le. Zhè shì wǒ de qīzi, tā de míngzi jiào Ài mǐ, tā yě shì Měiguó rén. Wǒmen hái méiyǒu háizi. I am thirty-seven years old this year, married. This is my wife. Her name is Amy. She is American too. We don’t have kids yet.
• 我和我的妻子都在加州理工学院工作。我是一名物理学家。我擅长理论。我的妻子是一名神经科学家。 Wǒ hé wǒ de qīzi dōu zài Jiāzhōu lǐgōng xuéyuàn gōngzuò. Wǒ shì yì míng wùlǐ xuéjiā. Wǒ shàncháng lǐlùn. Wǒ de qīzi shì yì míng shénjīng kēxuéjiā. My wife and I both work at Caltech. I am a physicist. I am good at theory. My wife is a neuroscientist.
• 我的爱好是桌游和漫画。平时我喜欢和朋友在一起。我对语言也很感兴趣。我会说克林贡语。我现在还在学中文。我想去中国旅行。你呢？ Wǒ de àihào shì zhuōyóu hé mànhuà. Píngshí wǒ xǐhuan hé péngyǒu zài yìqǐ. Wǒ duì yǔyán yě hěn gǎn xìngqù. Wǒ huì shuō Kèlíngòng yǔ. Wǒ xiànzài hái zài xué Zhōngwén. Wǒ xiǎng qù Zhōngguó lǚxíng. Nǐ ne? My hobbies are board games and comics. In my free time I enjoy being with friends. I am also very interested in languages. I can speak Klingon. I am also learning Chinese at the moment. I want to take a trip to China. What about you?

If there’s ever a time when you need a pause to figure out what to say next during your Chinese self-introduction, don’t be afraid to use filler words to stall for time. For example, you can say 那个 (nèi ge), which works like “um”, “uh”, “well”, or “you know” in English. Read more about Chinese filler words . And in case you don’t know what your conversation partner just said, use the expression 我没听懂 (wǒ méi tīng dǒng) to encourage the person to rephrase and explain with simpler Chinese. (Avoid the overused expression 听不懂 [tīng bù dǒng] which is a conversation killer! Read more about different ways of saying “I don’t understand” in Chinese .)

And One More Thing

No matter how little Chinese you know, it’s doable to introduce yourself to someone who speaks Chinese. In other words, you don’t need to understand the precise meanings of what you’re saying or how the words relate to each other grammatically to introduce yourself in Chinese. But if you’re curious, or if you’re planning on learning Chinese, check out our in-depth guide on how to best learn Chinese from scratch . If you are struggling to improve your Chinese, consider taking a structured Chinese course online – it’s far more effective than reading odd bits and pieces here and there, and trying to put them together on your own. We’ve tested dozens of online Chinese language programs, some are amazing while others are, well… a complete waste of time. Make sure to read our unbiased reviews here and discover the best Chinese course out there for you.  

Free All-in-One Office Suite with PDF Editor

Edit Word, Excel, and PPT for FREE.

Read, edit, and convert PDFs with the powerful PDF toolkit.

Microsoft-like interface, easy to use.

Windows • MacOS • Linux • iOS • Android

Select areas that need to improve

• Didn't match my interface
• Too technical or incomprehensible
• Incorrect operation instructions
• Incomplete instructions on this function

Fields marked * are required please

Please leave your suggestions below

• Quick Tutorials
• WPS Spreadsheet
• Data Analysis
• Data Filtering

How to start a presentation in Chinese?

It's time for you to learn how to make a Powerpoint presentation, not in a traditional way, but another language. You may need to make a PowerPoint presentation in Chinese for your language school, but you can't find how to do it. If that is your case, you should prepare to know how to make a powerpoint presentation templates easily and safely.

However, for you to make the file, you will have to know how to use a power point presentation template and give it detail. It is good that you know the following methods to achieve a flawless Powerpoint presentation:

How to change the language of the text in PowerPoint?

Before you proceed with the powerpoint presentation download, it is only fair that you learn how to make the slides with your hands. To do this, you must do the following:

1.  Open the new document in PowerPoint.

2.  Go to the bottom of the software and click on the language option in the left area. You can also go to the review tab, then language, and click on set test language.

3.  In the language box, several options will appear. You have to click on Chinese. Save the changes.

How to change the language of the menu and presentation in PowerPoint?

If you are looking for another method of changing the language to apply it in your Powerpoint presentation, you could do the following:

1.  Open a new document in PowerPoint and go to the File tab.

2.  Click on options located on the left.

3.  Select language.

4.  In the displayed box, you must search for the desired language and click on ok to save changes.

How to set the Chinese language for your next PowerPoint presentations?

If you want to add Chinese presentation phrases for your future slides, you may want to set the language permanently. For you to have a permanent Chinese presentation background in PowerPoint, you will need to apply the following method:

1.   Again, open the document in PowerPoint from your Windows or Mac computer.

2.  Go to the File tab.

3.  Then access options on the menu's left side.

4.   Go to the language box

5.  Click on install additional display languages from office.com. Search for the desired language and save the changes.

If you want to organize a new Powerpoint presentation in the Chinese language, no doubt one of these methods will work for you. It is good that you take your time to apply each of the methods explained previously and have good results.

If all the content on how to add a new language to your Powerpoint presentation has been useful to you, do not forget to follow WPS Academy. You could have a china presentations discount code and other informative guides for PowerPoint, Excel, and Word on the website. You will also have the opportunity to download the WPS Office software for free and enjoy its smooth operation.

Knowing PowerPoint or other office software will help you stand out in your work. You should not fear these programs but rather face them and try to understand them. Eventually, you will become quite an expert in PowerPoint, and all your friends will ask you for advice on how to use it correctly.

