Funny Chinese jokes and Easy Chinese Jokes to learn Mandarin

Every nation has its own special brand of humor — born from its unique cultural and historical background. When learning Chinese you have to learn some funny Chinese jokes! It will not only improve your language skills but will also give you a deeper level of insight into the culture!

To understand a Chinese joke 笑话 (xiào huà) in the Chinese language, you might need to have some basic ideas of “tones”, “double meaning”, and “homophonic Chinese puns” in advance.

Today at TutorMandarin, you will learn the Chinese language by learning Chinese jokes. For beginners, it might be difficult to catch the punchline. Don’t worry. Keep practicing, leave a comment, or ask a teacher. It’s all part of the Chinese language learning journey!

Let’s begin Chinese Joke !

 

Chinese Joke 1: “The Story of two steaks”

Q: 一块三分熟的牛排在街上走着，突然他在前方看到一块五分熟的牛排，可却没有理会他 …他们为什么没打招呼?

A: …因为他们不熟！

Q: Yī kuài sān fèn shú de niú pái zài jiē shàng zǒu zhe，tū rán tā zài qián fāng kàn dào yī kuài wǔ fèn shú de niú pái，kě què méi yǒu lǐ huì tā… tā men wéi shí me méi dǎ zhāo hū ?

A: …yīn wéi tā men bù shú！

Q: A medium-rare (3/10) steak was walking down the street, and suddenly saw a medium done (5/10) steak. But he didn’t pay any attention to him… Why didn’t they greet each other?

A: Because they were unfamiliar with each other!

>> Hint: This is a classic example for double meaning.

熟 shú can mean both “cooked” or “be familiar with”.

So the joke’s keypoint is to get the meaning of 不熟 (uncooked / unfamiliar), the rare and medium steak are both uncooked.

Chinese Joke 2: “A foreigner tries to order dumplings”

有一個外國人到中國學中文。

有一天下課時肚子很餓，所以去學校隔壁的水餃店買午餐。

因為老闆娘長得很漂亮，讓他有點緊張，所以點菜時說：「老闆，我要睡覺，一晚多少錢？」（老闆我要水餃，一碗多少錢） 之後每次回去那家店都被打一巴掌。

Yǒu yī gè wài guó rén dào zhōng guó xué zhōng wén。

Yǒu yī tiān xià kè shí dù zǐ hěn è，suǒ yǐ qù xué xiào gé bì de shuǐ jiǎo diàn mǎi wǔ cān。Yīn wéi lǎo pǎn niáng zhǎng dé hěn piāo liàng，ràng tā yǒu diǎn jǐn zhāng，suǒ yǐ diǎn cài shí shuō:「lǎo bǎn，wǒ yào shuì jiào，yī wǎn duō shǎo qián？」（lǎo pǎn wǒ yào shuǐ jiǎ，yī wǎn duō shǎo qián) zhī hòu měi cì huí qù nà jiā diàn dōu bèi dǎ yī bā zhǎng。

One foreigner went studying Chinese in China.

One day, he was very hungry after class, so he went to a dumpling restaurant which is next to the school.

The boss lady is very pretty, the guy was, therefore, a bit nervous. When he was ordering, he said “Boss, I want to sleep with you. How much is a night?” (Boss, I want dumplings, how much is a bowl of it?). Afterwards, he will get slapped whenever he goes to that restaurant.

>>Hint: “Tones” matter! When ordering dumplings, please pay attention to your pronunciation. The tones for 水餃 shuǐ jiǎo (dumplings) are 3rd tone, 3rd tone, respectively.

The tone for 睡覺 shuì jiào (to sleep with sb./ to sleep) are 4th tone, 4th tone, respectively.

一晚 (one night) and 一碗 (one bowl of) are both pronounced as “yī wǎn”, but with extremely different meaning.

In the joke, the foreigner guy has messed the tones of 水餃 and 睡覺 up. Therefore, he was being misunderstood, that he wanted to proposition the boss lady.

Not that easy, right? As you might already have recognized, speaking Chinese is all about the tones. Therefore, we developed a 1-on-1 interactive Pinyin Course, available at our TutorMandarin App, to help people using the right tones in the right situation. Interested in? Sign up for a Free Trial to get to know our professional Tutors and an impression how much fun learning Chinese is!

But let’s continue with the jokes…

 

Chinese Joke 3: “The joke of A and C”

Q: 谁比较高？A还是C？

A: C, 因为，A比C低。

Q: Shuí bǐ jiào gāo？Ahái shì C？

A: C, yīn wéi，A bǐ Cdī。

Q: Who is higher (taller)? A or C?

A: C because, A is lower than C.

>> Hint: ABCD is the order of English alphabets. It sounds just like “A 比 C 低 (A bǐ Cdī )”, which means A is lower than C.

Chinese Jokes Vocabulary

Chinese	Pinyin	English
笑话	xiào huà	joke
三分熟	sān fèn shú	medium-rare(3/10)
五分熟	wǔ fèn shú	medium done (5/10)
熟	shú	1. cooked 2. be familiar with
水餃	shuǐ jiǎo	dumplings
睡覺	shuì jiào	to sleep/ to sleep with someone
比	bǐ	compared to…

We hope you enjoy the jokes!

Which one does you like? Or do you know some better ones you want to share with us? Can’t wait to hear from you!

Here is the video for you to know better about the Chinese food joke!

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