Centre for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language University of Oxford

Basic Spoken Mandarin

2. Meeting a new friend

You click on the Chinese characters, Chinese sentences or the headphone icons to hear the pronunciation. Place the cursor on the English words to view Pinyin for the pronunciation and the Chinese word order.

New words Additional words New phrases
You (a polite form for both singular and plural) 您 My surname is Wang 我姓王 My surname is... 我姓...
Noble, expensive 贵 I am John Smith 我叫John Smith My name is... 我叫...
Surname, surname is 姓 Mr. Wang 王先生 What is your surname? (a polite way to ask a senior person's surname) 您贵姓...?
Call, to be called 叫 Good, OK 好 Mr. Smith Smith先生
To be, is, are 是 ma 吗 Mrs. Smith Smith太太
Not, no 不 See you again, bye 再见 This is Mrs. Wang 她是王太太
What 什么     He, she, it 他，她，它

Exercises

How do you say

Are you Mr. Wang?  Is Mrs Wang well? What is your surname? He is Mr Smith. My surname isn't Smith? Her surname is Smith. Is her surname Wang?

Click here to listen to the following dialogues.