• 1. 10 Unique Pecha Kucha Presentation Templates for your Next Presentation
• 2. 10 PowerPoint Presentation 2022 Templates Free Download: Best Designs for Your Next Presentation
• 3. 10 Presentation Rubric Templates for a Perfect Presentation
• 4. How to start page numbers on page 2 in WPS Writer
• 5. How to start a slide show
• 6. 10 Best Student PowerPoint Presentation Sample Templates

15 years of office industry experience, tech lover and copywriter. Follow me for product reviews, comparisons, and recommendations for new apps and software.

AP Chinese Exam Practice: Cultural Presentation

Ace the Cultural Presentation section of your AP Chinese exam with this study guide! Remember to set a 4-minute timer when preparing for your presentation and then a 2-minute timer to present it.

• Watch: AP Chinese Cram Review: Cultural Comparison Task
• Review: Cultural Presentation Scoring Guidelines (page 5
• Practice: 2022 Cultural Presentation (page 12-14)
• Graded examples
• Practice: 2021 Cultural Presentation Practice (page 12-14)

Was this study plan helpful? Let us know!

Looking for our ap study guides, related study plans, ap chinese exam practice: conversation.

Ace the Conversation section of your AP Chinese exam with this study guide! Remember to try to speak for the full 20 seconds during your Conversation practices.

AP Chinese Exam Practice: Email Response

Ace the Email Response section of your AP Chinese exam with this study guide! Remember to set a 15-minute timer for your Email Response practices.

AP Chinese Exam Practice: Story Narration

Ace the Story Narration section of your AP Chinese exam with this study guide! Remember to set a 15-minute timer for your Story Narration practices.

Stay Connected

Teach English in China

Enter you details for great articles, tips and resources.

THanks. You have subscribed successfully.

Subscribe to our mailing list

Helping chinese students with oral presentations.

Updated December 19, 2020 By Nicholas McKay

--> Comments

Do your Chinese students need help with oral presentations?

Whether you’re teaching English in China , or you’re teaching Chinese students in your country, sooner or later, your students will need to do an oral presentation.

This is especially the case if your students are in middle school or above.

The very idea of doing this can cause some of your Chinese students great distress. After all, Chinese students are, pardon the stereotype, synonymous with shyness.

Regardless of who we are, most of us experience anxiety speaking in front of a group of people, though this is rarely of little comfort to students.

There are many ways, however, that you can help relax your students, and leave them feeling more prepared.

So, here are six ways you can help your Chinese students with oral presentations.

1. Remind them that no one is perfect

Imagine this – you’re writing on the blackboard, and you make a spelling error. One of your students notices, and points it out, for the whole class to hear.

How do you respond?

For a number of teachers I’ve witnessed, they’re quick to save face. “I deliberately misspelled that word to check that you’re paying attention,” they might say.

I however know that spelling is not my biggest strength (yes, I’m an English teacher and a professional editor, and still fumble my letters).

With this in mind, I’m quick to admit my mistakes.

This is relevant to what I want to discuss, because honesty is very important for capturing the attention of your learners.

Even teachers make mistakes.

I have told my students that I too experience anxiety when speaking in front of a class. I’m not brave all the time. Students appreciate it when their teachers are human, and admit that they too make mistakes.

(Melbourne University has some good tips and ideas for managing stress for oral presentations .)

As an example, I have a speech impediment. Sometimes when I speak, I stutter. It rarely happens, but my students have noticed.

One lesson, after a couple of students laughed, I admitted it, and explained my stutter to them. They were so eager to know more about me, they were hanging on my every word.

2. Demonstrate and ask them to assess you

Students’ interest in you can be capitalized on in another way.

When my students are expected to complete an oral presentation, I will often do one for them.

If students are expected to stand in front of the class for five minutes, speak about a topic, and use evidence to back up their speech, then that’s exactly what I’ll do.

Not only this, I ask students to assess my performance, marking me on the same criteria that I will be looking for in their speeches.

Occasionally, I deliberately insert a few errors. But as I said previously, I’m not the greatest public speaker, so I know for a fact my performance will not be flawless.

In doing this, I’m making myself vulnerable, as vulnerable as they will later be.

Ask your students to assess your oral presentation.

I ask students to not only assess me on paper, but later call on them to share their responses. I’ll ask them:

• What did I do well?
• What areas do I need to improve on?

Some teachers may not like putting themselves into the crosshairs of their learners, and opening themselves up to criticism.

I don’t think for a second this will cause the respect students have for you to diminish. If anything, I imagine they will respect you more. Not only are you modelling the task for them, you are showing your honest, true self.

3. Use YouTube for good and bad examples

For teachers who might be a little shy at the idea of presenting in front of a class, or who want to give their learners additional examples, YouTube is filled with people giving presentations.

(Remember to download a VPN app before you head to China for access to sites like YouTube.)

There are even videos on the do’s and don’ts of giving a presentation, like the one below.

It can be an idea to pick a video where the presenter has given a shockingly awful presentation, and another where the speaker has been really amazing.

Using the same analytical sheet learners will be assessed on, students use this to assess the performance of those they observe in the video.

Students then have a discussion on what the presenter did well, and what the student could improve on.

Some questions to get those discussion juices flowing could be:

• Did the speaker have a clear opening/conclusion?
• Was the speaker understandable. Why/why not?
• Did the speaker engage the audience? If so, how?
• Did the speaker make their presentation entertaining?

4. Use cut and paste

As briefly mentioned above, educating students on the do’s and don’ts can be key to their success.

There are two ways to get students thinking about what makes a speech successful, and what should be best avoided.

The first would be to write a series of strategies on the board, and ask students whether they think they are things speakers should do, or not do.

