There will not be a quiz.

Over the course of your adoption trip, you’ll be working with quite a few documents written in Chinese characters, flipping through TV channels, and browsing stores where there won’t be any English words nearby to help you.

Is this going to be a problem for you? No. The legal documents will have translations provided. And as we’ve shown you elsewhere on this site, walking around your neighborhood and going shopping don’t require you to learn the language.

Still, after a couple weeks you’ll notice that you have been seeing the same characters over and over. And you’ll be right - partly because you’re there for adoption (so you’ll be seeing words about children and government matters,) and partly because just like English, a small group of words handles most of the workload. It is said that you would need to know 3000 - 4000 characters to be well-educated - but many people get by with knowing just several hundred. (The top 250 characters represent almost 2/3 of all written material.)

This list is certainly not complete, but should give you a head start on helping you get the general idea of things you’ll see frequently.

Government and legal words

    中 zhōng (sounds like “jhawng”) Meaning: middle

    国 guó (sounds like “gwo”, rhymes with “glow”) Meaning: country

        Put the two characters together and you get 中国 zhōngguó China

    人 rén (sounds like “run”) Meaning: people, person

    民 mín (sounds like “minn”) Meaning: citizens, populace

          Put the two characters together for 人民 rénmín “The People”

    公 gōng (sounds like “gung”) Meaning: public, collective

    领养 lǐngyǎng (sounds like “ling yawng”) Meaning: adoption

Words about children and people

    孩 hái (sounds like “hi”)    Meaning: child                      

          Commonly seen in the word 孩子háizi child

    儿 ér (sounds like “arrr”)    Meaning: son

          Commonly seen in the word 儿子 érzi son, and 女儿 nǚér daughter

    女 nǚ  (sounds like “new”, rhymes with “moo”)    Meaning: female

    男 nán (sounds like “none” or “nun”)    Meaning: male

Words about places

    北 běi (sounds like “bay”)    Meaning: north

    南 nán (sounds like “none” or “nun”)    Meaning: south

    东 dōng (sounds like “dung”)    Meaning: east

    西 xī (sounds like “shee”)    Meaning: west

    广 guǎng (sounds like “gwung”)    Meaning: broad, wide

    州 zhōu (sounds like “joe”)    Meaning: province / state, major city

    京 jīng (sounds like “jing”)    Meaning: capital city

    山 shān (sounds like “shun”)    Meaning: mountain, hill

    上 shàng (sounds like “shung”)    Meaning: up, on top

    下 xià (sounds like “shaw”)    Meaning: down, beneath

Descriptive / useful words

    大 dà (sounds like “dah”)    Meaning: big, major, broad

    小 xiǎo (sounds like “shaow”)    Meaning: little, young

    双 shuāng (sounds like “shung”)    Meaning: double

    在 zài (sounds like “sigh”)    Meaning: at, inside, to exist

    文 wén (sound is between “when” and “one”)   

          Meaning: writing, culture, knowledge

    品 pǐn (sounds like “pin” but stretch out the i sound)   

          Meaning: goods, articles for sale

    肉 ròu (sounds like “row”)    Meaning: meat

    火 huǒ (sounds like “hwa”)    Meaning: fire

    飞 fēi (sounds like “fay”)    Meaning: to fly

    网 wǎng (sounds like “wahng”, rhymes with “wrong”)   

          Meaning: net (for fishing or sports), The Internet

    吧 bā (sounds like “ba”)    Meaning: a bar (pub)

          Put these two characters together for 网吧 wǎngbā Internet Cafe

    店 diàn (sounds like “dee-en”)    Meaning: shop, store, inn