Learn Chinese for Free—Lesson 5

Lesson 5 of 360

Today's Chinese characters:

先生女士老师医生

The other Chinese characters contained in this lesson have already been studied previously. You can just click on them and go back to the corresponding lesson.

Today with the four words of this lesson we are going to add one more layer of politeness to the way we address people in Chinese.

Chinese words are often composed of two or more characters. Today's four words are all composed of two characters.

Important: multi-characters Chinese words are fixed combinations of characters and have a definite meaning that can be very different from the meanings of the single characters.

Character Knowledge Meter
5.68%
Today with this lesson your knowledge of Chinese characters will reach 5.68% of all the Chinese language usage!

Characters' Essentials

Character Help
Pronunciation Help
xiān
Meaning Help
-Earlier, before, first, in advance
-In this lesson it's the first character of the word 先生 ("Mister")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help
shēng
Meaning Help
-Used as a suffix to a few nouns indicating categories of people
-In this lesson it's the second character of the words 先生 ("Mister") and 医生 ("Physician")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help

Meaning Help
-Woman
-In this lesson it's the first character of the word 女士 ("Ms, Miss")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help
shì
Meaning Help
-Soldier; a person trained in a certain field
-In this lesson it's the second character of the word 女士 ("Ms, Miss")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help
lǎo
Meaning Help
-Old
-Used as prefix:
1. addressing people to indicate respect;
2. indicating seniority level among brothers and sisters
-In this lesson it's the first character of the word 老师 ("Teacher")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help
shī
Meaning Help
-Teacher; example; a person skilled in a certain profession
-In this lesson it's the second character of the word 老师 ("Teacher")
Character Help
Pronunciation Help

Meaning Help
-[noun] Medicine; physician
-[verb] Cure
-In this lesson it's the first character of the word 医生 ("Physician")

Description and Examples

Word
Pronunciation Help
xiān   sheng   
Meaning Help
-Mister (Mr.), gentleman, sir
-Teacher
-Doctor
Word
Pronunciation Help
   shì   
Meaning Help
Respectful form of address for a woman; lady, madam, Miss, Ms
Word
Pronunciation Help
lǎo   shī   
Meaning Help
Teacher, schoolmaster
Word
Pronunciation Help
   shēng   
Meaning Help
Doctor, physician


How to greet someone—Part 1

你好!

You already know the simplest way to greet someone:

And, with a simple variation, you can also say:

But there are a lot of different ways to greet people.

先生好!

Today we can learn another one. We just need to replace the pronoun with the proper titles. For example, we could greet a woman the following way:

女士

And if she is a teacher or a physician, we could say:

老师
医生

On the other hand, if we want to greet a man, we could say:

先生



Is there anything you want to ask me about this lesson?

Name:

Your message:


That's all for today. I wish you like my website and go on clicking and clicking on its other sections! However, if you need personalized lessons and want to make your pronunciation perfect click here.

IMPORTANT: About the ads in this page, if you see something inappropriate please tell me immediately (even anonymously) clicking here.


Lesson 5 of 360

Thank you!

WearYourChineseName.com - By Giuseppe Romanazzi
Biaoyu Business Consulting Services LTD
Shanghai, China
Copyright © 2001-2023 All Rights Reserved
wearyourchinesename.com Home Page
| About Us | Privacy Policy | Site Map | Italiano English |


Free 1-on-1 Chinese Lessons on WhatsApp?

Learn Chinese Tones for Free

WhatsApp:
Email: