20 ESSENTIAL Chinese Phrases for Beginners

Learn Chinese Now. My name is Ben Hedges and I have made a career speaking Chinese. I was rated one of the top three online celebrities a few years back in Taiwan. For my show, A Foreigner's View of China or 老外看中国 I am a published author in Chinese obviously and I've also given numerous seminars lectures and events again in Chinese and in case you're wondering yes I do have a degree in modern and classical Chinese from the University of London and today I'm going to give you 20 useful Chinese phrases that you will want to learn as a beginner if you're traveling to But even if you already know some Chinese you may still want to follow along to get a deeper understanding of some of these phrases. Let's go. First up is 你好 and this is how we say hello in Chinese. It literally means you good okay you're good hello all right that's the greeting. Now in Chinese we have tones and 你好 is two third tones in a row so actually it should sound like nǐ hǎo but when two third tones go in a row the first third tone turns into a second tone so we get nǐ hǎo okay that's how you say it if you haven't brushed up on your tones and you want to learn them you can check out this video on our channel maybe go there watch that first and then come back to this but anyway we're not going to specifically go through tones in this video this is just phrases if you want an easy way of remembering it it's like nǐ like your knee and then how like a Native American greeting how it's actually the greeting of the Lakota and the Dakota people but anyway a lot of people just know it as like a Native American Indian greeting all right so nǐ hǎo and then with the tones nǐ hǎo. Now next up we have 你好吗 so very similar to our first essential phrase but we are just adding a 吗 on the end of it which turns it into a question okay which means how are you so nǐ hǎo means hello and nǐ hǎo ma means how are you number three we are going to use the character 好 to make a very useful phrase and that would just be 好不好 okay and this is a choice type question so in Chinese you have two main questions okay the first type of question is making a statement and then you just add 吗 on the end of it okay like 你好吗 you're good right all right that is a question 吗 turns it into a question but then there is a choice type question where you put two opposites together so 好 means good and 不好 means not good okay 不好 and so you put those two together 好不好 and that makes good not good which means like is it good yeah it could also mean is it okay okay because 好 it means good but it could also mean okay so it's is that okay and you know you could add this to all sorts of words like 我们吃饭好不好 we're gonna eat food we're gonna eat lunch how about it all right so just add it to the end of anything and it adds a sort of how about it okay 好不好 我打电话好不好 我看这本书好不好 我付钱好不好 all right number four is 怎么样 怎么样 it's it's a little bit like 好不好 which you could also use it to mean sort of how about it all right how is this something like that but you could also use it to ask how someone is all right so 你怎么样 that would mean how are you and it's a little bit different to 你好吗 which is just a general how it's like how you've been how you're feeling how you're doing like if you know someone had been a little bit sick maybe recently you'd be like oh 你怎么样 you could you know you could ask them how are you like that all right or if you've seen that they hurt themselves or if they've been working on something you could say oh 你的工作怎么样 like how is your work right it's how is something you can also use it for other things right like you could say 怎么样 and in that it would just be like how is it how does it look how is this jacket which i'm about to buy maybe i won't buy number five 在哪里 and this means where is something okay so 在 means located at and 哪里 means where okay so located at where and this is very useful because when you go to china you're going to need to go to the bathroom in china all right you gotta go you gotta go and if you don't need to ask you don't know how to ask anyone where the bathroom is you're have some problems all right so 厕所在哪里 means where is the toilet okay 厕所 means toilet bathroom restroom whatever 厕所在哪里 where is the bathroom and you could also use it for other things like 餐馆在哪里 where is the restaurant 旅馆在哪里 where is the hotel 我的朋友们在哪里 where are my friends okay whatever but just thing and then 在哪里 where is that thing number six 这是什么 this means what is this so 这 means this 是 is is is it means is okay and 什么 means what okay so it's this is what the grammar not that dissimilar to english i think if you said this is what in english sounds weird but people would still understand it right so you can kind of get your head around it how it works so 这是什么 means what is this so you could just be like hold something up you know be like um 这是什么 actually what is this i have no idea what this is what actually is that and the person might respond to you in chinese right they might be like oh 那个是拍摄的时候用的 in the case of that thing that you just saw on screen uh it's for a camera now if they blurt out what the thing is too fast uh you could use our next phrase which is 慢一点 which means slow down so 慢 means slow means a little bit okay so a little bit slower please all right 慢一点 next we have 多少钱 and this is when you are in a shop or a store and you need to ask the price of something okay so 多 means a lot and 少 means a little and 钱 means money so we see a choice type question again you know we talked about with 好不好 it's a choice type question you choose it's either 多 a lot or and then 钱 now the person isn't going to reply to you oh 多 i asked how much it was how much is this marie it's very expensive no no they're going to say the actual price so maybe it's so if you don't quite catch that uh you could say 慢一点 okay slow down a little bit like we just learned um or chances are though if they sense that you don't really speak chinese they're probably just going to point to the screen on their cash register or at a price tag or something like um so you should be able to get away with it that way but if you really can't understand them what you could say is our next phrase which is 写下来 写 means to write 下 is down and 来 is come so it's uh that's how they say write it down and they're not going to write it down in chinese characters okay they'll write it down in arabic numbers same as we use in english because basically the entire world uh uses that system now 写下来 by itself it's a little bit abrupt so i'm going to give you another word that could help you just sort of soften it a little bit make it a little bit more polite okay and that is 帮我 okay 帮我 means help me okay so if you say 帮我写下来 it means could you help me by writing it down okay but 帮我 it's more like for me okay you're literally saying help me but it's the way that chinese people ask you to do something for them all right and there was this story a friend told me about this guy from hong who he knew who always would ask him hey he you know he was speaking in english but he was directly translating stuff from chinese and he would say hey could you help me like move that table or could you help me wash