The second, involves collating these techniques into a document, and asking students to cut them out, and paste them into their books, under specific sub-headings.

An example of what terms could be included is demonstrated below:

5. Organize the presentation into smaller components

Giving a demonstration to your learners on what students are expected to produce is one thing. For your visual learners, this may work like a charm, though as I’ve said previously, not everyone learns the same way.

For those many students (and there will be many of them), a graphic organizer might prove to be invaluable.

Simply put, the components of the student’s presentation, from their introduction to their conclusion, are separated into different components.

The organizer offers students a step-by-step guide, with some examples, as to what they’re expected to produce.

As an example, for their introduction, students might need to include:

• An opening hook, to grab the attention of their audience, maybe with a fun fact
• Their topic and contention/point of view, where they clearly state what their presentation is about, and the stance they are taking
• A summary of their arguments.

For some students, the organizer will work like a checklist, and allow them to know they have fulfilled all of the expectations required of them.

6. Write everything on the board

When teaching in China, one of the main pedagogies is rote learning .

Students are given information and they memorize it, reproducing it at the end of the school year.

Sometimes a good method to make sure your Chinese students are aware of what is expected of them, is to write everything on the board.

Chinese students are used to copying information from the board.

You could model an example oral presentation on the board, showing how the introduction, main body and conclusion are developed.

While this may be called ‘spoon feeding’ where you’re from, it’s a technique nonetheless and your Chinese students will be familiar with this kind of instruction.

Anything that works, right?

Oral presentations in ESL classrooms are inevitable

Teaching in China involves getting your Chinese students to use the language, verbally, not just literally.

Regardless how daunting an oral presentation is, you will be required to have your students complete this during the class.

It’s natural for students to be worried, but hopefully some of the ideas mentioned here will help them, and improve the quality of oral presentations in your classroom.

I hope you liked my blog about helping Chinese students with oral presentations. You may also like the one I wrote about embodied pedagogy (no, I haven’t made that term up). Enjoy!

Commercial relationship disclosure: Hello Teacher! has commercial arrangements with organizations that may appear on this page, such as affiliate links. See our terms for more info.

Have your say

You might like, the benefits of teaching in china that no one tells you about, eating meatballs with chopsticks: the expat’s guide to ikea in china, the top 6 things you should bring to china.

Popular blogs this year

• What are the best apps to use in China?
• Online teaching vs classroom teaching – which one is better?
• 7 things you should not bring to China
• What are the best VPNs for China in 2022?
• Chinese dating dilemmas

Blog topics

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

Translation of presentation – English–Traditional Chinese dictionary

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

presentation noun ( EVENT )

• The presentation was a collaborative effort by all the children in the class .
• The charity invited the press to a presentation of its plans for the future .
• The magazine asked its readers to send in their comments about the new style of presentation.
• Jenny's retiring and I think there's going to be a small presentation this afternoon .
• Graduates must be in full academic dress at the presentation of certificates .

presentation noun ( APPEARANCE )

(Translation of presentation from the Cambridge English-Chinese (Traditional) Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of presentation

Translations of presentation.

Get a quick, free translation!

Word of the Day

at the coalface

doing the work involved in a job, in real working conditions, rather than planning or talking about it

Fakes and forgeries (Things that are not what they seem to be)

Learn more with +Plus

• Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
• Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
• Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
• Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
• English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
• English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
• English–Dutch Dutch–English
• English–French French–English
• English–German German–English
• English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
• English–Italian Italian–English
• English–Japanese Japanese–English
• English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
• English–Polish Polish–English
• English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
• English–Spanish Spanish–English
• English–Swedish Swedish–English
• Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
• presentation (EVENT)
• presentation (APPEARANCE)
• Translations
• All translations

To add presentation to a word list please sign up or log in.

Add presentation to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

How to Introduce Yourself in Chinese: A Complete Guide

The first step in combining Chinese language and culture involves being prepared to introduce yourself in Chinese at any moment. In a culture based on 关系 ( guānxi – relationships), it’s crucial to be able to describe yourself accurately.

The simplest way to introduce yourself in Chinese is to say 你好 ( nǐ hǎo ) meaning “hello” and  我叫 ( wǒ jiào ) meaning “my name is.”

But, if you want to know even more about the different ways you can introduce yourself and information about you in Chinese, we’re here to help.

Simple Chinese Greetings to Introduce Yourself

Introducing your name in chinese, asking about the other person, reacting to a compliment, share your background to introduce yourself in chinese, talking about: where you’re from, talking about: family, talking about: your education and employment situation, talking about: your income and your children’s grades (yeah, this happens), talking about: hospitality, talking about: what you do for fun, concluding your self-introduction, 12 etiquette tips for chinese conversation, and one more thing....

Download: This blog post is available as a convenient and portable PDF that you can take anywhere. Click here to get a copy. (Download)

The basic Chinese greeting is a well-wish, using the word  好 ( hǎo ) — good. Before saying hǎo , you can insert a time of day or a fitting pronoun. The standard greeting is  你好 ( nǐ hǎo ) — hello, nǐ meaning “you.”

[Personal pronoun] hǎo :

您  ( nín ) — The respectful form of the pronoun “you,” used for addressing elderly people or people with higher social or business status

叔叔  ( shū shu ) — Uncle, used for a man who’s old enough to be your father

阿姨 ( ā yí ) — Aunty, used for a woman could be your mom

爷爷  ( yè ye ) — Literally “father’s father,” used for a man who could be your grandfather

奶奶  ( nǎi nai ) — Literally “father’s mother,” used for a woman who could be your grandmother

[Time of day] hǎo:

早上  ( zǎo shàng ) — Morning (before 8:00 a.m.)

上午  ( shàng wǔ ) — Morning (after 8:00 a.m.)

