At first in Chinese
at first · HSK 4
本来
- 本 root
- 来 to come
Other ways to say at first
More words with 本 or 来
How do you say at first in Chinese?
At first in Chinese is 本来 (běn lái). You can also say 初 (chū), 最初 (zuì chū), 起初 (qǐ chū).
Which word should I use?
Start with the first one: it is the easiest on the HSK list. The others say it too, often in a more formal way or for a narrower sense; each one’s page has real sentences that show how it is used.
Where do these words come from?
The CC-CEDICT dictionary’s meanings for the official HSK word list. A word is shown for an English word when that is one of its first meanings; the easiest word whose first meaning it is comes first.
More free tools
Greetings: hello, good morning and goodbye. Measure words: the classifier for any noun. Tone practice: say a word and see your tones. Read any Mandarin: point at a word for its meaning.
Meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Chinese often has more than one way to say a word.