Talking about Hometown in Mandarin

在 (Zài)

在 (zài) means to be in, on or at. It is used to indicate location, where a person, a place or a thing is. For examples:

1. 我在天津。(Wǒ zài Tiānjīn)
   
2. 我的家人在北京。(Wǒ de jiārén zài Běijīng)

家人(jiārén ) means family member, so the sentence means “My family are in Beijing”.

Talking about where someone’s home town is

If you want to say my hometown is in Fúzhōu, you can say:

我的老家在福州。Wǒ de lǎojiā zài fúzhōu.

My home town is in Fuzhou. Fuzhou is the capital city of Fujian Province.

Let’s practice all the sentences again!

我在天津。(Wǒ zài Tiānjīn) I am in Tianjin.

我的家人在北京。Wǒ de jiārén zài Běijīng. My family are in Beijing.

我的老家在福州。Wǒ de lǎojiā zài Fúzhōu. My home town is in Fuzhou.

But if you want to ask where someone home town is, you need to know the question word 哪儿/哪里（nǎr/nǎlǐ）which means where.

Now let’s make a sentence using the word 哪儿/哪里（nǎr/nǎlǐ）:

1. 你的老家在哪儿/哪里？Nǐ de lǎojiā zài nǎr/nàlǐ? Where is your home town?

Pay attention that we put the question word 哪儿/哪里（nǎr/nǎlǐ）at the end of the sentence. Normally the Mandarin question words order is the same as the answers’ order.

Let’s practice more sentences:

你的老家在那里？

Nǐ de lǎojiā zài nàlǐ?

我的老家在天津。

Wǒ de lǎojiā zài Tiānjīn.

他的老家在那里？

Tā de lǎojiā zài nàlǐ?

他的老家在福州。

Tā de lǎojiā zài fúzhōu.

你的家人在那里？

Nǐ de jiārén zài nàlǐ?

我的家人在北京。

Wǒ de jiārén zài Běijīng.

In the previous lesson we learned, if you want to say people from certain countries, you can just add the word 人(rén) after the countries’ names such as 中国人(Zhōngguórén), 美国人(Měiguórén), 德国人 (Déguórén), 韩国 人(Hánguórén), etc, therefore, if you want to say the people who are from certain cities, you can just add the word 人(rén) after the cities’ names, for examples:

天津人 (Tiānjīnrén), 北京人 (Běijīngrén) ,福州人 (Fúzhōurén), 上海人(Shànghǎirén). So now you know how to say which city your home town town is.

我是天津人。Wǒ shì Tiānjīnrén.

他是北京人。Tā shì Běijīngrén.

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Filed under: Mandarin Chinese

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