Signs in Chinese
You can avoid potential embarrassment and frustration if you understand these important signs in Chinese. The Rocket Chinese team wants to ensure you never walk into the wrong restroom, light up in a no-smoking area, or have your car towed from a no-parking spot!
Most of the time you’ll probably only need to recognize the written Mandarin Chinese word or phrase, but we’ve included audio so you can listen to the Chinese pronunciation. This way you’ll be able to ask if something is open or closed, or more importantly, on sale!
Resources for further reading:
Pronouncing signs in Chinese
What does the sign on the door of the restroom say? What does “营业中” mean? You are about to find out…
Practice Your Pronunciation With Rocket Record
Rocket Record lets you perfect your Chinese pronunciation. Just listen to the native speaker audio and then use the microphone icon to record yourself. Once you’re done, you’ll get a score out of 100 on your pronunciation and can listen to your own audio playback. (Use a headset mic for best results.) Problems? Click here!
女
Female
男
Male
拉
To pull
推
To push
营业中
Open
停业中
Closed
营业时间
The opening hours
请勿停车
No parking
When you buy food in a supermarket and don’t intend to eat it straight away it might pay to check the ‘best before date’ to avoid nasty surprises…
最佳日期
The best before date
在……前使用最佳。
Best consumed before......
Most restaurants have a smoking and a non-smoking area. Nowadays, first-tier cities like Beijing and Shanghai are beginning to ban smoking in restaurants and public areas altogether. So it is very helpful to learn what “Qǐngwù xīyān(请勿吸烟)” means.
吸烟区
The smoking area
无烟区
The non-smoking area
请勿吸烟
No smoking!
Sometimes you will see big bright colored signs in nearly every store window. There must be a sale on…
季末大甩价
The end of season sale
减价
Price reductions
便宜货
Bargains
For more lessons on Chinese vocabulary I recommend these!
- Learn the words and phrases used around the airport in Chinese.
- Let's check out this lesson on Chinese hotel words.
- DIY while in China? This lesson covers the essential vocab for tools in Chinese.
下次见！ Xiàcì jiàn!
Lin Ping: Rocket Chinese
Make It Stick With Rocket Reinforcement
Reinforce your learning from this lesson with the Rocket Reinforcement activities!