“What” is a very important word because many questions begin with it. And if you understand “what” better, you can learn Chinese well. When you look up the dictionary, what is translated into Chinese as 什么 [shén me].
For example:
| Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|
| 这是什么？ | zhè shì shén me？ | What is this? |
And you can also say:
| Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|
| 这是啥？ | zhè shì shá？ | What is this? |
怎么了？ [zěn me le？] – What’s up?
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 怎么了? | zěn me le？ | What’s up? |
| B: | 我病了。 | wǒ bìng le。 | I’m sick. |
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 最近怎么样? | zuì jìn zěn me yàng？ | How is it going recently? |
| B: | 一切都好。 | yí qiè dōu hǎo。 | Everything is okay. |
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 一切可好? | yí qiè kě hǎo？ | Is everything okay? |
| B: | 是的，一切都好。 | shì de，yí qiè dōu hǎo。 | Yes, everything is okay. |
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 近况如何? | jìn kuàng rú hé？ | How is it going recently? |
| B: | 不太好。 | bú tài hǎo。 | Not too good. |
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 啥事? | shá shì？ | What’s the matter? |
| B: | 我忘记带钱了。 | wǒ wàng jì dài qián le。 | I forgot to bring money. |
10．作甚？[zuò shèn？] – What’s up? What are you doing?
| Speaker | Character | Pinyin | English |
|---|---|---|---|
| A: | 干嘛? | gàn má？ | What’s up? |
| B: | 不干嘛，来看看你。 | bú gàn má，lái kàn kàn nǐ。 | Nothing, just come and see you. |
Contact Native-Chinese teacher, we provide native mandarin speaker as your private tutor. Here’s form for contact.
