Chinese Genealogical Word List

Chinese Genealogical Word List
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Genealogical Word Lists

Chinese Genealogical Word List

Introduction

This list contains Chinese words with their English translations. The words included here are those that you are likely to find in genealogical sources. If the word you are looking for is not on this list, please consult a Chinese-English (漢英; hàn yīng) or English-Chinese (英漢; yīng hàn) dictionary. (Also, see the “Additional Resources” section, below.)

Chinese is a Sino-Tibetan language with the unique characteristic of having a character-based and non-phonetic writing system. Over one billion people across the globe speak Chinese in some form, with the predominant dialect being Mandarin (普通話/國語; pǔ tōng huà/guó yǔ), which is the official dialect spoken in China and Taiwan. Other dialects - including but not limited to Cantonese, Shanghainese, and Fukienese (Fujianese) - are largely mutually unintelligible to each other.

Despite significant differences in the many spoken dialects of Chinese, standard written Chinese - based off the Mandarin dialect - is universally accepted and the officially sanctioned form of written Chinese and is used throughout China, Taiwan and the Chinese diaspora for official documents, news/media, and other communications. Uniquely, a speaker of one dialect may be unable to communicate orally with the speaker of another dialect, but, assuming they are both literate, they could write to each other in standard written Chinese and fully understand each other.

Chinese is spoken in China and Taiwan - where it is considered the official language - as well as among large populations of Chinese living across the globe, particularly in Southeast Asia, but also Europe, the Americas, Africa and the Middle East. Because one of the most common Chinese genealogical records is clan genealogies (族譜/家譜; zú pǔ/jiā pǔ), Chinese genealogical records could potentially be found on any continent and any country with large Chinese populations.

Written Chinese

There are currently two forms of written Chinese characters: 1) Traditional characters (繁體字; fán tǐ zì), used officially in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore (one of four official languages); 2) Simplified characters (簡體字; jiǎn tǐ zì), used officially in China. Within the Chinese diaspora across the globe, the usage of traditional versus simplified characters can vary widely. Early overseas Chinese populations from the 19th and early 20th centuries as well as those from Hong Kong and Taiwan have consistently used traditional characters, whereas emigrants from China predominantly prefer the use of simplified characters. Because simplified Chinese characters have had official sanction since 1954 (the year in which the government of the People’s Republic of China implemented simplified characters to increase literacy), the large majority of Chinese genealogical records are likely to be in traditional Chinese, as this was the standard for Chinese records comprising centuries of Chinese history up until 1954. Due to the relative newness of simplified characters, the characters in this word list are in traditional form, as this is the form most commonly encountered in genealogical records. A tool for converting traditional characters to simplified characters can be found here.

Traditionally, Chinese text was written in vertical columns with characters in each column written from top to bottom and columns starting on the right side of each page and going left. Most genealogical records will have a similar layout, which means the title and cover pages for such records will be in the final pages, rather than what we normally think of as the first pages in the Western sense. In modern times the Western layout of writing characters horizontally from left to right has also been adopted to a degree, but this format is uncommon in earlier records.

Radicals

Although Chinese characters are not phonetic in nature, each character contains one or more radicals (部首; bù shǒu) that form the structure of individual Chinese characters, which can number in the tens of thousands, although an educated speaker need only learn approximately 2500 characters. The most commonly accepted table of radicals contains 214 radicals. An example of a Chinese radical chart containing these 214 radicals can be found here.

Radicals are further divided according to the number of strokes each has, with a range from 1-17 strokes (an example of radicals organized by numbers of strokes can be found here). In traditional Chinese dictionaries, characters are looked up by stroke order, starting with the primary radical. For instance, the character 中 (zhōng), which means “center,” is composed of the primary one-stroke radical丨(gǔn) and contains the secondary three-stroke radical 口 (kǒu). Another character, 好 (hǎo), meaning “good,” contains the three-stroke radical 女 (nǚ), meaning “female,” and the three-stroke radical 子 (zǐ), meaning “child.” More complex characters may contain multiple radicals. For instance, the character 簡 (jiǎn), meaning “simple,” contains the radical 竹 (zhú), under which is placed the radical 門 (mén), meaning “door,” and below that the radical 曰 (yuē), meaning “to say.” In none of these cases, however, does the pronunciation of the radicals correspond to the actual pronunciation of the character.

