Traveler’s Chinese

So, you’ve decided to go to China? Great! Now let’s learn a bit of survival traveler’s Chinese.

It isn’t easy to pronounce things in Chinese, and since it is a character based language it is often hard to explain how to pronounce things. If you want to learn how to same more than the basics you need to learn pinying, which is the alphabetized version of Chinese sounds. In liu of learning pinying, below are some key phrases and how to pronounce them.

How much is it? — sounds like “Dough shao Chen”

Where is it? — sounds like “sigh nahr?”

Can I walk there? — sounds like “woah kuhee zo loo ma?”

Can you make it cheaper? — sounds like “Pe-an ee de-en.”

Its too expensive! — sounds like “tie gway”

I like it. — sounds like “woah she wan.”

I don’t like it. — sounds like “woah boo she wan.”

rice — sounds like “me fan.”

another one — sounds like “sigh lie ee guh.”

Good luck in China and keep in mind that this is the closest approximation in English to a very complex series of Chinese sounds. You may not be understood right away, but if you keep at it you’ll eventually find you’re understood and people will appreciate your attempts to speak their language.

If you are interested in learning more, some resources can be found here.