下午  ( xià wǔ ) — Afternoon

晚上  ( wǎn shàng ) — Evening

In conversation, you’ll likely hear one of two questions asking for your name:

怎么称呼您? ( zěnme chénghū nín? ) — How should I address you?

你叫什么名字? ( nǐ jiào shénme míngzi? ) — What’s your name?

The first question includes the respectful nǐn , meaning it should be used to address older people or people with higher social or business status. In less formal relationships, either question can be used. In both cases, you can respond:

我叫 (wǒ jiào) – My name is, and then say your name

You should use questions and phrases that show you’re taking an interest in the person you’re conversing with, thus… building guānxi . For example ,  吃饭了吗? ( chī fàn le ma? ) meaning “have you eaten yet?” is a commonly used phrase that can be used after a typical meal time.

If you already know something about their job or family, do   build that relationship by using 怎么样 ( zěnme yàng ) questions:

[Topic of interest] zěnme yàng ? – How’s [topic of interest]?

Topics of interest may include:

生意  ( shēngyì ) — Business, implying the person runs their own business

工作  ( gōngzuò ) — Work as an employee

家人  ( jiārén ) — Family members

父母  ( fùmǔ ) — Parents

孩子  ( háizi ) — Child or children

If you don’t know anything about them and it’s not around a meal time, just jump into the conversation !

At any point after you say your name, your Chinese will likely be complimented. To be polite, they’ll compliment your Chinese regardless of how good it is.

They recognize the challenge of learning a language since most have at least studied English in school, so saying your Chinese is good is a way to elevate you. It’s now your mission to humbly reject such a lofty compliment.

You’ll hear:

你的中文很好! ( nǐ de zhōngwén hěn hǎo! ) — Your Chinese is very good!

You should say:

哪里哪里 ( nǎlǐ nǎlǐ ) — Literally “Where? Where?” implying “I don’t see anyone around here who deserves such a compliment!”

没有  ( méi yǒu ) — Literally “don’t have,” implying you aren’t qualified for such a compliment

Don’t be afraid to admit:

我还在学习中文  ( wǒ hái zài xuéxí zhōngwén ) — I’m still learning Chinese.

我的中文不太好  ( wǒ de zhōngwén bú tài hǎo ) — My Chinese isn’t that great.

If you include a statement about your low Chinese level, it shouldn’t be the focal point of the sentence. For example, instead of “My Chinese isn’t that great,” you could say “Even though my Chinese isn’t that great, I’m happy to tell you a little bit about myself.”

If you can, deflect the compliment to someone else who really deserves it. This shows you know where the credit really goes. For example, after the other person compliments your Chinese, you could say:

让我的老师很高兴  ( ràng wǒ de lǎoshī hěn gāoxìng ) — That would make my teacher very happy.

A good self-introduction in Chinese needs to describe your essence. That all starts with your background: where you’re from, your family, your education, your work situation and even your income. All of this forms a large part of who you are, so this information is important to share with Chinese people.

Because conversations—especially the first one—are all about building  guānxi , the heart of the conversation starts immediately after exchanging names.

If someone asks:

你是哪里的? ( nǐ shì nǎlǐ de ?) — Where are you from?

你是哪个国家的? ( nǐ shì nǎge guójiā de? ) — What country are you from?

You can answer:

我是 ___ 的  ( wǒ shì ___  de ) — I’m from ___

我来自 ___ ( wǒ láizì ___) — I’m from ___

If you’re from the local area, you can say:

我是本地的 ( wǒ shì běndì de ) — I’m a local, literally “I’m from this place.”

If you ask them where they’re from (or vice versa) and the answer is a little ambiguous (most Chinese will just say “China”), you can say:

___ 哪里? (___ nǎli ?) — Where in ___?

The purpose of the “where you’re from” questions is really to understand what kind of environment you’re from, so you can use these kinds of words to help them paint a picture of you:

农村  ( nóngcūn ) — Rural area, literally “village”

小城  ( xiǎochéng ) — Small town

城市  ( chéngshì ) — Big city

If you want to explain how an environment may have influenced you even though you aren’t directly from there, you can add the word  附近 ( fùjìn ) — “nearby” after the description of where you’re from (e.g., chéngshì fùjìn – near a big city).

Family is so important in Chinese culture that the language has a specific word for almost every family relationship .

For example, in English we would say “cousin,” but in Chinese it’s “your mom’s older sister’s daughter,” which is completely different from”your mom’s younger sister’s daughter.” Understanding your family relationships will help a Chinese person learn about your values and traits.

Someone may ask you how your parents are doing:

你的父母怎么样? ( nǐ de fùmǔ zěnme yàng? ) — How are your parents?

To say your parents are doing well, you can say:

我的___还好 — ( wǒ de ___  hái hǎo ) — My ___ is/are doing well.

爸爸 ( bàba ) — Dad

妈妈  ( māma ) — Mom

You may also be asked if you have any brothers and sisters:

你有几个兄弟姐妹? ( nǐ yǒu jǐ ge xiōngdì jiěmèi? ) — How many siblings do you have?

To say how many brothers and sisters you have, you can say:

我有 how many 个 relationship . ( wǒ yǒu  how many  ge relationship) — I have [however many] of [a certain type of relationship.]

哥哥  ( gēge ) — Older brother

弟弟  ( dìdi ) — Younger brother

姐姐 ( jièjie ) — Older sister

妹妹  ( mèimei ) — Younger sister

You will likely be asked if you’re married:

你结婚了吗? ( nǐ jiéhūn le ma? ) — Are you married?

If you’re married, you can say  结婚了 ( jiéhūn le ) — I’m married.

