Survival Chinese for Your China Trip

By Ray Banks·August 20, 2026·Phrases

You can survive a China trip with about 40 phrases and the right three apps. The apps handle payment, taxis, and translation; the phrases handle everything the apps can't — ordering food, dodging the chili, finding the bathroom, being a polite guest. This guide covers both, updated for how China actually works in 2026, with every phrase in characters (simplified and traditional), pinyin, and English. If you only have five minutes, learn the ten phrases in the first table and set up Alipay before you board.

If you only learn 10 phrases, learn these

These ten do the most work per syllable. Every one is short, high-frequency, and useful in dozens of situations. Where Taiwan says it differently, the note tells you.

Do you need Chinese to travel in China in 2026?

Less than you did in 2019, and more than the app stores suggest. Modern China runs on phones — payment, taxis, ordering, even museum tickets — and the apps now work for foreigners. But English penetration outside hotels and airports is still low, and every traveler ends up in situations where a phrase or a shown character saves the day. Here's the 2026 logistics picture:

• Payment. China is nearly cashless in daily life. The good news: in 2026, both Alipay and WeChat Pay let foreign visitors link international Visa, Mastercard, and JCB cards directly — no Chinese bank account or local SIM required, and verification is passport-photo-based and usually takes minutes. Small purchases (currently under ¥200) carry no fee; larger ones carry a ~3% fee, and single-transaction and annual limits apply — check the in-app schedule. Set up both apps before you fly; when one fails at a stall, the other usually works. Carry a little cash as backup — it's legal tender everywhere, even if vendors sigh.
• Taxis. Street-hailing is fading; locals use DiDi (滴滴). The app has a full English interface, registers with an international phone number, and its chat auto-translates between you and the driver. The most reliable payment setup is linking your card to Alipay or WeChat Pay first and paying DiDi through that.
• Visas. This changed repeatedly between 2024 and 2026, so treat any blog post — including this one — as a snapshot. As of mid-2026: citizens of about 50 countries (most of Europe, the UK, Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korea and more) can enter visa-free for up to 30 days, and citizens of 55 countries — including the US — can use the 240-hour (10-day) visa-free transit policy when continuing to a third country or region. Check the National Immigration Administration or your local Chinese embassy for the current rules before you book.
• Connectivity. Many services you rely on at home (Google, WhatsApp, Instagram) don't work on Chinese domestic networks. Travelers handle this with international roaming or a travel eSIM (data routes through your home carrier), or by installing a VPN before arrival. Whatever you choose, sort it out before you land.
• Translation. Download offline translation packs before the flight (in case your connectivity plan hiccups). Camera translation is the killer feature for menus, and Alipay has translation built in. Machine translation plus the phrases below covers nearly everything.

Arrival and immigration phrases

Immigration officers at major airports handle non-Chinese speakers all day, and forms are bilingual. You mostly need to state your purpose and where you're staying.

Taxi, DiDi, and metro phrases

With DiDi the destination is set in the app, so most rides need zero Chinese. These phrases cover regular taxis, the last hundred meters, and the metro — which is excellent, bilingual, and by far the cheapest way around big cities.

Hotel check-in phrases

Note the regional split: on the Mainland a hotel is 酒店 (jiǔdiàn); in Taiwan it's 饭店/飯店 (fàndiàn) — which on the Mainland usually means a restaurant. Bring your passport to check-in; it's required.

Restaurant phrases: ordering, dietary restrictions, and the bill

Restaurants are where survival Chinese pays for itself. Many places now order by QR code (pay with your linked Alipay), but food words, spice control, and allergy phrases still have to come from you. The pattern for dietary restrictions is 我不吃… (wǒ bù chī…, "I don't eat…") — attach whatever you avoid.

To get a server's attention, 不好意思 (bù hǎo yìsi) works everywhere. On the Mainland you'll also hear people call 服务员 (fúwùyuán, "server"); in Taiwan that's 服务生/服務生 (fúwùshēng), and calling out is less common — a raised hand and 不好意思 is the local move.

Shopping and bargaining phrases

Malls and chain stores are fixed-price. Markets and souvenir stalls expect a little negotiation — friendly, not combative, and walking away is your strongest card.

Asking for directions

Open with 请问 (qǐngwèn) and you'll get patient help almost every time. Understanding the answer is the hard part — so ask people to point, or show your map app and let them tap.

Emergencies and the pharmacy

Emergency numbers on the Mainland: 110 police, 120 ambulance, 119 fire. In Taiwan: 110 police, 119 fire and ambulance. Pharmacies are everywhere and pharmacists are used to pointing-and-miming; a pharmacy is 药店/藥店 (yàodiàn) on the Mainland and 药局/藥局 (yàojú) in Taiwan.

Numbers and money: the quick reference

Numbers are the highest-value vocabulary on the whole trip — prices, floors, platforms, times. The system is beautifully regular: learn 1–10 and you can build everything to 99. In speech, prices use 块 (塊, kuài) the way English uses "bucks"; 元 (yuán) is the written/formal unit, and Taiwan uses 块/塊 for New Taiwan dollars too.

Vendors will often just show you the number on a calculator or phone screen — universal sign language for "this much." For the full system, including the hand gestures for 6–10 and how 250 became an insult, see our complete guide to Chinese numbers 1–100.

Politeness: the five words that change how you're treated

Chinese politeness for travelers is less about honorifics and more about a handful of softeners used often. 请 (請, qǐng, "please") in front of requests, 谢谢 (謝謝, xièxie) after them, 不客气 (不客氣, bú kèqi, "you're welcome") in reply, 没关系 (沒關係, méi guānxi, "no problem") to wave off apologies, and 不好意思 (bù hǎo yìsi) for everything else — getting past someone, flagging a server, prefacing a question, mild apology. In Taiwan, 不好意思 is practically punctuation: you'll hear it constantly, and using it freely is the single fastest way to sound courteous there. We cover the thank-you family in more depth in how to say thank you in Chinese.

What's different in Taiwan?

The Mandarin is the same language, but a traveler notices four things immediately. First, the script: Taiwan uses traditional characters (繁體字), so 买单 becomes 買單. Second, the words: the metro is 捷运/捷運 (jiéyùn), not 地铁/地鐵; a taxi is 计程车/計程車 (jìchéngchē), not 出租车; your transit card is the 悠遊卡 (Yōuyóukǎ, EasyCard), which also pays at convenience stores. Third, logistics: cash and the EasyCard still carry more of daily life than in China — you won't need Alipay, and international credit cards work in most city businesses. Fourth, the politeness register runs softer: more 不好意思, more 谢谢, question-final 喔 and 吧 everywhere. None of this is "wrong Mandarin" in either direction — they're two standards of the same language, and we've mapped the differences in Taiwan vs Mainland Mandarin.

Do tones really matter for a tourist?

Less than you fear, in context. If you're standing in a restaurant holding a menu and say "mǎidān" with wobbly tones, nobody thinks you said anything else — context is doing most of the work. Get the syllables and rhythm roughly right, speak in situations where your meaning is obvious, and you'll be understood far more often than tone-anxiety predicts. Two force multipliers: show, don't just say — keeping these phrases in characters on your phone means you can always point, and characters are unambiguous where your pronunciation isn't; and hear each phrase before you need it — in the Literate Chinese app, every word and phrase plays native-speaker audio in Mainland or Taiwan pronunciation, so you can drill this exact list by ear. When you're ready to actually understand the answers you get back, that's a longer road — start with our guide to the five tones, then try reading your first story.