For someone seeking a basic understanding of Chinese writing sufficient to decipher characters identified in genealogical records, a foundation in both the stroke order and radical-based formation of characters is particularly helpful. Such is especially the case in deciphering names of ancestors from hardcopy records, digital images, microfilm and so forth that does not allow the characters to be merely copied and pasted into an online transliteration program (e.g. Google Translate, for one).

Romanization

As stated above, written Chinese is not phonetic. In other words, specific phonemes, letters or sounds typically cannot be derived from simply looking at a Chinese character. Traditionally in China, knowing how a specific character was pronounced was largely only achieved by memorization. Romanization - namely, the process of transcribing or transliterating a language into Latin script - was first applied to the Chinese language by Christian missionaries working in China during the 16th century. One of the most widely used Chinese romanization systems developed in the late 19th century is the Wade-Giles system, which was the standard of transcription for the English-speaking world for most of the 20th century. In 1956, just two years after the implementation of simplified characters, the government of the People’s Republic of China introduced the hanyu pinyin (漢語拼音hàn yǔ pīn yīn) romanization system in an additional effort to boost literacy. Pinyin later became the standard romanization for China, and more recently for Taiwan and Singapore.

Although the use of pinyin is becoming increasingly the standard for native and non-native Chinese speakers, the Wade-Giles and other romanization systems are still commonly found in history books, atlases, maps and other reference materials. Learning to differentiate the multiple systems can be helpful not only in research but also in the proper indexing of names for genealogical purposes. For instance, place names like Peking and Peiching all correspond to the characters 北京, which are now more commonly romanized in pinyin as the more familiar Beijing (běi jīng). Romanization issues can also occur when researching or documenting proper names, e.g. Chinese surnames transliterated in Wade-Giles as Hsieh (謝), Chao (趙), Kuo (郭) and Chang (張) are transliterated in pinyin as Xie, Zhao, Guo and Zhang, respectively. This is further compounded when dealing with romanization of Cantonese names, as is common practice in Hong Kong, where these same four surnames may be transliterated as Tse, Chiu, Kwok and Cheung, respectively. A basic familiarity with the various romanization systems for Chinese is a critical component of doing genealogical research for Chinese names. Lacking such knowledge, a genealogist may erroneously create duplicate records for the same individual whose name has been romanized using another system or fail to recognize a match for an ancestor whose name was romanized differently.

Because Chinese is a tonal language, romanization systems have also incorporated diacritic marks or spellings to account for each separate tone. Mandarin has four tones, which are represented by four different diacritic marks: ͞ (high), / (high rising), ˅ (low rising), and \ (falling). Here are some examples of the application of these diacritic marks in pinyin for the following words: Beijing (北京; běi jīng), China (中國; zhōng guó), husband (丈夫; zhàng fū), and so forth. When recording Chinese names from genealogical records, these diacritic marks are not necessary as they only correspond to the spoken language. Additional information regarding Mandarin tones can be found here. Tones for any of the Chinese characters found in this Glossary can be obtained by copying the characters into Google Translate.

Gender

The Chinese language is largely gender-neutral and possesses few linguistic gender markers. Unlike Romantic languages, such as Spanish, Italian, and French, nouns are not gender-specific. For instance, the feminine la familia (the family) or the masculine el libro (the book) in Spanish would be rendered in Chinese as the gender-neutral 家 (jiā) for family and 書 (shū) for book. To make specific gender denotation for a noun in Chinese, one may add either 男 (nán - male) or 女 (nǚ - female) at the beginning of the word (e.g. the word for doctor (醫生; yī shēng) could be changed to女醫生 to denote a female doctor), although the common practice generally is to use the gender-neutral form. One of the few instances where gender is denoted in Chinese is the written form of the third-person pronoun 他 (tā). Traditionally, 他was used to represent both he and she, but a relatively new character, 她, is now more commonly used for “she,” with the addition of the female character, 女 (rather than 人 (rén), for “person”), as the initial radical. This differentiation between 他and 她is only applied in written Chinese; in spoken Chinese, 他and 她are both pronounced identically as “tā.”

