Greetings and Basic Chinese Conversations

Key concepts students will learn:

• •

  Instead of saying “你好吗 Nǐ hǎo ma?” which translates to “you good or not?”, native Chinese speakers greet each other with “你好 Nǐ hǎo”, which means “Hi, hope you are well”.

• •

  To greet acquaintances, you can say “你吃饭了吗 Nǐ chī fàn le ma?”, which means “Have you eaten your meal?”, and respond with “吃过了 chī guò le” (I have eaten) or “还没呢 hái méi ne” (not yet).

• •

  To ask “How are you?” in Chinese, you can say “你今天怎么样 Nǐ jīntiān zěnme yàng?”, and to ask “How have you been?” you can say “你最近怎么样 Nǐ zuìjìn zěnme yàng?”, responding with “还好 hái hǎo” (so far so good) or “我很忙 wǒ hěn máng” (I am busy).