How to say "to be" in Chinese

是
shìto bePart of speech: Verbs

"to be" in Chinese is 是 — pronounced shì.

In a sentence

  • 我是村长。你呢?Wǒ shì cūnzhǎng. Nǐ ne?I am the village chief. And you?

Sentence patterns that use it

  • 我是___。I am (a) ___.
  • A 是 B。A is B (identity).
  • 我的电话号码是___。My phone number is ___.
  • 生日快乐!Happy birthday!
48 sentence patterns ›

Words that share a character

Hear the tones, then say it back

Reading a word is the easy half. In HanQuest you meet 是 inside a quest — spoken by a villager, then checked against your own voice.

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No sign-up, no paywall. The full word list, character breakdowns and sentence patterns from Qingshan Village — browse them before you play, or use them as a reference after.