Mandarin (Chinese) Phrases for beginners - TruTravels China Backpacking Trips

Jess - 17 February, 2026 - 3 minute read

If you’re planning your first trip to China and wondering how to make your time there that little bit smoother, we highly recommend learning a few Mandarin words that will 100% make your time easier! It doesn’t have to be anything drastic, but it’s better to be prepared than to constantly rely on Google Translate.

Now, we’re not here to teach you how to read the characters, because trust us, we’d be here for a long time, but what we can do is help you understand how to read Pinyin (the phonetic system that uses the Latin alphabet to represent sound, including tones). It’s not that difficult, we promise!

So let's start with the simple things… There are four tones that you’ll see a lot and should keep in mind. But do be careful with these, as changing one tone could change the whole meaning of a word, and you do not want to be doing that!

Here’s a quick tip on tones:

High (—): Think of a high note in a song

Rising (ˊ): Similar to a question

Dipping (ˇ): A dipping sound that goes low then high

Falling (ˋ): Similar to a firm command

English, Pinyin & Chinese Characters

1. Hello: Nǐ hǎo 你好

2. How are you?: Nǐ hǎo ma? 你好吗？

3. My name is…: Wǒ jiào… 我叫...

4. Goodbye: Zài jiàn 再见

5. Thank you: Xiè xie 谢谢

6. Thank you very much: Fēi cháng gǎn xiè 非常感谢

Older brother: Gē ge 哥哥

Older sister: Jiě jie 姐姐

Delicious: Hǎo chī 好吃