How to say Good and Bad in Chinese

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In this post we’ll look at different ways to say “good” and “bad” in Chinese with varying degrees of strength. At a basic level, every Chinese learner should first learn that 好(hǎo) means “good”, and 不好 (bù hǎo) means “not good”.

Below is a list of vocabulary for expressing “very good” to “very bad” in Chinese with example sentences:

很不好 (hěn bù hǎo) very bad

我觉得很不好 (wǒ jué de hěn bù hǎo) I feel very bad

不好 (bù hǎo) not good

不好看 (bù hǎo kàn) not good looking

不太好 (bù tài hǎo) not too good

天气不太好 (tiān qì bù tài hǎo) The weather isn’t very good

马马虎虎 (mǎ ma hū hū) so-so

我的中文马马虎虎 (wǒ de Zhōng wén mǎ ma hū hū) My Chinese is so-so

还可以 (hái kě yǐ) okay

他还可以 (tā hái kě yǐ) He’s okay

还不错 (hái bù cuò) okay

学习怎么样？(xué xí zěn me yang) 还不错 (hái bù cuò) How’s school? Okay, not bad.

不错 (bù cuò) good (“not bad”)

听起来很不错 (tīng qǐ lai hěn bù cuò) Sounds good

好(hǎo) good

很好 (hěn hǎo) very good

他们很好 (tā men hěn hǎo) They’re very good

非常好 (fēi cháng hǎo) excellent

那是非常好的 (nà shì fēi cháng hǎo de) That would be great

As you can see there are a variety of ways to express the degree of how good or bad something or someone is in Chinese. You don’t need to memorize the entire list, but try to make use of a few of the phrases to help to commit them to memory.