Relationships are a crucial part of our daily life. Talking about the relationships you have with various people is an important part of studying any language. After all, you’ll often be asked the question, “Who is he/she?” when talking about other people. First of all, here’s how you can ask both of those questions in Chinese:
Who is he? (他是谁？- tā shì shuí)
Who is she? (她是谁？- tā shì shuí)
Notice that the pronunciation for “he” and “she” is the same in Chinese, but a different character is used. Of course, when talking about relationships, your family often comes up first. Luckily for you, I’ve already written a detailed post about how to talk about your family. Once you’ve read up on that, do your best to decipher the complicated Chinese family tree in this video:
It sure is complicated in Chinese…
Anyways, today I’m going to teach you some new words to use. When you answer that question, you’ll begin by saying:
He’s my… (他是我的 – tā shì wǒ de)
She’s my… (她是我的 – tā shì wǒ de)
Now to help you build up your vocabulary, here are 20 words for talking about relationships in Chinese:
English
Chinese
Pinyin
husband
丈夫
zhàng fū
wife
妻子/太太
qī zi/tài tai
fiance (male)
未婚夫
wèi hūn fū
fiancé (female)
未婚妻
wèi hūn qī
boyfriend
男朋友
nán péng yǒu
girlfriend
女朋友
nǚ péng yǒu
ex-boyfriend/girlfriend
前男友/前女友
qián nán yǒu/qián nǚ yǒu
friend
朋友
péng yǒu
acquaintance
熟人
shú rén
classmate
同学
tóng xué
teacher
老师
lǎo shī
colleague
同事
tóng shì
boss
老板
lǎo bǎn
manager
经理
jīng lǐ
employee
雇员
gù yuán
assistant
助理
zhù lǐ
client
客户
kè hù
roommate
室友
shì you
landlord
房东
fáng dōng
neighbor
邻居
lín jū
Just use those words to complete the sentences above, and you can probably talk about most of the people you know in Chinese! Er… well… at least you can introduce them! Here are some examples of my own:
她是我的女朋友.
他是我的好朋友，也是我的室友.
他是我的同事.
Now you try! Use the new words from this lesson to practice introducing the various people in your life. In the meantime, keep building your vocabulary by learning a new Chinese word every day.
Sasha is an English teacher, writer, photographer, and videographer from the great state of Michigan. Upon graduating from Michigan State University, he moved to China and spent 5+ years living, working, studying, and traveling there. He also studied Indonesian Language & Culture in Bali for a year. He and his wife run the travel blog Grateful Gypsies, and they're currently trying the digital nomad lifestyle across Latin America.
@En Xia Sorry… I made a simple copy and paste error. For some reason I have problems copying stuff from M. Word into the blog. It was fine in M. Word, but for some reason somethings went slightly off when copied to the blog. I’ll try to be more careful in the future… Thanks for spotting it, though! I went ahead and fixed it up, so it’s all in the right place now 🙂
This column, together with the earlier one — that you all too modestly tuck away in the top paragraph here — get the job done nicely. Well done.
I think it goes without saying that any Chinese family hosting a foreigner — an occasion likely to be covered with too much alcohol except in the somewhat fraught situation of facing a potential new in-law with a different skin colour — will make allowances.
Still, I wonder if you have any advice on covering embarrassment at one’s ignorance, covering *their* embarrassment at being embarrassed, and overall easing of tensions, both ours and theirs? What are the fifty shades of 哪里哪里?
Comments:
dluquin:
Hi, I think there are some hanzi missfit with the words. From qian nan pengyou
En Xia:
You have the characters 4 peng you ( friend) in acquaintance column, tong xue where lao shi should be ect ect
sasha:
@En Xia Sorry… I made a simple copy and paste error. For some reason I have problems copying stuff from M. Word into the blog. It was fine in M. Word, but for some reason somethings went slightly off when copied to the blog. I’ll try to be more careful in the future… Thanks for spotting it, though! I went ahead and fixed it up, so it’s all in the right place now 🙂
David Lloyd-Jones:
Sasha,
This column, together with the earlier one — that you all too modestly tuck away in the top paragraph here — get the job done nicely. Well done.
I think it goes without saying that any Chinese family hosting a foreigner — an occasion likely to be covered with too much alcohol except in the somewhat fraught situation of facing a potential new in-law with a different skin colour — will make allowances.
Still, I wonder if you have any advice on covering embarrassment at one’s ignorance, covering *their* embarrassment at being embarrassed, and overall easing of tensions, both ours and theirs? What are the fifty shades of 哪里哪里?
Best,
-dlj.