Chinese word dictionary

开玩笑

kāiwánxiào · to play a joke; to make fun of; to joke

Practice word

Word information

Simplified开玩笑

Traditional開玩笑

Pinyinkāiwánxiào

Part of speechv

HSK 3.04

HSK 2.04

Character breakdown

Study each Hanzi separately, then return to the complete word so pronunciation, meaning, and movement stay connected.

开kāi

to open; to start, to initiate, to begin

玩wán

to play with, to joke, to entertain

笑xiào

to smile, to laugh; to giggle; to snicker

How to learn 开玩笑

Listen once without reading, repeat the pinyin with its tones, then write every character in sequence. Finally, recall the complete meaning instead of memorizing each character as an isolated translation.

When the word appears in a sentence, check whether its part of speech and meaning match the definition shown here. Chinese words can change nuance with context.

Related vocabulary

Words with the same characters

Compare how a familiar Hanzi changes meaning inside another word.

好玩儿hǎowánr

erhua variant of 好玩[hao3 wan2]

开车kāichē

to drive a car (or train etc); (slang) to post sexual content online; to make a sexual joke

打开dǎkāi

to open; to show (a ticket); to turn on; to switch on

开始kāishǐ

to begin; beginning; to start; initial; CL:個|个[ge4]

开学kāixué

(of a student) to start school; (of a semester) to begin; (old) to found a school; the start of a new term

分开fēnkāi

to separate; to part