Mandarin Greetings and Survival Phrases: Say Something Today

You can hold your first Mandarin exchange before you have learned a single character or a single point of grammar. Greetings and courtesies are fixed phrases: learn the dozen below as whole things to say, in pinyin, and you can greet a real Mandarin speaker this afternoon.

Greetings

你好 (nǐ hǎo) is the one to learn first: any time of day, a new acquaintance or a total stranger, a shop or a street. Say it ní hǎo: when two third tones meet, the first one rises (the four tones has the rule).

Mandarin has a respectful you, 您 (nín), and swapping it in is the easiest courtesy in the language. The colours below mark the plain and the polite you:

The last row is a pattern worth knowing: a title plus 好 (hǎo) greets someone by their role, the way a class greets its teacher: 老lǎo师shī好hǎo！ (Lǎoshī hǎo!) - Hello, teacher!

There are greetings for the time of day too, though plain 你好 (nǐ hǎo) works at any hour:

1234

1. 1早zǎo上shang好hǎo
2. 2你nǐ好hǎo
3. 3晚wǎn上shang好hǎo
4. 4晚wǎn安ān

Morning, midday, evening, bedtime. 你好 nǐ hǎo covers midday and every other hour; 晚安 wǎn’ān is only for going to bed or parting late at night.

晚安 (wǎn'ān) is good night: said at bedtime, or when you part late at night, never as a daytime goodbye. 晚上好 (wǎnshang hǎo) is real but a touch formal, the greeting of a host or a hotel desk; friends just say 你好.

For every ordinary parting, 再见 (zàijiàn) is the standard goodbye, literally "again see": 明míng天tiān见jiàn！ (Míngtiān jiàn!) - See you tomorrow! The other ways to say hello are in how to say hello in Mandarin, and the other goodbyes in how to say goodbye in Mandarin.

Getting by

Six sentences get you through a first conversation. Learn each with its partner: the question and its answer arrive together.

Three things the table cannot show:

• The question word sits where the answer goes. 什么名字 (shénme míngzi, what name) stands exactly where 安娜 (Ānnà) stands in the reply, and that is how every Mandarin question word works.
• 你nǐ好hǎo吗ma is a textbook opener. It is real and everyone understands it, but friends often ask something concrete instead: 你nǐ吃chī了le吗ma？ (Nǐ chī le ma?) - Have you eaten?
• 我wǒ很hěn好hǎo has no "am" in it. 很 (hěn) is there because a bare adjective sounds like a comparison; adjectives without 是 explains it.

我听不懂 (wǒ tīng bu dǒng) is quietly the most useful sentence a beginner owns: it keeps a conversation alive by asking the other person to slow down or try again.

Courtesies

12

1. 1谢xiè谢xie！
2. 2不bú客kè气qi！

The customer pays and says 谢谢 xièxie; the baker answers 不客气 bú kèqi.

请 (qǐng) goes at the front of the request, the way a waiter says 请qǐng坐zuò。 (Qǐng zuò.) - Please sit down. 不客气 is roughly "don't be polite", and 没关系 is literally "no connection".

The two apologies differ in weight:

• 不bù好hǎo意yì思si，我wǒ听tīng不bù懂dǒng。 (Bù hǎoyìsi, wǒ tīng bu dǒng.) - Sorry, I don't understand.
• 对duì不bu起qǐ！ (Duìbuqǐ!) - I'm so sorry! (you trod on a foot)

To get a stranger's attention before a question, 请问 (qǐngwèn, may I ask) is the polite opener. More ways to thank are in how to say thank you in Mandarin.

Mistakes English speakers make

How the phrases come apart

Later, when you learn how Mandarin builds meaning from one-syllable pieces, these phrases come apart into parts you will recognise. A taste:

Today they are just things to say, so go and say one.