How to Say No Problem in Chinese: 没问题, 没关系, and 没事

By Ray Banks·October 25, 2026·Phrases

"No problem" in Chinese is 没问题 (沒問題), pronounced méi wèntí, and it means what it says: there is no problem with your request, I can do it. The catch is that English uses "no problem" for three different jobs, and Chinese has a different phrase for each. Someone asks a favour: 没问题. Someone apologises: 没关系 méi guānxi. Someone thanks you: 不客气 bù kèqi on the Mainland, 不會 bù huì in Taiwan. Cutting across all of them is 没事 méi shì, "it's nothing," which is the phrase you will actually hear most often. Get the three jobs straight and you stop answering apologies with a phrase that means "sure, I'll do it."

没问题, 没关系, or 没事? Three phrases English collapses into one

The test is simple. What did the other person just say? If it was a request or a question about feasibility, answer 没问题. If it was an apology, answer 没关系. If it was concern, light thanks, or a small apology, 没事 covers it. All three start with 没 méi, "there isn't," and differ only in what there isn't: no problem, no connection, no matter.

That last point is worth holding onto because it explains the usage. 没关系 says the thing you did has no bearing on me. 没事 says there is no incident here. Neither of them is agreeing to anything, which is why they sit on the other side of the line from 没问题.

How do you say "no problem" when someone asks you for something?

没问题 is the headline answer, and it is a strong one: it signals confidence, not just consent. Around it sits a family of agreement words that shade from "fine" to "leave it with me." These are also the phrases you use to answer 可以吗？"is that OK?" and 行吗？"will that work?"

One nuance: 没问题 is a complete answer, but in a work setting it is often followed by the plan. 没问题，我下午发给你 ("no problem, I'll send it this afternoon") lands better than a bare 没问题, which can sound like brushing the request off. Chinese speakers tend to attach the commitment to the agreement.

How do you say "no problem" after someone apologises?

没关系 or 没事. Both mean "it's fine," both are correct everywhere, and the difference is weight: 没关系 is the fuller form, 没事 the quicker one. The mistake to avoid is answering an apology with 没问题, which sounds like you have just approved something.

There is a real regional wrinkle here. In Taiwan, 沒關係 has grown a second job: a gentle refusal. A waiter offers more tea, a friend offers to pay, a shop assistant asks if you want a bag, and the Taiwanese answer is often 沒關係，不用了, "it's fine, no need." Mainland speakers, who use 没关系 almost exclusively for apologies, sometimes find this confusing, because it can sound as if you are forgiving the person for offering. If you are learning Taiwan Mandarin, this is a phrase worth having; if you are on the Mainland, decline with 不用了 bù yòng le and keep 没关系 for apologies.

How do you say "no problem" after someone thanks you?

On the Mainland the default is 不客气 bù kèqi, "don't be polite." In Taiwan it is 不會 bù huì, the same card as above. 没事 works casually in both places, and 小意思 works when the favour really was small. This is one of the cleanest Mainland-Taiwan splits in everyday speech, and picking the local one is an easy way to sound like you belong.

For the full set of thank-you replies, including how heavy 谢谢 is between family, see how to say thank you in Chinese.

How do you say "no problem" meaning "I'm fine, don't worry"?

我没事 wǒ méi shì, "I'm fine." When someone asks 你还好吗？ or 你没事吧？ after you trip, cough, or go quiet, this is the answer. It is the same 没事 as before, now pointed at yourself.

Which "no problem" should I use? A comparison table

Mistakes to avoid

• Answering "sorry" with 没问题. The single most common error, and it comes straight from English. Someone bumps you and says 不好意思; you say 没问题; they hear "sure, I approve." Say 没事 or 没关系. Our sorry post has the full set of apology replies.
• Answering a request with 没关系. The mirror image. Your colleague asks if you can cover a shift; 没关系 means "it doesn't matter," which sounds like you are shrugging the question off. 没问题 or 可以.
• Treating 问题 as only "problem." 问题 also means "question." 有问题吗？ at the end of a presentation is "any questions?", not "any problems?" And 没问题 in reply to 有没有问题？ can mean either "no questions" or "no issues," depending on context.
• Saying 不客气 for everything in Taiwan. It is understood and not wrong, but 不會 is what locals say, and using it marks you as someone who has actually listened to Taiwan Mandarin rather than a textbook. The reverse also holds: 不会 as a reply to thanks will get a puzzled look in Beijing, where it just means "I can't."
• Getting the tones on 没 and 事 wrong. 没 is second tone, rising, and 事 is fourth, falling: méi shì. With a flat 事 it collides with other words and stops sounding like a phrase. The tones guide covers the second-fourth pattern, which shows up in a lot of high-frequency phrases.

What do the characters in 没问题 mean?

All three phrases in the title share the first character, and it is one of the most important in the language.

没 is the negator that goes with 有 "to have" and with completed actions: 没有 "don't have," 没去 "didn't go." 没问题 is really 没有问题 with the 有 dropped, which is why it means "there is no problem" rather than "not a problem." The same shape gives you 没关系 (没有关系, "there is no connection") and 没事 (没有事, "there is no matter"). Learn 没 as "there isn't" and all three phrases become transparent.

问题 is 问 "to ask" + 题 "topic," so its core meaning is "a thing to be asked about," which is why it covers both "question" and "problem." 关系 (關係) is 关 "to connect, to close" + 系 "to tie," a connection, and it is the same 关系 as the famous guanxi of personal networks: 没关系 literally says "no ties bind this to me." 事 shì is "matter, affair, business," the thing in 事情 shìqing and 故事 gùshi (a story, literally "old matters").

Across the 658 graded stories in the Literate Chinese catalog (141,730 hanzi occurrences, July 2026), 没 is the 49th most frequent character, 事 the 67th, and 问 the 69th. All three sit comfortably inside the first hundred characters a reader meets, which is another way of saying that these phrases are not idioms you add later. They are built from the structural bones of the language.

Why Chinese speakers deflect rather than accept

Notice that every phrase on this page except 没问题 works by denying that anything happened. 没关系: no connection. 没事: no matter. 不客气: don't be formal. 不會: it wasn't anything. 举手之劳: I barely lifted a hand. English "you're welcome" accepts the thanks; the Chinese replies erase the debt. That is the polite move in a culture where small obligations between people are tracked more carefully than in English-speaking ones. To accept thanks too readily is to confirm that a debt exists.

This is also why 没事 is so common as the answer to concern, and why it is not always to be believed. 我没事 from a friend who has just been dumped means the same as an English "I'm fine": please do not make me talk about it yet. Between close friends and family the right response is often not to take 没事 at face value but to do something practical, the way the office story Afternoon Mood has a colleague reply 没事啦，每个人都会犯错 ("it's fine, everyone makes mistakes") and then simply get on with fixing the problem. The phrase closes the topic; the action does the comforting.

See these phrases in real stories

The frequency figures above are only useful if you actually read. 没事 appears in Afternoon Mood, a free office story in our browser reader, in exactly the situation this post describes: someone has made a mistake, is apologising, and is told 没事啦. 不用 ("no need") turns up in The Farmer and the Rabbit, where the farmer decides 不用辛苦工作 and waits for another rabbit to run into his tree. There are hundreds more short stories at every level in our Chinese reading practice collection, with tap-to-look-up on every word, and the whole set is available in Traditional characters if you are learning Taiwan Mandarin. If you want the grammar behind 没 versus 不, the two negators learners mix up most, the Chinese grammar guide has an entry on exactly that.