If you’re dating, you can use the sibling sentence structure, minus the “how many” part:

男朋友  ( nán péngyou ) — Boyfriend

女朋友  ( nǚ péngyou ) — Girlfriend

You can use the sibling sentence structure for how many children you have also (if you’re married, you will be asked if you have children):

孩子  ( háizi ) — Child/children

儿子  ( érzi ) — Son

女儿  ( nǚér ) — Daughter

A person’s education and job situation reflect their current social status.

You might be asked:

你做什么工作? ( nǐ zuò shénme gōngzuò? ) — What do you do for work?

是你的专业吗? ( shì nǐ de zhuānyè ma? ) — Is that your profession?

Note :  zhuānyè  literally means “profession,” but the concept generally implies that it was your major in college, as well.

You could reply:

我是 ___ ( wǒ shì ___) — I’m a ___

我做 ___ ( wǒ zuò ___) — I ___

我上(了)大学 ( wǒ shàng (le) dàxué ) — I attend(ed) a university.

自学的  ( zìxué de ) — I am self-taught.

Similar to your education and job situation, your income and your children’s grades tell about your present situation in caring for yourself and your family, as well as what kind of future you might have. If the conversation gets this far, you will be asked about it.

___ 怎么样? (___ zěnme yàng ?) — How’s ___?

___ 可以吗? (___ kěyǐ ma ?) — Is ___ good enough?

成绩 ( chéngjì ) — Grades

工资  ( gōngzī ) — Income

还可以 ( hái kěyǐ ) — “Not bad.” Like in English, the tone of your voice shows how “not bad” it is.

不错 ( bú cuò ) — Pretty good/hard to complain.

很好 ( hěn hǎo ) — Very good/satisfying.

These conversations typically happen over tea or food. Hospitality is a big part of Chinese culture, so even if it’s their first time meeting you, they’ll probably still invite you to tea or a meal . This shows their willingness to spend time with you and build  guānxi .

If you have the time, do accept their offer to have tea or food. This shows your willingness to spend time with them and build  guānxi .

They might say something like:  我们喝茶吧 ( wǒmen hē chá ba ) — Let’s have some tea

You should say:  好的 ( hǎo de ) or  可以 ( kěyǐ ) with a smile. Both phrases carry the “that sounds good” meaning, but without the smile, your willingness could be misunderstood as “I guess I have to.”

You should also ask for their phone number or WeChat information . If you have time for tea, ask for this contact info before you leave. If you don’t have time for tea, ask for it so you can make plans to meet again. This shows you view the relationship as worth continuing.

可以给你我的电话号码吗? ( kěyǐ gěi nǐ wǒ de diàn huà hào mǎ ma? ) — Could I give you my phone number?

我们加微信吧  ( wǒmen jiā wēixìn ba ) — Let’s add each other’s WeChat

Grammar note : Saying 吧 ( ba ) is very important. It means you’re suggesting something. If you don’t say “ba,” you’re telling them what to do.

For more formal relationships:  可以加您的微信吗? ( kěyǐ jiā nín de wēixìn ma ?) — Can I add your WeChat?

Grammar note : 吗 ( ma ) is a word that basically adds a question mark to a sentence. For formal relationships, you want to ask permission, not make a suggestion.

Most conversations between Chinese people don’t require the “Where are you from?” part because they take for granted that they’re from China. In those cases, they’ll skip straight from “What’s your name?” to “ What do you like to do? “

你喜欢做什么? ( nǐ xǐhuān zuò shénme? ) — What do you like to do?

我喜欢 ___ ( wǒ xǐhuān ___) — I like to ___

You may be asked how long you’ve had that hobby:

你什么时候开始___? ( nǐ shénme shíhou kāishǐ ___?) — When did you start doing ___?

You could respond:

我 ___ 岁开始  ( wǒ ___ suì kāishǐ ) — I started when I was ___

我从小喜欢  ( wǒ cóng xiǎo xǐhuān ) — I’ve liked it since I was little

我 when 有兴趣了 ( wǒ when  yǒuxìngqù le ) — I got interested at a certain time

At this point, it would be natural for you to volunteer why you like doing what you do:

我觉得好玩  ( wǒ juéde hǎo wán ) — I think it’s fun, a phrase you can use to express simple enjoyment

让我 ___ ( ràng wǒ ___) — It makes me feel a certain way, a phrase that expresses contentment

轻松  ( qīngsōng ) — Relaxed

高兴  ( gāoxìng ) – Happy

期待  ( qīdài ) — Also meaning “happy,” but from doing something exciting

给我 ___ ( gěi wǒ ___) — It gives me a certain feeling, a phrase to explain deeper reasons.

安全感  ( ānquángǎn ) — A sense of security

满足感  ( mǎnzúgǎn ) — A sense of satisfaction

成就感 ( chéngjiùgǎn ) — A sense of accomplishment

一点幸福感  ( yīdiǎn xìngfúgǎn ) — A small sense of happiness

Note : xìngfú is viewed as an ultimate goal in life, so if you reach xìngfú through your hobbies, they’ll probably think of you as a very shallow person, or they’ll conclude you have no idea what you’re talking about

At the beginning of the conversation, all you knew was the person’s name. You didn’t know anything else about them. Now, after this conversation, you know something about the person, and they know something about you. This is the time to say things such as:

很高兴认识你  ( hěn gāoxìng rènshi nǐ ) — It was nice to become acquainted with you, literally “I’m happy to have become acquainted with you.”

In a more formal, less developed relationship, you could say:

谢谢您的时间 ( xièxie nín de shíjiān ) — Thank you for your time. This is especially respectful if the meet-and-greet was short, implying they didn’t have a lot of time to give you to begin with.

