Stop sounding like a textbook: 12 phrases real Chinese people say

Marco, an engineer from Milan, moved to Beijing with two years of evening classes behind him. He greeted his new colleagues every morning with a bright 你好吗？ For three weeks they answered him politely. In week four, one of them asked — kindly, curiously — whether something was wrong at home.

Nothing was wrong. He had been asking, roughly, "Are you well?" in the tone you use with someone recovering from surgery.

This is the strangest gap in language learning: you can be grammatically flawless and still sound like a phrasebook that learned to walk. The fix is not more vocabulary. It is about a dozen substitutions.

The twelve swaps

What the textbook taught	What people actually say	Roughly
你好吗？	最近怎么样？	How have you been lately?
我很好，谢谢，你呢？	还行 / 老样子	Not bad / same as always
是的	对 / echo the verb	Right / yes
对不起	不好意思	Sorry, excuse me (light)
不客气	没事儿 / 不用谢	No worries
我明白了	懂了 / 知道了	Got it
非常好	挺好的 / 不错	Pretty good / not bad
我不知道	不太清楚	I'm not really sure
太贵了！	有点儿贵	A bit pricey
真的吗？	真的假的？	Seriously?
再见	拜拜 / 我先走了	Bye / I'll head off
(silence while thinking)	那个…就是…	Um… I mean…

Now the reasons, because a swap you don't understand is just a new thing to forget.

Greetings: the question nobody asks

你好吗 (nǐ hǎo ma — are you well?) is a translation of "How are you?" that was built for textbooks and mostly stayed there. Native speakers use it for someone they haven't seen in years, or after an illness. Used daily, it lands like a doctor's visit.

What people actually say depends on how well they know you:

• 最近怎么样？ (zuìjìn zěnmeyàng — how's it been lately?) — friends, colleagues, anyone you know
• 早 (zǎo — morning) — the entire morning greeting, one syllable, and Marco's eventual fix
• 吃了吗？ (chī le ma — have you eaten?) — older, warmer, a genuine greeting rather than an invitation

And the answer is almost never 我很好，谢谢，你呢？ It is 还行 (hái xíng — I'm all right) or 老样子 (lǎo yàngzi — same as ever). Chinese small talk runs on understatement. Answering "I am very well, thank you, and you?" is the conversational equivalent of arriving in a tuxedo.

Yes, and the fact there isn't one

There is no all-purpose "yes" in Chinese. 是的 (shì de — it is so) is real, but it is formal and narrow, and beginners spray it everywhere.

In speech you either say 对 (duì — right), or you answer by repeating the verb:

• 你去吗？ (nǐ qù ma — are you going?) → 去。 (qù — going.)
• 你吃了吗？ (nǐ chī le ma — have you eaten?) → 吃了。 (chī le — I have.)
• 你有时间吗？ (nǐ yǒu shíjiān ma — do you have time?) → 有。 (yǒu — I do.)

Once you notice this, you hear it everywhere, and it is one of the fastest ways to stop sounding translated. English speakers find it strangely satisfying — it is closer to "I do" than to "yes".

Sorry: the heavy one and the light one

对不起 (duìbuqǐ — I'm sorry) carries real weight. It means you did something wrong and you are apologising for it. Use it after you break your friend's phone, not after you brush someone's elbow on the subway.

The everyday word is 不好意思 (bù hǎoyìsi — literally "not good meaning", effectively "excuse me / oops / sorry"). Squeezing past someone, arriving five minutes late, interrupting to ask a question, flagging down a waiter — 不好意思 covers all of it. It is also how you decline something gently.

Students who swap these two are the easiest to spot. Bumping into a stranger and announcing 对不起 makes a small moment large.

Thanks, agreement, and the enthusiasm problem

不客气 (bú kèqi — you're welcome) is not wrong; it is just a little stiff between friends. 没事儿 (méi shìr — it's nothing) and 不用谢 (bú yòng xiè — no need to thank me) are what you'll hear.

Similarly, 非常好 (fēicháng hǎo — extremely good) belongs in writing and in speeches. Spoken Chinese prefers 挺好的 (tǐng hǎo de — pretty good) and 不错 (búcuò — literally "not wrong", meaning genuinely good). 不错 is the one to internalise: it sounds lukewarm to an English ear and is real praise in Chinese.

The same restraint applies to disagreement and money. In a market, 太贵了！ (tài guì le — too expensive!) is an announcement. 有点儿贵 (yǒudiǎnr guì — a bit expensive) opens a negotiation. 有点儿 before an adjective is the standard softener for anything negative: 有点儿累 (yǒudiǎnr lèi — a bit tired), 有点儿难 (yǒudiǎnr nán — a bit difficult).

And 我不知道 (wǒ bù zhīdào — I don't know) is blunter than its English translation. 不太清楚 (bú tài qīngchu — I'm not too clear on that) is what a colleague says.

Learn to hesitate

This is my favourite one, because nobody teaches it and everybody needs it.

When a Chinese speaker is thinking, they do not go silent. They say 那个… (nàge — literally "that one", used exactly like "um"), or 就是… (jiùshì — "it's like…"), or 怎么说呢 (zěnme shuō ne — how should I put it).

Learners, meanwhile, stop dead while assembling a sentence, and the silence reads as the conversation is over, so someone else starts talking. Filling your pauses in Chinese buys you the floor while you think. Two syllables, enormous effect.

A warning: 那个 repeated quickly sounds uncomfortably like a slur in English. Chinese speakers are saying "um". It is worth knowing before you hear it forty times a day.

When the textbook is right

None of this makes 你好 or 谢谢 wrong. They are the polite register: strangers, officials, teachers, service staff, anything written, and every exam you will ever take. HSK will not reward you for 真的假的？

What you are building is a second gear. Formal Chinese for formal moments, and this for the other 90% of life. 入乡随俗 (rù xiāng suí sú — enter the village, follow its customs) — the customs here are quieter and warmer than the textbook suggests.

Pick three swaps, not twelve. Use them for a week until they come out without thinking, then take three more.

In a trial lesson I'll listen for the textbook tells — most people have four or five, and they're fixable in a single conversation. Bring something you say every day and we'll make it sound like you.