Due to its late emergence into written Chinese, the third-person female pronoun 她is unlikely to appear in the text of historic genealogical records. One way to identify whether an individual is male or female is to look for the female radical 女 (nǚ) in the given name, but it should be noted that not all female names contain 女, and there are some male names that may also contain the 女 radical. In Chinese genealogical records, female names are often not fully recorded, but are typically recorded only as the surname followed by the character 氏 (shì), a character which can roughly be translated as “clan,” “surname,” or “maiden name.” Therefore, a record with an individual named 陳氏 (chén shì) would refer to a woman from the Chen (陳) clan or could also be translated as “Ms. Chen,” with Chen being her maiden name.

Plurals

Chinese in general does not have a plural form. The one consistent designation of the plural occurs with pronouns by means of adding the character 們 (men) to singular pronouns to make them plural pronouns as follows:

Singular Pronoun	English	Plural Pronoun w/ 們	English
我 (wǒ)	I/me	我們 (wǒ men)	We
你 (nǐ)	You	你們 (nǐ men)	You (plural)
他 (tā)	He/him	他們 (tā men)	They/them
她 (tā)	She/her	她們 (tā men)	They/them (fem.)

The character們 can also be used to make a noun plural, similar to a final “s” for countable regular nouns in English, but this generally only applies to human nouns in Chinese. For instance, the word 同學 (classmate; tóng xué) can become 同學們 (classmates; tóng xué men), 同事 (colleague; tóng shì) becomes 同事們 (colleagues; tóng shì men), 女士 (lady; nǚ shì) becomes 女士們 (ladies; nǚ shì men), and so forth.

Beyond the occasional use of 們, the plural in Chinese is generally either inferred from context or designated by the placement of a number. When quantifying a noun in Chinese, classifiers are placed between the number and the noun, similar to the way in which uncountable nouns are designated in English (e.g. One cup of milk, a kernel of corn, a sum of money, etc.). Some examples of Chinese classifiers are as follows:

Number	Classifier	Noun	Combined	Pinyin	English
一	個	男孩	一個男孩	yī gè nán hái	One boy
三	張	紙	三張紙	sān zhāng zhǐ	Three sheets of paper
幾	隻	狗	幾隻狗	jǐ zhī gǒu	Some dogs

The above are just a few examples of classifiers in Chinese. A more complete list of classifiers can be found here.

Verb Tense

Chinese verbs do not undergo conjugation. All verbs have a single form, regardless of the preceding pronoun or subject or whether the verb is being used in the past, present or future. Chinese verb tenses are generally inferred from context or by the placement of time words as highlighted in the following examples:

Chinese Phrase	Pinyin	English (literal)	English Meaning
昨天我去	zuó tiān wǒ qù	Yesterday I go	Yesterday I went
我上周就看他	wǒ shàng zhōu jiù kàn tā	I last week see him	I saw him last week
他是1967年生的	Tā shì 1967 nián shēng de	He is 1967 year born	He was born in 1967

Additional examples of verb tense in Chinese can be found here.

Affirmative/Negative

Chinese doesn't have any universal word for "yes" and "no." Instead, answering in the affirmative or negative is usually done by repeating the verb used by the asker:

Repeating the verb indicates “yes.”

Using 不 + the verb indicates “no.”

Chinese Phrase	Pinyin	English (literal)	English Meaning
Q：你喜欢苹果吗？ A：喜欢	Q: Nǐ xǐ huan píng guǒ ma? A: xǐ huan 。	Q: You like apples? A: Like	Q: Do you like apples? A: Yes
Q: 你要这个吗？ A: 不要	Q: Nǐ yào zhè ge ma？ A: Bú yào。	Q: You want this? A: Not want	Q: Do you want this? A: No

More information on using the affirmative and negative (yes/no) in Mandarin can be found here .

Additional Resources

The word list below includes words that may be most commonly found in genealogical sources. A list of Chinese trades and occupations and the English equivalents can be found here.

For further help, use a Chinese-English or English-Chinese dictionary. At the FamilySearch Library, Chinese dictionaries are cataloged with call numbers 423.951 and 495.1321 – 495.17321. The following dictionaries available for reference in hardcopy format at the FamilySearch Library may be particularly helpful:

• Mathews, Robert Henry, Mathews’ Chinese-English Dictionary

Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1943 (ISBN: 0674123506; Call No. 495.1321)

• Editing Group, A New English-Chinese Dictionary

Hong Kong: Joint Publishing Co. (Hong Kong Branch), 1975 (Call No. 423.951)

Additional dictionaries are listed in the Subject section of the China – Language and languages - Dictionaries. Most bookstores also carry inexpensive Chinese-English and English-Chinese dictionaries.

