How to say it in Chinese

Thief in Chinese

thief · HSK 6

小偷 xiǎo tōu

  1. 小 xiǎo small
  2. 偷 tōu to steal

坐地铁的时候要小心小偷。 Watch out for pickpockets when taking the subway.

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More words with 小 or 偷

How do you say thief in Chinese?

Thief in Chinese is 小偷 (xiǎo tōu).

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?

Our own 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.

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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 our own dictionary. Chinese often has more than one way to say a word.