HEYGOW
🎧
ASMR
Learning
HEYGOW
›
中文
Introductions 100
100
phrases
Names
10
您贵姓 asks only for the surname, and asks it politely - the expected answer is 我姓王, not a full name. 你叫什么 is the casual version and fine with peers. What surprises learners is 叫我小王就行: 小 plus a surname is how colleagues address each other, and offering it yourself is an invitation to drop the formality.
Where you're from
10
Two questions look alike and are not. 你从哪里来 asks where you have come from and can mean the last city you were in; 我来自美国 states nationality more formally. Note the distinction Chinese keeps and English does not: 我出生在上海 is where you were born, 我老家在南方 is where your family is from - and the second matters more socially.
Work
10
你做什么工作 is neutral and asked early, often within minutes of meeting - much earlier than would be comfortable in some cultures. The useful hedges are here too: 我还在找工作 states unemployment without embarrassment, and 我做了十年了 answers the unspoken follow-up about seniority, which in Chinese working life is usually the real question.
Age
10
Age is small talk in Chinese, not an intrusion, because it decides how people address each other. 你多大了 is the plain question. The graceful sideways route is 你属什么 - which zodiac animal - since the twelve-year cycle gives away the year without naming a number. 我属虎 is a complete answer and, among people of a similar age, a more elegant one.
Family
10
你家有几口人 counts people with 口, the measure word for mouths at a table, and that is exactly the image. The question is warm rather than nosy. Note 我是独生子 - only child - which for one generation of Chinese was simply the default, and which still carries the weight of the policy that produced it.
Where you live
10
Where you live is really a question about commute and rent, and the answers reflect that: 我住在公司附近 and 我坐地铁上班 say more about your daily life than an address would. 房租很贵 is a safe piece of common ground in any Chinese city - complaining about rent is a national pastime and an easy way into a longer conversation.
Studying the language
10
This set contains the single most useful exchange for a learner: someone says 你的汉语真好 and you answer 哪里哪里. It literally means "where, where" and functions as a modest deflection. Accepting the compliment outright is not wrong, but the deflection is what a Chinese speaker expects, and producing it fluently earns more goodwill than the compliment was worth.
Interests
10
Hobbies are where a first conversation stops being an interview. The phrase that does the work is 我们爱好一样 - "we like the same things" - which converts a list of facts into something shared. Follow it with 下次一起去吧 and you have made a plan, which in Chinese sociability is the point of the exchange.
Keeping in touch
10
In practice this comes down to one sentence: 我们加个微信吧. WeChat is not one app among several, it is the address book, the payment method and the way business gets done, so exchanging numbers is increasingly the fallback rather than the norm. 请扫一下二维码 - scan my QR code - is the physical gesture that goes with it.
First meetings
10
These are the formulas of a first handshake, and they are older and more ceremonious than the rest of this category. 久仰大名 - "I have long admired your name" - is flattery with a fixed shape, expected rather than believed. 请多多关照 asks for the other person's future goodwill, and has no natural English equivalent; the nearest thing is a bow.
Related categories
Greetings 100
Numbers & time 100
Places & directions 100
Shopping 100
Eating & drinking 100
Getting around 100
Requests & offers 100
Feelings & opinions 100
中文