How do you say “girl” and “boy” in basic pinyin chinese?

6 Comments

1. Kelly says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   一个男孩子 (yī gè nán háizi) = one boy
   一个女孩子 (yī gè nǚ háizǐ) = one girl

   一个 (yī gè) means "a" or "one" because 一 (yī) is the character for "one." 个 (gè) is a measure word. For more information on measure words, read this: http://www.chinese-outpost.com/language/grammar/mandarin-measure-words.asp

   孩子 (háizi) means "child" in general. When you tack on 男 (nán, "male") or 女 (nǚ, "female"), you get "boy" or "girl." This means you can also use the character 人 (rén, "person") and make 男人 (nán rén, "male") and 女人 (nǚ rén, "female").

   If you need any more clarification, just post another question!

   Also, this dictionary might really be useful to you (when you click on a pinyin syllable, it loads an audio file!): http://www.mdbg.net/chindict/chindict.php

   I hope this helps!
2. kawaiihime says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   girl: ni zhi, ni ren
   boy: nan zhi, nan ren
   these are just the general terms. ‘nu hai’ (i guess that’s how they spell it in Rosetta Stone) actually means girl child. ni zhi and ni ren refer more to the words female/woman just like nan zhi and nan ren refer more to male/man than boy (nan hai)
   the ‘yi ge’ means one of. not sure why there’s the ‘er’ after it. i’ve never used it like that when talking to my mom.
3. NickJonas"Mr.President&quot says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   idk but i know hot say that in french

   fille: girl pronounced feeya
   garcon: boy pronounced garson

   what do i know i started french five months ago
4. thỏ con ham ăn says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   girl = 女性, 妇女, 女人
   boy= 男人, 男性
   there is a lot of way to say those word in chinese
5. Japagerfrenchinese says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   The "yi ge" in both means "one" or "one of." Word for word, "yi" means "one," the "ge" is a counting word you use for certain nouns, includint people. "Nan" means "male," "nu" means "female," "hai er" or "hai zi" means "child."

   You’re probably using the old version of Rosetta Stone. It’s a lot more clear in version 3.

   As far as it seeming "long," if you want to learn another language, you just have to accept that words are going to be different in different languages. Most words are longer in English, but you don’t hear me complaining or asking, "Why?"
6. Ving says:

   September 6, 2009 at 2:01 pm

   well more basically nu is like "girl" but you always say "nu hai", you don’t say "nu" by itself.
   Same with nan/nan hai
   and then the sentence "yi ge nu hai er", yi ge means one of something, and nu hai is girl
   I don’t think you need the er in there, unless you want to say it’s more like a younger person/child
   If you want to learn Chinese, I suggest that the sentences will be long sometimes. That’s just the way it is with any language. But the plus side about chinese is there isn’t as much grammar (or at least I think so) as English
   If you want to learn more, try speaking with others that know Chinese