Numbers

Chinese has two sets of numbers. The most regularly-used set of numbers can be roughly translated as “small writing” (小寫; xiǎo xiě), and for the purposes of this glossary will be referred to as “numbers.” The other set is used in more formal contexts (e.g. financial, commercial, archival, etc.) and can be roughly translated as “large writing” (大寫; dà xiě), or more commonly, “financial numbers.” The following list gives the cardinal (1, 2, 3, etc.) versions of each number and financial number 0-10 as well as multiples of 10 up through 10,000 in Chinese.

English Number	Chinese Number	Chinese Financial Number	Pinyin
0	〇	零	líng
1	一	壹	yī
2	二	貳	èr
3	三	叁	sān
4	四	肆	sì
5	五	伍	wǔ
6	六	陸	liù
7	七	柒	qī
8	八	捌	bā
9	九	玖	jiǔ
10	十	拾	shí
100	百	佰	bǎi
1,000	千	仟	qiān
10,000	萬	萬	wàn

Numbers between 10 and 100 are formed by creating a multiple of ten (十) and adding the ones. For example, 11 is 十一, 15 is 十五, 20 is 二十 (20 can also be written as廿), 21 is 二十一, 85 is 八十五, and so forth. The same applies to numbers between 100 and 1,000, with 〇 used to denote the internal zero. For example, 100 is 一百, 101 is 一百〇一, 127 is 百二十七, 327 is 三百二十七, 999 is 九百九十九 and so forth. For a more detailed overview of how Chinese numbers are formed, additional information can be found here.

For ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.), the character 第 (dì) is placed before the cardinal number. For example, 第一is 1st, 第二is 2nd, 第三is 3rd, etc.

Dates/Calendar

Unlike much of the Western world, Chinese dates are in order of Year-Month-Day, represented by the characters年 (nián), 月 (yuè) and 日/號 (rì/hào), respectively. In modern times, Chinese dates can also be abbreviated in hyphenated form, similar to the Western world, but still in the same year-month-day format, e.g. 1972-02-16 (February 16, 1972 or 02-16-1972), 2016-12-01 (December 1, 2016 or 12-01-2016), and so forth. Below are examples of dates in English and their Chinese equivalents using both characters and numbers:

English Date	Chinese Date	Chinese Date (digits)
April 7, 1875	一八七五年四月七日	1875年4月7日 (1875-04-07)
September 23, 1956	一九五六年九月二十三日	1956年9月23日 (1956-09-23)
January 30, 2013	二〇一三年一月三十日	2013年1月30日 (2013-01-30)

The above three dates would be written vertically as follows:

April 7, 1875	September 23, 1956	January 30, 2013
一	一	二
八	九	〇
七	五	一
五	六	三
年	年	年
四	九	一
月	月	月
七	二	三
日	十	十
	三	日
	日

As demonstrated above, the four-digit year in Chinese is represented by the individual digits, rather than fully writing out the number in thousands, hundreds, tens and ones. For example, 1805 is not recorded as one-thousand-eight-hundred-and-eighty-five, but rather, one-eight-zero-five, e.g. 一八〇五.

Chinese/Lunar Calendar

The above dates apply only to the Gregorian calendar, which was adopted in China in 1912. Prior to 1912, the Chinese exclusively utilized the Chinese calendar, which is still used in China today (including Taiwan and Hong Kong) albeit to a much lesser degree. The Chinese calendar is known officially as the Rural Calendar (農曆; Nónglì), but is often referred to by other names, such as the Former Calendar (舊曆; Jiùlì), or the Lunar Calendar (陰曆; Yīnlì).

