How to Say Cheers in Chinese: 干杯 and Drinking Etiquette

By Ray Banks·October 23, 2026·Phrases

Cheers in Chinese is 干杯 (gān bēi) — written 乾杯 in traditional characters, and meaning, literally, "dry the cup." That literal reading is not decorative. In plenty of situations, particularly a Mainland business dinner with 白酒 on the table, 干杯 is an instruction: the glass goes down empty. The word you actually need most as a foreign guest is the other one — 随意 (suí yì), "as you like," which lets you clink glasses, honour the toast, and drink only what you want to drink.

What does 干杯 actually mean?

"Dry the cup." 干 in its traditional form 乾 means dry, and 杯 is a cup or glass; put together they instruct everyone at the table to finish what's in front of them. It's the same logic as "bottoms up," except that English keeps a separate, softer word — "cheers" — for the version where you just clink and sip, and Chinese doesn't. One word covers both, and the register is set by who says it, where, and what's in the glass.

In practice: friends at a hotpot table with beer say 干杯 and take a mouthful, exactly like "cheers." A host at a banquet who stands, addresses the table, and says 干杯 with a small glass of 白酒 in hand means the small glass is going to be empty in a second, and yours should be too. The size of the glass is your best signal — the tiny 白酒 cups exist precisely because they're meant to be emptied in one go, repeatedly.

The 干 / 乾 / 幹 trap — how to write 干杯 in traditional characters

This is worth getting right, because it's the kind of error that makes a tattoo or a wedding sign memorable for the wrong reason. Simplification merged three separate traditional characters into the single form 干:

So: in simplified Chinese, write 干杯. In traditional Chinese, write 乾杯. Writing 幹杯 is not a near miss — 幹 is the character used for the four-letter expletive in both Mainland and Taiwanese Mandarin, and it's pronounced with a different tone anyway (gàn, fourth tone). Which brings up the pronunciation half of the same trap: 干杯 is gān bēi with a flat high first tone. Let it fall to gàn and you've said something else. This is a good argument for treating tones as part of the word rather than as decoration — the full system is in our Chinese tones guide.

杯 itself is a friendlier character: 木 (wood) on the left, 不 on the right for sound. Ancient cups were wooden. It's also the measure word for drinks — 一杯茶 (a cup of tea), 两杯啤酒 (two beers) — so it earns its keep far beyond toasting.

The toasts themselves

A toast in Chinese is usually directed at someone rather than broadcast at the room. 敬 (jìng) is the verb — it means to respect, and by extension to toast — so 我敬你一杯 is literally "I respectfully offer you a glass."

随意 — the most useful word at a Chinese banquet

If you take one phrase away from this page, take this one. 随意 (suí yì) means "as you please," and in a drinking context it explicitly releases the other person — or yourself — from finishing the glass. It is not rude, it is not a foreigner's dodge, and Chinese speakers use it on each other constantly. Toasting etiquette guides for Taiwan list 隨意 alongside 乾杯 as one of the two things you say while raising a glass, and it works the same way in Mainland China.

The polite construction is 我干杯，你随意 — "I'll empty mine, you drink as you like" — said by the person offering the toast to the person receiving it. Offering someone 随意 is generous. Claiming it for yourself (我随意) is fine too, especially if you've already had a few, but the generous direction is the one that makes you look like you know what you're doing.

How to decline a drink without insulting anyone

Flat refusal — 我不喝酒, "I don't drink" — is understood but blunt, and in a business or in-law setting it can read as declining the relationship rather than the alcohol. The fix is to keep the ritual and swap the liquid. 以茶代酒 (yǐ chá dài jiǔ), "substitute tea for wine," is a recognised, respectable move with centuries behind it: you raise your teacup, you toast, you honour the person, you don't drink alcohol. Nobody loses face.

Reasons help too, and specific ones work better than principled ones. 我开车 (I'm driving) is unarguable and is taken seriously — drink-driving enforcement in China is severe. Medical reasons close the subject. "I'd rather not" invites persuasion; "I'm driving" does not.

Toasting etiquette: the rules that actually matter

Most of what gets written about Chinese banquet etiquette is either obvious or obsolete. These four are neither, and getting them right is genuinely noticed.

