Chinese Words in English: 30 Everyday English Words That Came From Chinese

There are more Chinese words in English than most people realize. Tea, ketchup, typhoon, kowtow, gung-ho, dim sum, wok, lychee, kung fu, feng shui: all borrowed from Chinese, and that's a short list. Most arrived through Cantonese and Hokkien sailors, cooks, and traders in the 1600s to 1800s, which is why the English spellings often don't match the Mandarin you'd learn today.

Below are 30 everyday English words that came from Chinese, grouped by theme, each with the original characters, the Mandarin pinyin, and the dialect it came through. Some are obvious, a few are surprising, and one (ketchup) tends to ruin people's assumptions about American food. This post is part of our Chinese culture guide.

The big surprises

• Ketchup comes from 鲑汁 or 茄汁, pronounced roughly kê-tsiap in Hokkien (Fujian): a fermented fish sauce that British traders met in Southeast Asia in the 1600s. The tomato came centuries later, in America. The word is older than the recipe.
• Typhoon is most likely 大风 (Cantonese daai6 fung1, Mandarin dàfēng), "big wind", blended with an older Arabic and Greek word for a storm. Chinese itself now writes the storm as 台风 (táifēng), which may be a re-borrowing of the English.
• Tea is 茶. In Mandarin that's chá, which is where "chai" comes from, via Persian and Russian. But Dutch traders bought their tea in Fujian, where the Hokkien word is tê, and that became "tea" in English, "thé" in French, and "tee" in German. Which word a language uses tells you whether its tea came by sea (te) or by land (cha). Our guide to Chinese tea has the rest of the story.
• Brainwashing is a direct translation of 洗脑 (xǐnǎo), "wash brain". It entered English during the Korean War in the 1950s to describe what happened to captured soldiers.
• Gung-ho is 工合 (gōnghé), short for 工业合作社, the Chinese Industrial Cooperatives of the 1930s. A US Marine officer, Evans Carlson, adopted it as his battalion's motto in 1942, meaning "work together", and American English turned it into "overly enthusiastic".
• Paper tiger is a calque of 纸老虎 (zhǐ lǎohǔ), something that looks threatening but isn't. Mao Zedong used it to describe the United States in 1946, and the English press picked it up.
• Lose face and save face translate 丢脸 (diūliǎn) and 留面子. The whole English idiom of "face" as social standing came from Chinese in the 1800s. Our Chinese culture guide explains why 面子 matters so much.

Food words (mostly Cantonese)

Cantonese speakers from Guangdong built most of the Chinatowns in the English-speaking world, so English food words follow Cantonese sounds:

• Dim sum: 点心, Cantonese dim2 sam1, Mandarin diǎnxīn. "Touch the heart", the small plates served with tea.
• Wok: 镬, Cantonese wok6. In Mandarin the pan is 锅 (guō), a different word entirely.
• Chow mein: 炒面, Cantonese caau2 min6, Mandarin chǎomiàn. "Fried noodles".
• Lo mein: 捞面, Cantonese lou1 min6. "Tossed noodles".
• Chop suey: 杂碎, Cantonese zaap6 seoi3, Mandarin zásuì. "Mixed bits". A Chinese-American invention with a Cantonese name.
• Wonton: 馄饨, Cantonese wan4 tan1, Mandarin húntun.
• Bok choy: 白菜, Cantonese baak6 coi3, Mandarin báicài. "White vegetable".
• Hoisin (sauce): 海鲜, Cantonese hoi2 sin1, Mandarin hǎixiān. It means "seafood", even though the sauce contains none.
• Lychee: 荔枝, Cantonese lai6 zi1, Mandarin lìzhī.
• Kumquat: 金橘, Cantonese gam1 gwat1, Mandarin jīnjú. "Golden orange".
• Loquat: 芦橘, Cantonese lou4 gwat1. "Reed orange".
• Tofu: 豆腐 (dòufu), "bean curd", but it reached English through Japanese tōfu, which is why it isn't "doufu".
• Ginseng: 人参, Hokkien jîn-sim, Mandarin rénshēn. "Person root", for the root's human-like shape.
• Oolong: 乌龙 (wūlóng), "black dragon" tea.
• Chow (as in "chow down"): probably from Cantonese 炒 (caau2, "to stir-fry") via 19th-century pidgin, though the trail is fuzzy.

For the dishes themselves, with their proper Mandarin names, see our guide to Chinese snacks and drinks.

