Hello! Here we’re going to be going over a list of phrases that we will be using in the ‘Exchanging Names and Some More Greetings’ segment. These are all the words and phrases you will need to take note of before we head into the next segment.

I will not be showing how to write them in this post. This is just a simple list.

wǒ【我】

我，the literal translation is ‘self’ or ‘one’. No not 1, it means one as a person. Like “the one” for all of you hopeless romantics out there. this symbol usually translates to the phrases ‘I am’, ‘me’, ‘my’, ‘I’, etc. it’s the polar opposite of 你。

jiào【叫】

The literal translation for this symbol is ‘be named’ can be translated to phrases like ‘name is’, ‘name’. When put together with 我, 我叫 translates to ‘my name is’

gāoxìng【高兴】

these symbols are placed together to form their own singular English word, which would be ‘happy’. When put together with the symbol directly below we can form ‘very happy’

hěn【很】

很 literally translates to ‘very’ when we put 高兴 behind it we get ‘very happy’ and it goes without saying that 我很高兴 means ‘I am very happy’

We can also throw the negative symbol 不 into these phrases to form 我不高兴 and 我不很高兴 which translates to ‘I’m not happy’ and ‘I’m not very happy’

rènshi【认识】

认识 means ‘to know’ or ‘to meet’ it goes into a few phrases all of which we will go over in the posts to come.

míngzi【名字】

名字 literal translation is ‘name’. It’s different from 叫 whereas jiao means ‘be named’ or ‘name is’ 名字 means only ‘name’. Really it means ‘First name’ but, unless you’re telling someone only your last name. Then 名字 can be used to tell only first or both first and last name.

xiǎojiě【小姐】

小姐 translates to ‘miss’ as you would call a female teacher, the name would come after 小姐 so it would be 小姐【name】。

shénme【什么】

The translation of 什么 is ‘what’

hěn【很】

The literal translation of 很 is ‘very’ it can also mean ‘quite’

yě【也】

The literal translation of 也 is ‘also’ is can also mean ‘as well’, ‘too’, or ‘either’

xíng【性】

This one’s literal translation is ‘surname’ or ‘last name’

nǐne【你呢】

We can add 你呢 at the end of a phrase to ask ‘How about you?’ The literal translation is ‘What about you?’ It can very easily be translated to mean ‘and you?’ as well.

And finally…

tā【他 and 她】

these are masculine/feminine pronouns. Mean he and she.

他 would be ‘he’ and 她 is ‘she’