Talking About School - KS2 Mandarin

Learning Mandarin in school (xué xiào) makes it a great place to practice the language.

Objects around school in Mandarin

There are lots of objects around school that can be useful to know in Mandarin, including your school bag and what you might find inside it.

To talk about your own school supplies in Mandarin, you can use the phrases:

Wǒ yǒu - I have

Zhè shì - This is

To say ‘I have a pencil' in Mandarin you would not simply say ‘Wǒ yǒu qiān bǐ’ - this misses out the ‘a’.

In Mandarin, measure words are used to describe the type of object being discussed.

For objects around school, these are:

Measure Word	Use
yī gè	For backpacks, pencil cases and pencil sharpeners
yī běn	For books
yī zhī	For writing tools, eg pens and pencils
yī bà	For rulers and scissors

So, to say ‘I have a pencil’ in Mandarin you would say:

Wǒ yǒu yī zhī qiān bǐ - I have a pencil

You can switch out yī (one) for any other number, eg sān (three), sì (four) etc. except for ‘two’.

When you want to say you have two of something in Mandarin, you don’t use èr (two) - Instead, you use the Mandarin word liǎng.

When walking around school, try saying some of the common places in Mandarin.

To talk about places around your school in Mandarin, you can use the phrases Wǒ zài (I am at) or Wǒ yào qù (I am going to).

For example:

Some common subjects studied in school in Mandarin include:

When talking about a lesson in school in Mandarin, you need to add 'kè' (lesson) to the end of the subject.

For example:

You can then combine this with the Mandarin phrase Wǒ zài shàng (I am having).

For example:

There is no measure word needed here.