Translate English to Chinese
Chinese is spoken by more people than any other language on earth, with over 1.3 billion speakers worldwide. Mandarin Chinese serves as the official language of mainland China, Taiwan, and Singapore, and is widely used in business across Southeast Asia. Paste your English text above to get a Chinese translation. You can then listen to the Mandarin pronunciation or copy the characters directly.
Common English to Chinese translations
| English | Chinese | Pronunciation | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hello | 你好 | nee how | ||
| Good morning | 早上好 | zow shahng how | ||
| Thank you | 谢谢 | shyeh shyeh | ||
| Please | 请 | ching | ||
| How much does this cost? | 这个多少钱？ | zhuh guh dwor shaow chee-en | ||
| Where is the bathroom? | 洗手间在哪里？ | shee show jee-en zai nah lee | ||
| I do not understand | 我不明白 | wor boo ming bye | ||
| Can you help me? | 你能帮我吗？ | nee nung bahng wor mah | ||
| I would like coffee | 我想要咖啡 | wor shee-ahng yaow kah fay | ||
| The bill, please | 请结账 | ching jee-eh jahng | ||
| Nice to meet you | 很高兴认识你 | hen gaow shing ren shir nee | ||
| Goodbye | 再见 | zai jee-en | ||
| I need a doctor | 我需要医生 | wor shoo yaow ee shung | ||
| Excuse me | 对不起 | dway boo chee |
Tips for English to Chinese translation
Chinese does not use an alphabet. Each character represents a syllable and carries its own meaning. The character 山 means “mountain,” 水 means “water,” and 火 means “fire.” You cannot sound out an unfamiliar character the way you can in English or Spanish. Learning to read Chinese means memorizing characters individually, though many share common components (called radicals) that hint at meaning or pronunciation.
Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language with four tones plus a neutral tone. The syllable ma means “mother” in the first tone, “hemp” in the second, “horse” in the third, and “scold” in the fourth. Getting the tone wrong does not just sound odd; it changes the word entirely. When using the text-to-speech feature on this page, pay close attention to the rising and falling patterns of each syllable.
Chinese grammar is simpler than English in some ways. There are no verb conjugations, no plural endings, and no articles. “I go,” “he goes,” and “they went” all use the same verb form: 去. Time is expressed through context words like 昨天 (yesterday), 今天 (today), and 明天 (tomorrow) rather than verb changes. This makes sentence construction more predictable once you learn the basic word order.
There are two main writing systems: Simplified Chinese (used in mainland China and Singapore) and Traditional Chinese (used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau). The characters carry the same meanings but look different. For example, “dragon” is 龙 in Simplified and 龍 in Traditional. This translator outputs Simplified Chinese by default. If you need Traditional characters, check the language selector for options.
About the Chinese language
Chinese is part of the Sino-Tibetan language family and has one of the longest continuous written histories of any language, stretching back over 3,000 years. The earliest known Chinese writing appears on oracle bones from the Shang dynasty (around 1200 BC). Modern Chinese has evolved considerably from those ancient forms, but some characters remain recognizable across the millennia.
What most people call “Chinese” is actually a family of related languages and dialects. Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese, Hokkien, and Hakka are all Chinese languages, but speakers of different groups often cannot understand each other when speaking. Written Chinese, however, bridges these gaps: a sentence written in characters is understood by literate speakers of all Chinese varieties, even if they would pronounce it completely differently.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. No account, no payment, no word limits per day. Use it as often as you need.
The default output is Simplified Chinese, used in mainland China and Singapore. Check the language dropdown if you need Traditional Chinese for Taiwan, Hong Kong, or Macau.
Yes. Click the speaker icon next to any Chinese phrase. Chinese is a tonal language, so listening is especially important for getting the sounds right.
Chinese writing does not use spaces. Characters flow continuously, and readers identify word boundaries based on meaning and context. This is a normal feature of the writing system. Automated tools internally segment the text into words during translation.
For basic literacy, around 2,000 to 3,000 characters cover most everyday reading. A well-educated adult typically knows 6,000 to 8,000. Newspapers use roughly 3,500 unique characters. You do not need to know them all to use this translator.
For emails, product listings, and informal messages, yes. For legal contracts, marketing campaigns, or anything that will be published, have a native Chinese speaker review the output. Tone and formality matter a great deal in Chinese business culture.
Pinyin is a Romanization system that spells out Mandarin pronunciation using Latin letters and tone marks. For example, 你好 is written as nǐ hǎo in pinyin. It is widely used for typing Chinese on keyboards and for teaching pronunciation to learners.
Yes. Visit our Chinese to English translation page for the opposite direction.
Yes. Nothing is stored or shared. Translations happen in real time and vanish when you leave the page.
The site supports over 60 language pairs including Spanish, French, German, Arabic, Turkish, Japanese, and Russian.
Need the reverse? Try Chinese to English translation.