• Hold your glass rim lower than the senior person's. When you clink with someone older, more senior, or your host, angle your glass so the rim meets below theirs. Among Chinese speakers it's automatic — which is exactly why a foreigner doing it registers. If the other person lowers theirs too, you'll end up in a brief polite race toward the tablecloth. That's the correct outcome.
• Use two hands, or one hand supporting the other. Right hand on the glass, left fingertips under its base. Same for receiving a pour, and the same gesture as handing over a business card.
• Don't pour your own first. Fill your neighbour's glass before your own — 满上 (mǎn shàng, "fill it up") is what you say while doing it — and someone will fill yours in return.
• Toast in order. The host toasts the table first; then guests toast the host, then work outward by seniority. If you want to toast someone specific, wait until after the host's opening round, then go around the table rather than singling one person out.

You'll also hear rhetoric designed to keep the rounds going — 不醉不归 (bù zuì bù guī, "nobody goes home sober") is the classic. Treat it as theatre, not a contract. The way out is always 随意, always available, and never taken as an insult by anyone reasonable.

Wishes to attach to a toast

A toast usually carries a wish, which is where 祝 (zhù, "to wish") comes in. These are the ones people actually say when they stand up with a glass.

Which phrase, when?

Mainland and Taiwan: same word, different table

The vocabulary is shared — 干杯/乾杯, 随意/隨意, 敬 and 以茶代酒 are used across both — but what's in the glass and how hard the round is pushed differ, and that's what changes your evening.

In Mainland China, the formal banquet drink is 白酒 (bái jiǔ), a grain spirit usually between 40% and 60% alcohol, served in small cups precisely so they can be emptied and refilled. This is where 干杯 is most likely to be meant literally and where 随意 earns its place in your vocabulary. Beer (啤酒, pí jiǔ) is the everyday alternative and carries far less obligation.

In Taiwan, beer and 高粱酒 (gāo liáng jiǔ, sorghum liquor — the Kinmen distillery is the famous one) do most of the work, and the whole ritual generally runs lighter: 乾杯 among friends often functions as a plain "cheers" with a mouthful rather than a drained glass, though at a formal table the literal reading still applies. Taiwanese speakers also lean on softening particles, so a raised glass frequently comes with 乾杯啦 rather than a bare 乾杯. If you're reading in traditional characters, you'll see 乾杯 throughout our traditional Chinese reading practice.

Mistakes to avoid

• Saying 干杯 when you meant "cheers." The most common learner error at a formal table. If you're not planning to empty the glass, raise it and say 随意 — or say 干杯 and then actually drain it, which is the other honourable option.
• Writing 幹杯. The traditional form is 乾杯. 幹 is a completely different character, pronounced gàn, and it doubles as a vulgarity — so this misprint is the character equivalent of a very loud typo.
• Refusing without offering a substitute. "我不喝酒" full stop is a closed door. 以茶代酒 keeps the toast, the respect, and the relationship while removing the alcohol, which is what everyone at the table actually cares about.
• Toasting the most important person first, on your own initiative. The host opens. Jumping ahead of them to toast the senior guest reads as either ignorance or a power move. Wait one round.
• Pouring for yourself and no one else. Glasses are filled by other people. If you notice yours is full and your neighbour's isn't, you've been served and haven't reciprocated — pick up the bottle, say 满上, and fix it.

Drinking culture is older than the etiquette around it

Wine and grain liquor have been part of Chinese social life for a very long time, which is why toasting words turn up in classical idioms and not just in phrasebooks. In Drawing a Snake and Adding Feet, a free browser story behind the idiom 画蛇添足, the whole plot hangs on a pot of good wine: friends drinking together (一群朋友一起喝酒聊天) agree that the first to draw a snake wins the pot, and the man who wins it loses it by showing off. The dynamic at that table hasn't changed much since.

Worth knowing, and honestly reported: 干 and 杯 are not high-frequency characters in ordinary reading. Neither appears in the top 150 characters measured across the 658 graded stories in the Literate Chinese catalog (July 2026) — a list whose 150th entry still turns up 203 times. Toasting vocabulary is culturally central and textually rare, which is a good reason to learn it as a set of ready-made phrases rather than waiting to absorb it from reading. For the rest of the table — the dishes, the ordering, the menu — see how to read a Chinese menu and our Chinese food vocabulary guide.