these dishes or something like that or do something and the guy always thought that they were going to do something together he was like hey help me do this and we're going to do it together that's what it would mean in english right but no 帮我 help me uh it actually means in in many contexts it means can you do something for me okay so if someone says um it actually means could could you could you move that chair for me okay not help me we do it together one person holds each side no it's like do something for me but anyway if you're asking someone to write something down you could say oh 帮我写下来 help me write it down and then when the person does it for you you would probably want to say our next phrase which is 谢谢 and that means thank you literally it's thank thank okay and that's that's the standard way that people say thank you we have another very useful phrase which is how to politely refuse something and that is 不用 okay it literally means no need right now if you're going to refuse something like let's say you go to taiwan or china and someone there is like really helpful and trying to like give you loads of stuff and inviting you to their house or whatever like i remember i was on the bus once and some guy he struck up a conversation with me and he wanted to invite me to his house to play scrabble right because he wanted to like practice his english by playing scrabble with a real westerner and i was i just met this guy and i'm going to school and i'm trying to like you know live my life here i don't want to just go to random people's houses so i'm like okay this is where you would use that phrase okay no need no need 不用 you don't need to do that for me you don't need to organize a special scrabble game for me no no it's all good it's all 不用 不用 谢谢 you can add a 谢谢 in there as well right like 不用 谢谢 if you said 不要 like i don't want to right that would be a little bit harsh maybe a little rude but 不用 谢谢 不用 不用 it's much more softened next we have 可以吗 now 可以 means possible okay like is something possible and as you know 吗 is like a question particle so 可以吗 means is something possible right and this is super useful if you don't know much chinese it's a great way of just asking someone if it's possible for you to do something so if you're at a tourist spot and you wanted someone to take a photo of you you could just hold up your phone and you could grab someone and be like hey uh 可以吗 可以吗 可以吗 and they would probably understand now literally if you wanted a full sentence it'd be something like 你可以帮我拍照吗 right which means can you help me take a photo um but if you just said oh 可以吗 可以吗 that would probably suffice and they're gonna get that you don't know that much chinese so they're gonna think it's great that you spoke even that little bit all right now let's talk about going to a restaurant so when you look at a menu if you want to order in the restaurant the most basic way is you just say 我要 which means i want okay now in english i want sounds a little bit rude in chinese don't worry it's not really rude just to say i want in the context of a restaurant when you're looking at a menu so you might say 我要 酸菜鱼片汤 我要重庆辣子鸡 我要水煮鱼片 oh god oh my mouth is watering i gotta go to a restaurant anyway uh 我要 it means i want in the context of a restaurant now i'm going to give you how to say that the food is delicious and that is just 好吃 okay 好 means good and 吃 is the verb for eating so literally it means good eat or good to eat and that's how they say delicious so the waiter might come up to you and give you a choice type question he might say 好不好吃 okay is it good to eat or he might say 好吃吗 remember there's two types of questions in chinese questions with 吗 and choice type questions so he says to you 好吃吗 and you would reply by saying 好吃好吃 and if the food really was 不好吃 you're going to be asking for the 买单 very quickly okay 买单 means the check or the bill now this is actually a loan word from cantonese it came from cantonese in a more formal way in mandarin people say 结账 right to ask for the bill or the check i often use that one actually but yeah in cantonese it's 买单 and it means like bury the check okay because the character they use is different the character to bury so it kind of means like cover the check right um but anyway in modern mandarin normally the 买 character is the word for buying okay 买 and then 单 which is that character there so 买单 means the check they'll understand you if you just say 买单 and we're getting out of this restaurant now so we could say 回家回家 means return home okay and 回 is the character to return to somewhere okay so it could be 回旅馆 right return to the hotel or it could be 回房间 all right return to your room right or most common one probably 回家 return home or it could be 明天我们回来 we'll come back to this uh restaurant because it's so good it's so 好吃 so we're leaving the restaurant and someone's being a little bit slow at getting up we could just give them a little nudge and we could say 走吧 okay 走 is the verb that means to go or to walk actually in ancient chinese it meant to run in modern chinese it means like to go or to travel and then 吧 is like a suggestive particle okay it means like 吗 turns something into a question 吧 turns something into a suggestion okay so we could add it to 回家 as well 回家吧 means i'm suggesting we return home so 走吧 is like saying vamos in spanish or let's go in english okay it's like a set phrase so 走吧走吧 let's go and as we're leaving the now don't get confused the 在 all right it's the same pronunciation as the 在 from 在哪里 but that 在 means located at and it is a different character okay check out the two characters what they look like so just so you know same pronunciation different character there's a lot of homophones in chinese all right which means it has the exact same pronunciation even the same tone but it is a different character 再见 again see see you again it's a standard way of saying and we are now at number 20 okay our final chinese phrase and i'm going to give you kind of a little get out of jail free card here with this one it's a good one to end on and it is and that just means are you able to speak english you could also say is the verb to say or to speak okay so you able to speak english but often people would just say and that's a great way of just establishing that you don't really speak chinese and you need someone who speaks english and even if that person doesn't speak english maybe there's someone else nearby who they could grab the translate for you or whatever maybe not maybe you're just screwed okay in that case at least you've established that your chinese isn't that great and they'll probably be a little bit more patient with you as you try to speak chinese all right guys that is 20 super useful chinese phrases for you i'll give you another 20 very very soon and just so you know that this channel is back guys i know we've been away for many years we're going to be uploading a load of new videos uh in the coming weeks and we are probably going to have some chinese courses coming out as well so subscribe if you're new guys leave a comment down below about what words phrases chinese lessons you want to see and we'll see you in the next video bye