Understanding the Chinese calendar is a critical component in conducting Chinese genealogy research; otherwise, dates of events, including births, deaths, marriages, and so forth, cannot be correctly recorded. Unlike the Gregorian calendar, which is based on 100-year periods, or centuries, the Chinese calendar is based on sixty-year periods comprising what is referred to as the sexagenary cycle (六十花甲; liù shí huā jiǎ). The sexagenary cycle, also referred to as the Stems and Branches (干支; Gān zhī), is divided up into a combination of ten Heavenly Stems (天干; tiān gān) and twelve Earthly Branches (地支; dì zhī) as follows:

Heavenly Stems	Pinyin	Earthly Branches	Pinyin
甲	jiǎ	子	zǐ
乙	yǐ	丑	chǒu
丙	bǐng	寅	yín
丁	dīng	卯	mǎo
戊	wù	辰	chén
己	jǐ	巳	sì
庚	gēng	午	wǔ
辛	xīn	未	wèi
壬	rén	申	shēn
癸	guǐ	酉	yǒu
		戌	xū
		亥	hài

Within the sexagenary cycle, the Heavenly Stems repeat six times (10 x 6 = 60) and the Earthly Branches repeat five times (12 x 5 = 60). Using this pattern, the first year of every sexagenary cycle is 甲子 (jiǎ zǐ) and the 60th year is 癸亥 (guǐ hài). A complete table showing all sixty years of the sexagenary cycle can be found here.

Another step in converting the Chinese calendar to the Gregorian calendar is to identify the reign year (帝號; dì hào) or the reign title (年號; nián hào), which corresponds to which emperor was on the throne at the time. A complete listing of Chinese imperial reigns can be found here]. Identifying both the reign year and the sexagenary cycle designator (i.e. Heavenly Stem and Earthly Branch combination) on a historical record will then allow accurate conversion to the Gregorian calendar.

As an example of a conversion, a record containing 大清乾隆己未 (dà qīng qián lóng jǐ wèi) would refer to the Qing Dynasty (大清), which lasted from 1644-1912; followed by the reign of Emperor Qianlong (乾隆), which lasted from 1736-1795; and the year 己未. Using Qianlong’s reign from 1736-1795 as a point of reference, one could then utilize online resources (such as here) to determine that己未refers to the Gregorian year of 1739.

In addition to the Chinese and Gregorian calendars, the Minguo or Republic of China calendar (民國紀元; mín guó jì yuán) is also in use today, but almost exclusively in Taiwan. This calendar originated in 1912, the year in which the Republic of China was established. To convert a Minguo calendar date to the Gregorian calendar, add 1911 to the Minguo year. For instance, Minguo year 107 is Gregorian year 2018.

Key Words

To find and use specific types of Chinese records, you will need to know some key words in Chinese. This section gives key genealogical terms in English and the Chinese words with the same or similar meanings. Due to the inability to arrange Chinese characters alphabetically (this could be done by pinyin, but that would assume the researcher knows the pronunciation of the character), this Key Words list as well as the following General Word List are arranged alphabetically by the English words. The first column contains the English word, followed by the Chinese-character translation in the second column, and the pinyin romanization in the third column.

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Age	歲, 年齡	suì, nián líng
Ancestor	祖先	zǔ xiān
Baptism	受洗, 洗禮	shòu xǐ, xǐ lǐ
Birth	生, 出生	shēng, chū shēng
Branch genealogy record	支譜	zhī pǔ
Child	孩子	hái zi
Clan genealogy	族譜	zú pǔ
Daughter	女兒	nǚ ér
Day	日	rì
Death	死, 去世, 逝世	sǐ, qù shì, shì shì
Family genealogy	家譜	jiā pǔ
Family, clan	氏	shì
Family, home	家	jiā
Father	父, 父親	fù, fù qīn
Female	女, 女生	nǚ, nǚ shēng
First	初, 第一	chū, dì yī
General genealogy record	宗譜	zōng pǔ
Household register	戶籍登記	hù jí dēng jì
Husband	丈夫, 先生	zhàng fū, xiān shēng
Index, table of contents	目錄	mù lù
Lineage branch or segment	堂號, 派	táng hào, pài
Male	男, 男生	nán, nán shēng
Marriage	婚姻	hūn yīn
Marry (v)	結婚, 娶, 配	jié hūn, qǔ, pèi
Month	月	yuè
Mother	母, 母親	mǔ, mǔ qīn
Page	頁	yè
Person	人	rén
Personal history	自傳	zì zhuàn
Registered address	登記地址	dēng jì dì zhǐ
Son	子, 兒子	zǐ, érzi
Surname	姓, 氏	xìng, shì
Volume	冊	cè
Wife	太太, 老婆	tài tài, lǎo pó
Wife (first wife)	元配 (第一個太太)	yuán pèi (dì yī ge tài tài)
Year	年	nián

General Word List

This general word list includes additional words commonly seen in genealogical sources. The first column is the English word, followed by the Chinese-character translation in the second column, and then the pinyin romanization in the third column.