FluentU takes authentic videos—like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks—and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

You can try FluentU for free for 2 weeks. Check out the website or download the iOS app or Android app.

P.S. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Try FluentU for FREE!

In Chinese culture, there are certain things you should pay attention to in order to ensure that you are being respectful, such as particular aspects of your body language. Here are 12 tips to take note of:

1. The older a person is, the more respect they receive in Chinese culture. Calling someone who could be your grandma “grandma” is very well received, while calling her “aunty” may be viewed as insulting because her life experience wouldn’t be properly recognized.

2. Do shake hands when introducing yourself in business-relationship settings. This shows respect for the status of the other person.

3. However, do not shake hands when meeting a potential new friend at a coffee shop. You might feel it shows respect for the other person, but to them it doesn’t show respect for the equal-ness of the relationship. (Of course, the trump card for all of this handshake business is: do shake hands with anyone that wants a handshake, regardless of the situation.)

4. The goal of rejecting compliments is to take the focus off of you and your abilities. The other person will likely emphasize the compliment again. No matter how many times you hear it, reject it.

5. If you’re single, ask and talk about what you like to do with someone who’s the same gender as you, unless you’re looking to start a romantic relationship with the other person.

6. If you’re married, ask and talk about what you like to do with someone who’s the same gender as you, unless your significant other is there with you. A married person of the opposite sex having this conversation might be misunderstood as wanting an external relationship.

7. Don’t make constant eye contact in the conversation. This can be read as defiance, arrogance or even disrespect.

8. Do make casual eye contact in the conversation. This implies you’re both paying attention and thinking about what they’re saying.

9. Don’t talk about religion , politics , sexuality or any other topic with polarized opinions. Your goal is to find a common ground to build your  guānxi on, not to find reasons for conflict. Also, do not talk about death .

10. Don’t verbally take the initiative to break the relationship out of  nǐn.   Leave that for the other person. Ultimately, they know more about the culture than you do.

11. If you’re meeting someone over food or drinks, do fight for the bill when it comes time to pay. This is important because it shows you aren’t just taking advantage of their generosity. However, do let them pay the bill. This is a way to “give face” or 给面子 (gěi miàn zi ).

12. Do not  ask how they are by saying 你好吗 ? ( nǐ hǎo ma ?), which is the literal translation of “How are you?” The English “How are you?” doesn’t translate well , and the “How are you?”—”Good, and you?”—”Good” exchange doesn’t happen in Chinese.

If you just act with self-awareness and cultural respect, Chinese people will be very impressed.

If you want to continue learning Chinese with interactive and authentic Chinese content, then you'll love FluentU .

FluentU naturally eases you into learning Chinese language. Native Chinese content comes within reach, and you'll learn Chinese as it's spoken in real life.

FluentU has a wide range of contemporary videos—like dramas, TV shows, commercials and music videos.

FluentU App Browse Screen

FluentU brings these native Chinese videos within reach via interactive captions. You can tap on any word to instantly look it up. All words have carefully written definitions and examples that will help you understand how a word is used. Tap to add words you'd like to review to a vocab list.

Interactive Transcripts on FluentU

FluentU's Learn Mode turns every video into a language learning lesson. You can always swipe left or right to see more examples for the word you're learning.

FluentU Has Quizzes for Every Video

The best part is that FluentU always keeps track of your vocabulary. It customizes quizzes to focus on areas that need attention and reminds you when it’s time to review what you’ve learned. You have a 100% personalized experience.

Start using the FluentU website on your computer or tablet or, better yet, download the FluentU app from the iTunes or Google Play store. Click here to take advantage of our current sale! (Expires at the end of this month.)

Enter your e-mail address to get your free PDF!

We hate SPAM and promise to keep your email address safe

• Manage Email Subscriptions
• How to Post to DZone
• Article Submission Guidelines
• Manage My Drafts

Low-Code Development: Leverage low and no code to streamline your workflow so that you can focus on higher priorities.

Feeling secure? Tell us your top security strategies in 2024, influence our research, and enter for a chance to win $!

Launch your software development career: Dive head first into the SDLC and learn how to build high-quality software and teams.

Open Source Migration Practices and Patterns : Explore key traits of migrating open-source software and its impact on software development.

• What Are SOC and SIEM? How Are They Connected?
• Five Steps To Building a Tier 1 Service That Is Resilient to Outages
• A Robust Distributed Payment Network With Enchanted Audit Functionality - Part 1: Concepts
• Top 5 Incidents and Outages of 2021
• Custom Health Checks in Spring Boot
• Resource Management in Kubernetes
• Debugging Kubernetes: Troubleshooting Guide
• Efficient Data Management With Offset and Cursor-Based Pagination in Modern Applications
• Data Engineering

How to do a presentation in China? Some of my experiences

Join the DZone community and get the full member experience.

So the culture is different from Western culture we all know that! I am certainly not an expert on China but after living in China for almost 2 years knowing some language and working in a chinese company seeing presentations every week and also visiting over 30 western and chinese companies placed in China I think I have some insights about how you should organize your presentation in China.

Since I recently went to Shanghai in order to to research exchange with Jiaotong University I was about to give a presentation to introduce my institute and me. So here you can find my rather uncommon presentation and some remarks, why some slides where designed in the way they are.

http://www.rene-pickhardt.de/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/ApexLabIntroductionOfWeST.pdf

Guanxi – your relations

First of all I think it is really important to understand that in China everything is related to your relations ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guanxi ). A chinese business card will always name a view of your best and strongest contacts. This is more important than your adress for example. If a conference starts people exchange namecards before they sit down and discuss. This principle of Guanxi is also reflected in the style presentations are made. Here are some basic rules:

• Show pictures of people you worked together with
• Show pictures of groups while you organized events
• Show pictures of the panels that run events
• Show your partners (for business not only clients but also people you are buying from or working together with in general)

My way of respecting these principles:

• I first showed a group picture of our institute!
• I also showed for almost every project where I could get hold of it pictures of the people that are responsible for the project
• I did not only show the European research projects our university is in but listed all the different partners and showed logos of them

The second thing is that in China the concept of family is very important. I would say as a rule of thumb if you want to make business with someone in china and you havent been introduced to their family things are not going like you might expect this. For this reason I have included some slides with a worldmap going further down to the place where I was born and where I studied and where my parents still leave!