Culture, philosophy, and martial arts (mostly Mandarin)

These came later, through books and films rather than kitchens, so they follow Mandarin pronunciation:

• Kung fu: 功夫 (gōngfu). In Chinese it means skill earned through effort, in anything, not only fighting.
• Tai chi: 太极 (tàijí), short for 太极拳, the slow martial art.
• Feng shui: 风水 (fēngshuǐ), "wind water", the practice of arranging spaces for good energy.
• Yin and yang: 阴阳 (yīnyáng), the complementary opposites.
• Tao / Dao: 道 (dào), "the way", and Taoism from 道教.
• Qi / chi: 气 (qì), "breath, energy", as in qigong, 气功.
• Kowtow: 叩头 (kòutóu), "knock head": the kneeling bow to an emperor. In English it now means to grovel.
• Mahjong: 麻将 (májiàng), the tile game. The English spelling preserves an older southern pronunciation.
• Shih tzu: 狮子狗 (shīzi gǒu), "lion dog". The breed name is 狮子 (shīzi, lion).
• Shar pei: 沙皮 (shāpí), "sand skin", the wrinkled dog.
• Cheongsam: 长衫, Cantonese coeng4 saam1, "long shirt". Mandarin speakers call the dress 旗袍 (qípáo).

Phrases and odd ones

• Long time no see is often traced to 好久不见 (hǎojiǔ bújiàn), which it matches word for word. Linguists aren't certain (a Native American pidgin origin has also been proposed), but it's the standard story and the Chinese phrase is real and common.
• Chop chop ("hurry up") comes from Cantonese cuk1 cuk1 (速速, "quick quick") through the pidgin English of 19th-century Canton and Hong Kong ports. "Chopsticks" is from the same pidgin "chop" meaning fast.
• Shanghai (to kidnap someone onto a ship) comes from the city name 上海 (Shànghǎi), a destination for sailors who woke up press-ganged in the 1800s.
• Kaolin (porcelain clay) is 高岭 (Gāolǐng), the hill near Jingdezhen where it was mined.
• China itself, both the country and the porcelain, most likely traces back to 秦 (Qín), the dynasty that unified the country in 221 BC, via Sanskrit and Persian.
• Japan is a Chinese word too: European traders heard 日本 (Rìběn, "sun origin") in a southern Chinese pronunciation close to "Jih-pun", and Marco Polo wrote it down as Cipangu.
• Ramen and bonsai came to English from Japanese, but Japanese got them from Chinese: 拉面 (lāmiàn, "pulled noodles") and 盆栽 (pénzāi, "pot planting").

Why the spellings look nothing like pinyin

Three reasons, and they explain almost every oddity above:

• Dialect. Most food words came through Cantonese or Hokkien, where 茶 is tê, 点心 is dim sam, and 镬 is wok. Mandarin, the language you'd learn today, says chá, diǎnxīn and guō. Our guide to Chinese dialects explains how far apart they are.
• Old romanization. Words that did come from Mandarin were often spelled with the Wade-Giles system, used before pinyin: "tai chi" for tàijí, "kung fu" for gōngfu, "Peking" for Běijīng. The sounds are the same; the letters aren't.
• Pidgin English. In the trading ports of the 1700s and 1800s, a mixed English-Chinese pidgin produced "chop chop", "chow", "no can do" and "look-see". Some of these may be English in origin and only sound Chinese, so treat the pidgin set as "probably".

The traffic goes both ways, of course. Chinese has borrowed "coffee" (咖啡 kāfēi), "sofa" (沙发 shāfā), and hundreds more; our grammar lesson on how loanwords enter Chinese covers that direction.

Want to hear how 茶, 点心 and 功夫 sound in Mandarin? Every linked word above has a dictionary page with native audio, and a free Chenjin account lets you save the ones you know in English as your first Chinese flashcards. Sign up free to start with the 30 words you already know.

FAQ

What English words came from Chinese?

Tea, ketchup, typhoon, kowtow, gung-ho, dim sum, wok, chow mein, lychee, kung fu, tai chi, feng shui, yin-yang, mahjong, brainwashing, paper tiger, and "lose face", among dozens of others.

Is ketchup a Chinese word?

Yes, most likely. It comes from a Hokkien word for fermented fish sauce, kê-tsiap (鲑汁), that British traders brought home in the 1600s. Tomatoes were added much later in America.

Where does the word typhoon come from?

Mainly from Chinese 大风 ("big wind", Cantonese daai fung), blended with an older Arabic and Greek storm word. Modern Chinese writes the storm as 台风 (táifēng).

Why don't English borrowings match Mandarin pinyin?

Most came through Cantonese or Hokkien, not Mandarin, and the ones from Mandarin were usually spelled with the older Wade-Giles system ("kung fu", "tai chi") rather than pinyin.

How many English words come from Chinese?

Dictionaries list a few hundred, counting food, place names, and specialist terms. The everyday ones most speakers use without knowing their origin number around 30 to 50.

Keep learning

• Chinese Culture: Values, Traditions, and Customs Explained
• Chinese Tea: Types, Culture, and How to Brew It (With the Words You'll Need)
• Chinese Snacks: 30 Popular Snacks and Drinks (With Their Chinese Names)
• Chinese Dialects: How Many There Are and Why They Can't Understand Each Other
• Loanwords: How Foreign Words Enter Chinese by Sound or by Meaning
• 100 Basic Chinese Words Every Beginner Should Know
• Japanese vs Chinese: Which Is Harder, and Which Should You Learn?