再見 / 再见
zàijiàn
再見 / 再见 (zàijiàn) is the Chinese way to say bye. Wiktionary also lists 再會 / 再会 (zàihuì) and 回見 / 回见 (huíjiàn).
Meaning: short for goodbye (intj)
Ways to say it
| Chinese | Romanization (Wiktionary) |
|---|---|
| 再見 / 再见 | zàijiàn |
| 再會 / 再会 | zàihuì |
| 回見 / 回见 | huíjiàn |
| 拜拜 | bàibài, bāibái, báibái |
The most common way to say goodbye in casual, everyday conversation is the transliterated 拜拜. You may also hear the informal phrase 拜拜了 when saying goodbye to friends, or 下次见 to mean "see you next time". In internet slang, the numbers 88 are used to represent "bye bye" because the numbers bā bā sound similar to the way 拜拜 is pronounced.
What does it mean word for word?
The phrase 再見 is composed of 再 (again) and 見 (to see), literally meaning "see you again".
Which one should you use?
再見 is the standard form, whereas 拜拜 is much more casual. There are also the forms 再會 / 再会 and 回見 / 回见.
Is there a formal and an informal way to say it?
拜拜 is the most common way to say bye in casual, everyday conversation and is considered informal. 再見 is standard but can feel slightly more formal or final than 拜拜. The number 88 is considered slang.
How do you pronounce it?
zàijiàn
Did you know?
- While 拜拜 sounds like 'bye bye', the character 拜 actually means 'to worship' or 'to bow'. In ancient China, this gesture was used to show respect to ancestors or deities.
- In Taiwan, 拜拜 is used both as a casual goodbye and as a term for the act of praying at a temple. This creates a linguistic link between leaving a place and paying respects to a god.
- The casual 拜拜 is actually a loanword from English 'bye-bye', adapted to fit Chinese phonetics through a process called phono-semantic matching.
Examples in context
- 拜拜！Bye!This sentence is useful for learning how to use the form 拜拜.Tatoeba #1746537 by kaenif, translation #647456 by Hans07
- 1 more sentence on Tatoeba
Sources
- Wiktionary, “bye” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
- Word origins: Wiktionary entries 拜拜, CC BY-SA 4.0.
- Example sentences: Tatoeba CC BY 2.0 FR.
