Zao an - ?? - Good Morning
Audio links are marked with ?
?zao an - Saying "Good Morning" in Mandarin Chinese
In the previous lesson we learned how to say "hello" in Mandarin Chinese. Here are some other common greetings.
The Chinese character zao ? is a composite of two characters - ? (meaning sun) and ?. The character ? is an old form of jia ?, which means “first” or “armor.” A literal interpretation of the character zao ?, therefore, is “first sun.”
Zao means “morning.” It is a noun and can also be used by itself as a greeting meaning "good morning".
Another way to say "good morning" is zao an - ??. The second character - an - ? means "peace", so the literal translation of zao an - ?? is "morning peace".
A more formal way to say "good morning" is zao shàng hao - ???. We know hao - ? from our first lesson. It means "good". Shàng means "upon", but in this case zao shàng - ?? is a compound meaning "early morning". So the literal translation of zao shàng hao - ??? is "early morning good".
So there are three ways to say "good morning" in Mandarin Chinese:
Wan shàng hao - ??? - Good Evening
In the same pattern as zao shàng hao - ???, we can say "good evening" with wan shàng hao - ???. In this greeting, wan shàng means "evening" and hao - ? means "good". The literal translation of wan shàng hao - ??? is "evening good".
Appropriate Times
These greetings should be said at the appropriate time of the day. Zao or zao shàng refer to early morning, so the morning greetings should only be said up to about 10 a.m.
Wan shàng hao is usually said between about 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. The standard greeting ni hao - ?? can be used at any time of the day or night.
Tones
The Pinyin Romanization used in these lessons use tone marks. Mandarin Chinese is a tonal language, which means that the meanings of words depend on which tone they use. There are four tones in Mandarin:
- high and level
- rising
- falling and rising
- falling
Next Lesson: Mandarin Chinese Tones
Source...