Animals and Pets - 2nd level Mandarin

Some animals are very important within Chinese culture.

You can learn a bit about this in the story of the zodiac animals.

Pets

To tell someone what pet you have in Mandarin, you can use Wǒ yǒu (I have).

To say ‘I have a cat’ in Mandarin you would not simply say ‘ Wǒ yǒu māo’ - this misses out the ‘a’.

In Mandarin, measure words (often called ‘classifiers’) are used to classify the type of object being discussed.

For animals, these are:

Measure Word	Use
yī zhī	For relatively small animals, eg dogs, cats and rabbits
yī tóu	For larger animals, eg cows, pigs and elephants
yī pǐ	For horses and wolves specifically
yī tiáo	For long, thin, wriggly or slithery animals, eg snakes and fish

So, to say ‘I have a cat’ in Mandarin you would say:

Wǒ yǒu yī zhī māo - I have a cat

When you want to say you have two of something in Mandarin, you don’t use èr (two).

Instead, you use the Mandarin word liǎng, for example:

Wǒ yǒu liǎng zhī gǒu - I have two dogs

This only applies to the number ‘two’ - all other numbers stay the same.

As well as pets, here are some other animals you may want to talk about in Mandarin:

Some animals names translate very literally from Mandarin into English, for example:

Why not practise what you've learnt by reading The zodiac animals in Mandarin.