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I always thought that "wo de ming zi shi ..." is the only correct form but today I found (and also a quite a few hits on Google" "wo de ming zi jiao ...". Is the latter normally used and correct?

John V
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    I don't understand the down-voting here; this is a good question! Thinking that there is only one correct way to say something is maybe a bit naive, but I think that's not against the rules. :) – Olle Linge Sep 06 '21 at 21:16

4 Answers4

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First of all, I am not sure why the downvote on the question. It's a legitimate question at a basic level.

Now back to the question. Both are correct. /jiao/ literally "call".

/wo de ming zi shi .../ roughly translated to: My name is ...

/wo de ming zi jiao .../ My name is called ... (or, better, I am called ...)

I don't know why you thought the first one is the ONLY correct form. Perhaps it's what is in your textbook? Or it's what your teacher teaches in class? But in a language, it's very common to have more than one way to say something, especially something as common, and basic, as "my name is ...".

Welcome to language learning!

monalisa
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    Good catch. The former is the formal teaching given to beginners and considered the formal way to introduce oneself. The latter is more casual. – r13 Sep 06 '21 at 20:33
  • It should be forbidden to give downvotes without a comment. – PdotWang Nov 21 '23 at 15:45
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I'm an experienced Chinese speaker, and I totally understand your issue. "Wo de ming zi" (in Chinese: 我的名字） means my name is. Like in English, there are lots of ways to say "my name is". "Wo de ming zhi jiao" （我的名字叫）means "my name is called". In replying to @EmanAdam 's comment, both phrases are actually used very often in daily life. However, these phrases are mostly used in Mandarin, and not in Cantonese, which is a more "relaxed" style of language. In Cantonese, to say what your name is would be more like "我個名係...". As you can see, the language is much more natural to say. I hope you have a good time learning Chinese!

希望你喜歡學中文！

mickey mouse
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Wo jiao wang li Wo de ming zi shi wang li But it's my first time to hear ( wo de ming jiao....) I think it's grammatical true , but not in every day languages

Eman Adam
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Wo de Ming Zi SHI vs Wo de Ming Zi JIAO?

The following two statements are correct:

(1) Wo de Ming Zi SHI Zhang San.

(2) Wo JIAO Zhang San.

Where SHI and JIAO are verbs.

It is OK to say:

(3) Wo de Ming Zi JIAO Zhang San.

and people always say:

(4) Ni de Ming Zi JIAO Shen Mo?

PdotWang
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