A

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Accountant	會計	kuài jì
Adopt (a child)	收養, 領養	shōu yǎng, lǐng yǎng
Adultery	姦淫	jiān yín
America	美國	měi guó
Ancestral Hall	祠堂	cí táng
April	四月 (肆月)	sì yuè
Archive	檔案	dǎng àn
Army	陸軍	lù jūn
Artisan	工匠	gōng jiàng
August	八月 (捌月)	bā yuè

B

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Banker	銀行家	yín háng jiā
Barber	理髮師	lǐ fà shī
Begat (gave birth to)	生	shēng
Beggar	乞丐	qǐ gài
Beginning, start	始	shǐ
Blacksmith	鐵匠	tiě jiàng
Book	書,冊	shū
Border	邊境	biān jìng
Bride	新娘	xīn niáng
Born on (date)	生於	shēng yú
Buried	隱藏, 被埋葬	yǐn cáng, bèi mái zàng
Buried on (date)	墓於	mù yú
Buried at (location)	墓在	mù zài
Butcher	屠夫	tú fū

C

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Carpenter	木匠	mù jiàng
Catholic	天主教	tiān zhǔ jiào
Cemetery	公墓, 墓地	gōng mù, mù dì
Century	世紀	shì jì
Ceremony	儀式	yí shì
Certificate	證書	zhèng shū
China	中國	zhōng guó
Church (edifice)	教堂	jiào táng
Church (org)	教會	jiào huì
Citizen	公民	gōng mín
City	城	chéng
City, Municipality	市	shì
Civil registration	民事登記	mín shì dēng jì
Cobbler	皮匠	pí jiàng
Concubine	妾	qiè
Country	縣	xiàn

D

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Date (n)	日, 日期	rì, rì qí
Deceased person	死者	sǐ zhě
December	十二月 (拾貳月)	shí èr yuè
Dictionary	字典, 詞典	zì diǎn, cí diǎn
Disease	疾病	jí bìng
Died on (date)	終於	zhōng yú
District	區	qū
Divorce	離婚	lí hūn
Doctor	醫生, 醫師	yī shēng, yī shī
Document (n)	文件	wén jiàn
Draft (troops)	徵兵	zhēng bīng
Dynasty	王朝, 朝代	wáng cháo, cháo dài

E

English	Chinese	Pinyin
East	東	dōng
Eastern Han Dynasty	東漢朝	dōng hàn cháo
Eastern Jin Dynasty	東晉朝	dōng jìn cháo
Eastern Zhou Dynasty	東周朝	dōng zhōu cháo
Eldest son	長子	zhǎng zǐ
Emigrant, overseas Chinese	僑, 華僑	qiáo, huá qiáo
Empire	帝國	dì guó
Emperor	皇帝	huáng dì
Empress	皇后	huáng hòu
England	英國	yīng guó
Eunuch	宦官	huàn guān

F

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Farmer	農人	nóng rén
February	二月 (貳月)	èr yuè
First ancestor	始祖	shǐ zǔ
First migrant ancestor	始遷祖	shǐ qiān zǔ
Fisherman	漁夫	yú fū
Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms	五代十國	wǔ dài shí guó
Foreigner (derogatory)	洋鬼子, 鬼佬	yáng guǐ zi, guǐ lǎo
Foreigner (polite)	外人, 洋人, 外國人	wài rén, yáng rén, wài guó rén
Forest	林, 森林	lín, sēn lín
Friday	周五, 星期五, 禮拜五	zhōu wǔ, xīng qí wǔ, lǐ bài wǔ
Friend	朋友	péng yǒu

G

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Gardener	園丁, 花匠	yuán dīng, huā jiàng
Generation	世代	shì dài
Generation name	輩字	bèi zì
Generation poem	字輩詞	zì bèi cí
Gentry/scholars	士	shì
Goldsmith	金匠	jīn jiàng
Government	政府	zhèng fǔ
Granddaughter	孫女	sūn nǚ
Grandson	孫子	sūn zi
Grave (n)	墓	mù

