How to Address People Politely in Mandarin Chinese

[@worldtravel101]

Good stuff Chris. Glad to see you cover stuff that people can really use. So many textbooks these days teach stuff that is just too... uhh.... textbook haha!

[@FluentinMandarinDotCom]

+World Traveler东北 Yeah, and you really do need to know this cultural stuff as well, because the cultural knowledge and the language skills mix

[@supreme87878]

+Fluent in Mandarin.com there are also cultures that differ between places within the same country.

[@worldtravel101]

+Fluent in Mandarin.com Indeed. Glad you make that clear, many find out the hard way haha.

[@worldtravel101]

+Anthony Tan Indeed. :)

[@michaelzhang9761]

for instance, 您 not many people use it in their daily life outside beijing. they don't have 您 in their dialect i believe. on the contrary, we even have 怹 in our beijing dialect. can you guys pronounce 怹 properly？

[@qizhong8]

Thank you so much Chris. This video is very helpful!

[@FluentinMandarinDotCom]

+qizhong8 You're welcome!

[@NZAURUSS]

great video! Thanks!

[@shanli2977]

It's funny I am a native Chinese speaker bUT I think your Chinese is great, and didao I don't how to spell it in English. Great!

[@VincentFulco]

Chris-- any further illumination on using xiaojie? Some sources say it is perfectly ok to use to mean Miss. Other sources suggest women will be highly offended and the word is only a reference to KTV/bar girls/etc. Thinking southern China usage mostly.

[@FluentinMandarinDotCom]

+Vincent Fulco It means both, but in a formal situation it is generally only used with younger people. It's generally safe for younger women in a formal situation, but it would be inappropriate when talking to an older woman. 女士 can be used across the board and has no other meanings, so it's much safer option. That's why I stuck to that one in this video.

[@mrtsiqsin2290]

+Vincent Fulco Hello. I agree 'xiaojie' can be a little offensive in the mainland China. Try to avoid that. However, there is no problem to use 'xiaojie' in Taiwan and Hong Kong, just 'xiaojie' is usually for young ladies or unmarried women. 女士 is alright but it sounds very polite and is mainly used in formal situations.

[@johnferguson3110]

Can you tell me what is the name of the beer song that you sing on TV? Thanks.

[@harryshi6147]

Nowadays, surname + 老师 is safe to address someone.

[@PikaPika-Tassie]

Actually it is quite rare to just call people's given name in Chinese, family name is preferred. Especially when one's name is just 2 characters, then one character for family name, one for given name. My boss would call me Little(xiao) X (family name), I call some of my friends Old(lao) X (family name).

[@NZAURUSS]

that's the case...some of my chinese friends of the same age address me 老谢

[@michaelnicholas8058]

你听中国人说中文怎么，中国人说话很快了。我不能懂土人中国人。。。太快了太快了。

[@songfeitan403]

你的母语是什麽语言呢?实际上根据一些研究，中文的语速相对来说是慢的。只能算中等速度:) What's your mother tongue? According to some research, Mandarin is not a "fast" language, the number of syllables spoken per second is roughly the same as English in ordinary speech.

[@youngfadula]

Michael Nicholas 我也同意，有时候他们说的太快了，口音也蛮强的。

[@muhammadashshiddieqi8653]

Les d lbbbsc cek

[@michaelnicholas8058]

first comment

[@FluentinMandarinDotCom]

+Michael Nicholas Haha

[@VladimirBogomolov]

Thanks, Chris. It's very useful.

[@FluentinMandarinDotCom]

+Vladimir Bogomolov You're welcome Vladimir