When I choosed a worldmap I did not only take one with Chinese language but I also took one where china was centered. In my contact data I also put chinese social networks. Remember Twitter, Facebook and many other sites are blocked in China. So if you really want to communicate with chinese people why not getting a QQ number or weibo account?

Design of the slides

You saw this on conferences many times. Chinese people just put a hack a lot of stuff on a slide. I strongly believe this is due to the fact that reading and recognizing Chinese characters is much  faster than western characters. So if your presentation is in Chinese Language don’t be afraid to stuff your slides with information. I have seen many talks by Chinese people that where literally reading word by word what was written on the slides. Where in western countries this is considered bad practice in China this is all right. 

Speaking of Language: Of course if you know some chinese it shows respect if you at least try to include some chinese. I split my presentation in 2 parts. One which was in chinese and one that was in english.

Have an interesting take away message

So in my case I included the fact that we have PhD positions open and scholarships. That our institut is really international and the working language is english. Of course I also included some slides about my past and current research like Graphity and Typology

During the presentation:

In China it is not rude at all if ones cellphone rings and one has more important stuff to do. You as presenter should switch of your phone but you should not be disturbed or annoyed if people in the audience receive phone calls and go out of the room doing that business. This is very common in China.

I am sure there are many more rules on how to hold a presentation in China and maybe I even made some mistakes in my presentation but at least I have the feeling that the reaction was quite positiv. So if you have questions, suggestions and feedback feel free to drop a line I am more than happy to discuss cultural topics!

Published at DZone with permission of René Pickhardt , DZone MVB . See the original article here.

Opinions expressed by DZone contributors are their own.

Partner Resources

• About DZone
• Send feedback
• Community research
• Advertise with DZone

CONTRIBUTE ON DZONE

• Become a Contributor
• Core Program
• Visit the Writers' Zone
• Terms of Service
• Privacy Policy
• 3343 Perimeter Hill Drive
• Nashville, TN 37211
• [email protected]

Let's be friends:

LinguaJunkie.com

A very cranky language blogger dishing out brutal language tips.

How to Introduce Yourself in Chinese in 10 Lines

Want to speak Chinese? Yes? Good – keep reading. This is for those that truly want to learn the language. Here’s how you introduce yourself in Chinese in 10 easy lines … and this might take you 2 to 3 minutes or less. With this lesson…

• You get the Chinese, translations and romanizations.
• Read out loud to practice your speaking.
• Feel free to print this sheet out for extra review.

Here’s how you introduce yourself in Chinese. Let’s go.

And if you REALLY want to learn to Chinese with effective audio & video lessons by real teachers – Sign up at ChineseClass101 (click here) and start learning!

1) Hello, It’s nice to meet you.

Hello and Nice to meet you in Chinese are a must-know phrases. And any introduction will probably will start with these words.

• Hello, it’s nice to meet you.
• nínhǎo , hěn gāoxìng jiàn dào nǐ.

2) My name is _____.

This is simple. To say “my name is” in Chinese, you just need the phrase “Wǒ de míngzi shì.” Then say your name. For example, if the name is Lian, it would be like this…

• My name is Lian.
• Wǒ de míngzi shì lián.

3) I am from ______.

So, where are you from? America? Europe? Africa? Asia? Just stick the name of your country inside this phrase. We’ll use China as an example.

• I’m from China.
• Wǒ láizì Zhōngguó.
• 我来自中国。 我来自中国。

4) I live in ______.

What about now – where do you live? Just fill in the blank with the country or city (if famous) into this phrase. I’ll use Beijing as an example. You can use your own.

• I live in Beijing.
• Wǒ zhù zài Běijīng.

5) I’ve been learning Chinese for _____.

How long have you been learning Chinese for? A month? A year?

• I’ve been learning Chinese for a year.
• Wǒ xuéxí Zhōngwén yǐjīng yī nián le.
• 我学习中文已经1年了。 我学习中文已经1年了。

6) I’m learning Chinese at _____.

Where are you learning Chinese? At school? At home? This would be a great line to know and use when you’re introducing yourself. Here’s my example:

• I’m learning Chinese at ChineseClass101.com.
• Wǒ zài ChineseClassyīlíng yī .com wǎngzhàn xuéxí Zhōngwén.
• 我在ChineseClass101.com网站学习中文。

7) I am ____ years old.

Here’s how to say how old you are in Chinese.

• I’m 27 years old.
• Wǒ èrshíqī suì.

8) I am ______.

What about your position? Are you a student? Yoga teacher? Lawyer for the potato industry? Potato salesman? Super important question that people like to ask (and judge you about – Hey, I’m just a blogger! ). Just use “ani” meaning “I” and add your position.

• I’m a teacher.
• Wǒ shì yī míng jiàoshī.

9) One of my hobbies is _____.

Now, let’s move onto personal interests – hobbies! My hobbies are languages, linguajunkieing and such. How about you? You’ll definitely need this line when introducing yourself in Chinese.

Here’s an example to use:

• One of my hobbies is reading.
• Dúshū shì Wǒ de àihào zhīyī.

10) I enjoy listening to music.

Now, this is just another example line about your hobbies . You can use something else where.

• I enjoy listening to music.
• Wǒ xǐhuān tīng yīnyuè.

So now you know how to introduce yourself in Chinese in 10 lines. I’m sure there’s a ton more you can say – but this is an easy, simple start that any beginner can put to use. It’s all about starting easy.

See if you can introduce yourself below. Leave me a comment.

I read all comments!

Hope you enjoyed this!

– The Main Junkie

P.S. I highly recommend this for Chinese learners. If you REALLY want to learn to Chinese with effective lessons by real teachers – Sign up for free at ChineseClass101 (click here) and start learning!

You cannot copy content of this page

Get the Reddit app

This is a community for people studying or teaching Chinese - or even if you're just interested in Chinese languages. Discussion of all Chinese languages/dialects is welcome! Please post interesting links, language learning advice, or questions!

What to write at the end of presentation in chinese ? Like in English we write "Thank you" or "The end". What do we write in Chinese ?🖇️🖇️🖇️🖇️🖇️🙄

Got any suggestions?

We want to hear from you! Send us a message and help improve Slidesgo

Top searches

Trending searches

education technology

242 templates

9 templates

meet the teacher

30 templates

19 templates

computer technology

308 templates

39 templates

Chinese Presentation templates

Chinese is a very curious language it is the language with the most speakers in the world (as well as the most ancient), it has four tones (so be careful, depending on the pronunciation tone you can say one thing or another) and according to researchers, learning chinese has great benefits for the brain. so, are you up for learning it start with these google slides and powerpoint templates inspired by this exciting language..

It seems that you like this template!

Premium template.

Unlock this template and gain unlimited access

Foreign Languages Subject for Middle School - 6th Grade: Chinese

Ni-Hao! Chinese is such an amazing language and with this template you will make your foreign language students fall in love not only with it, but with its culture, food, and people. The design includes lots of illustrations that will take your audience on an instant trip to Asia! Download...

Topics in Chinese Cultural Studies - Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Chinese

Download the "Topics in Chinese Cultural Studies - Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Chinese" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency...

Create your presentation Create personalized presentation content

Writing tone, number of slides, chinese linguistics - bachelor of arts in chinese.

Download the "Chinese Linguistics - Bachelor of Arts in Chinese" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of student...

Chinese Lantern Festival Minitheme

Download the Chinese Lantern Festival Minitheme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic...

1930s: The Chinese Soviet Republic

Download the 1930s: The Chinese Soviet Republic presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. The education sector constantly demands dynamic and effective ways to present information. This template is created with that very purpose in mind. Offering the best resources, it allows educators or students to efficiently manage their presentations and...

Chinese Opera Minitheme

Download the Chinese Opera Minitheme presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic resources....

Classical Chinese - Bachelor of Arts in Chinese

Download the "Classical Chinese - Bachelor of Arts in Chinese" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of student...

Chinese Language Day

Nǐ hǎo! 1.2 billion people in the world have Chinese as their native language, with Mandarin being the most popular. If you are a teacher of Chinese, why don't you take advantage of the fact that April 20 is Chinese Language Day and prepare a special presentation? At Slidesgo we...

Let's Celebrate Chinese National Day

The most populated country in the world celebrates its national day on October 1. Which country is that, you ask? The People's Republic of China! It marks the beginning of the Chinese golden week (a series of holidays throughout a week) and there are several celebrations associated with it, like...

Chinese Style Dragon Newsletter

This Chinese dragon style newsletter template for Google Slides and PowerPoint has it all! An airy, professional design, fully editable graphics and resources, AI-generated placeholders to level up the presentation of your content… and don’t forget dragons represent strength, health and good luck! If a Chinese cultural event is coming...

Imlek: Chinese New Year in Indonesia

When you read "Chinese New Year", you'll most likely think of Chinese people celebrating it. Did you know that, in Indonesia, this celebration is called "Imlek" and is celebrated by most Indonesians, not only those of Chinese descent? They even have their own popular traditions and food for the occasion....

Chinese Dragon Background Planner

Download the Chinese Dragon Background Planner presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic...

2024 Chinese New Year

Download the "2024 Chinese New Year" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides and start impressing your audience with a creative and original design. Slidesgo templates like this one here offer the possibility to convey a concept, idea or topic in a clear, concise and visual way, by using different graphic...

Ancient History of China Thesis Infographics

This infographics template about the history of China is perfect for a thesis on the subject. With stunning watercolor-style illustrations of vegetation as decoration and an elegant and understated design, they provide a wide variety of ways to present your facts and figures while keeping with the theme of Chinese...

Chinese Pedagogy - Master of Arts in Chinese

Download the "Chinese Pedagogy - Master of Arts in Chinese" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency and effectiveness of student...

Chinese Literary Analysis - Master of Arts in Chinese

Delving into Chinese literature can be a rewarding experience for those who have a passion for exploring the depth of human experience and emotions. Scholars and enthusiasts alike can examine the nuances of plot, symbolism, character development, and storytelling techniques in famous works. Now, let's get to the point: our...

Research Methods in Chinese Studies - Master of Arts in Chinese

Download the "Research Methods in Chinese Studies - Master of Arts in Chinese" presentation for PowerPoint or Google Slides. As university curricula increasingly incorporate digital tools and platforms, this template has been designed to integrate with presentation software, online learning management systems, or referencing software, enhancing the overall efficiency and...

Advanced Chinese Grammar and Composition - Master of Arts in Chinese

Did you know that there are more than 1.3 billion speakers of Chinese in the world? We counted them all one by one! You don't trust us? Well, it was a bold statement... but here's another one: you will enjoy this editable template for sure. It's for lessons or courses...

• Page 1 of 6

Register for free and start editing online