H

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Herdsman	牧人	mù rén
Hill	丘	qiū
History	歷史	lì shǐ
Hometown, rural area	鄉	xiāng
Hong Kong	香港	xiāng gǎng
Hour	時	shí
House	房子, 住宅	fáng zi, zhù zhái
Housekeeper	管家	guǎn jiā
Housewife	主婦	zhǔ fù
Hunter	獵人	liè rén

I

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Immigrant	移民	yí mín
Infant	嬰兒	yīng ér
Inheritance	遺產	yí chǎn
Island	島, 島嶼	dǎo, dǎo yǔ

J

English	Chinese	Pinyin
January	一月 (壹月)	yī yuè
Japan	日本	rì běn
Jeweler	珠寶商	zhū bǎo shāng
Jin Dynasty	晉朝	jìn cháo
Judge (n)	法官	fǎ guān
July	七月 (柒月)	qī yuè
June	六月 (陸月)	liù yuè

K

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Kilometer	公里	gōng lǐ
Kingdom of Dali	大理國	dà lǐ guó
Korea	韓國	hán guó

L

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Laborer	勞工	láo gōng
Lake	湖	hú
Landlord	房東	fáng dōng
Law	法	fǎ
Left (direction)	左	zuǒ
Legal	法律	fǎ lǜ
Legitimate, legal	合法	hé fǎ
Liao Dynasty	遼朝	liáo cháo
Library	圖書館	tú shū guǎn
Location (place)	地方	dì fāng
Locksmith	鎖匠	suǒ jiàng

M

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Manchuria	满洲	mǎn zhōu
Map	地圖	dì tú
March	三月 (叁月)	sān yuè
Market	市場, 商場	shì chǎng, shāng chǎng
Married	已婚	yǐ hūn
Mason	石匠	shí jiàng
Maternal grandfather	外公	wài gōng
Maternal grandmother	外婆	wài pó
May	五月 (伍月)	wǔ yuè
Merchant	商人	shāng rén
Meter	公尺	gōng chǐ
Midwife	助產士	zhù chǎn shì
Mile (Chinese)	公里	gong lǐ
Mile (UK)	英里	yīng lǐ
Miner	礦工	kuàng gōng
Ming Dynasty	明朝	míng cháo
Monday	周一, 星期一, 禮拜一	zhōu yī, xīng qí yī, lǐ bài yī
Money	錢	qián
Mongolia	蒙古	méng gǔ
Mountain	山	shān
Move, migrate	遷	qiān

N

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Name	名, 名字	míng, míng zì
Nationality	國籍	guó jí
Native	本地人, 本國人	běn dì rén, běn guó rén
Navy	海軍	hǎi jūn
New	新	xīn
Newspaper	報紙	bào zhǐ
North	北	běi
Northern Song Dynasty	北宋朝	běi song cháo
Notary	公證	gōng zhèng
November	十一月 (拾壹月)	shí yī yuè
Number	號碼	hào mǎ
Nurse	護士	hù shì

O

English	Chinese	Pinyin
October	十月 (拾月)	shí yuè
Official (n)	官	guān
Old	老	lǎo
Originating ancestor	本祖	běn zǔ
Orphan	孤兒	gū ér

P

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Painter	畫家	huà jiā
Palace	宮	gōng
Passport	護照	hù zhào
Paternal grandfather	爺爺, 祖父	yé yé, zǔ fù
Paternal grandmother	奶奶, 祖母	nǎi nai, zǔ mǔ
Peasant	農民	nóng mín
People's Republic of China (PRC)	中華人民共和國	zhōng huá rén mín gòng hé guó
Periodical	期刊	qí kān
Place (location)	地方	dì fāng
Plague	鼠疫, 瘟疫	shǔ yì, wēn yì
Policeman	警察, 警官	jǐng chá, jǐng guān
Population	人口	rén kǒu
Port city	埠	bù
Potter	製陶工人	zhì táo gong rén
Prefecture	州	zhōu
Pregnant	孕, 懷孕	yùn, huái yùn
Prince	王子	wáng zǐ
Princess	公主, 王妃	gōng zhǔ, wáng fēi
Property	財產	cái chǎn
Prostitute	妓女	jì nǚ
Province	省	shěng
Publish (books)	出版	chū bǎn

