How to say what is your name in Mandarin Chinese (Formal)
How to Say What is Your Name in Mandarin? (Formal)
In Chinese the way of asking strangers and people of authority “What is your name?” is very different from Western languages. The question “What is your last name?” literally translates to “Your honorable name”.
Say “Nín guì xìng?” (???). Rather than saying the informal n? (?) for “you” stick an “n” on the end and use the second rising tone and say “Nín”. Interestingly, the character for nín is written the same as n? but also has a heart radical. Guì (?) literally means honourable or esteemed and xìng (?) means last or surname. The whole phrase when meeting somebody for the first time would be “Q?ngwèn?Nín guì xìng?” (??????) or, “Excuse me, what is your honorable surname?”
2 Responses to “How to say what is your name in Mandarin Chinese (Formal)”
1
reeyo:
March 19th, 2009 at 5:58 am
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March 19th, 2009 at 5:58 am
wow!! this is amazing! i have been long looking for someone to teach me chinese or where can i learn chinese and your site is excellent! exactly what i needed!
June 26th, 2009 at 3:07 am
I found your blog on google and read a few of your other posts. I just added you to my Google News Reader. Keep up the good work. Look forward to reading more from you in the future.