Q

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Qin Dynasty	秦朝	qín cháo
Qing Dynasty	清朝	qīng cháo

R

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Receive surname	受姓	shòu xìng
Record (n)	記錄	jì lù
Register (roll)	名册	míng cè
Registration	登記	dēng jì
Relative (family)	親, 親戚	qīn, qīn qī
Relationship	係,關係	xì, guān xì
Religion	宗教	zōng jiào
Republic of China (ROC)	中華民國	zhōng huá mín guó
Respectful term of address for elderly man or father	公	gōng
Right (direction)	右	yòu
Rite	儀式	yí shì
River	河	hé
Road	路, 道	lù, dào

S

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Saturday	周六, 星期六, 禮拜六	zhōu liù, xīng qí liù, lǐ bài liù
Seamstress	裁縫	cái féng
Second generation ancestors	二世祖	èr shì zǔ
Second son	次子	cì zǐ
September	九月 (玖月)	jiǔ yuè
Servant	僕人	pú rén
Shang Dynasty	商朝	shāng cháo
Shepherd	牧人	mù rén
Shoemaker	鞋匠	xié jiàng
Signature	簽字, 簽名	qiān zì, qiān míng
Smith	工匠	gōng jiàng
Soldier	士兵, 戰士, 軍人	shì bīng, zhàn shì, jūn rén
South	南	nán
Southern and Northern Dynasties	南北朝	nán běi cháo
Southern Song Dynasty	南宋朝	nán song cháo
Spouse	配, 妣	pèi, bǐ
Spring and Autumn Period	春秋時代	chūn qiū shí dài
Stillborn	死胎	sǐ tāi
Stonecutter	石匠	shí jiàng
Street	街	jiē
Sui Dynasty	隋朝	suí cháo
Sunday	周日, 星期日, 禮拜日	zhōu rì, xīng qí rì, lǐ bài rì

T

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Taboo name (for deceased emperor or head of family)	諱	huì
Taiwan	臺灣 (台灣)	tái wān
Tang Dynasty	唐朝	táng cháo
Tax (n)	稅	shuì
Teacher	老師	lǎo shī
Temple	寺廟	sì miào
Third son	三子	sān zǐ
Three Kingdoms	三國	sān guó
Thursday	周四, 星期四, 禮拜四	zhōu sì, xīng qí sì, lǐ bài sì
Today	今日, 今天	jīn rì, jīn tiān
Tomorrow	明日, 明天	míng rì, míng tiān
Town	鎮	zhèn
Trade	行業	háng yè
Tuesday	周二, 星期二, 禮拜二	zhōu èr, xīng qí èr, lǐ bài èr

U

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Unknown	未知, 不明	wèi zhī, bù míng

V

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Village	村	cūn
Virgin	處女	chǔ nǚ

W

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Warring States Period	戰國時代	zhàn guó shí dài
Wedding	婚禮	hūn lǐ
Wednesday	周三, 星期三, 禮拜三	zhōu sān, xīng qí sān, lǐ bài sān
West	西	xī
Western Han Dynasty	西漢朝	xī hàn cháo
Western Jin Dynasty	西晉朝	xī jìn cháo
Western Liao Dynasty	西遼朝	xī liáo cháo
Western Xia Dynasty	西夏朝	xī xià cháo
Western Zhou Dynasty	西周朝	xī zhōu cháo
Wet nurse	乳母	rǔ mǔ
Widow	寡婦	guǎ fù
Widower	鰥夫	guān fū
Will (document)	遺囑	yí zhǔ
Woodcarver	木雕	mù diāo
Woodcutter	樵夫	qiáo fū

X

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Xia Dynasty	夏朝	xià cháo
Xin Dynasty	新朝	xīn cháo

Y

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Yuan Dynasty	元朝	yuán cháo

Z

English	Chinese	Pinyin
Zodiac (Chinese)	生肖	shēng xiào

Online Resources

• Online Chinese Dictionary
• Online Chinese Dictionary
• Mandarin language overview
• Chinese Transliteration information
• Chinese Romanization converter
• Chinese basics and grammar