Ways to say it
| Chinese | Romanization (Wiktionary) | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 說謊 / 说谎 | shuōhuǎng | |
| 撒謊 / 撒谎 | sāhuǎng | |
| 白賊 / 白贼 | pe̍h-chha̍t | Hokkien |
說謊 / 说谎 means to tell a lie on purpose. It covers the verb only, as in he lied or do not lie.
What does it mean word for word?
說 or 说 means to speak and 謊 or 谎 means a lie, so the word is literally to speak a lie.
Which one should you use?
撒謊 / 撒谎 (sāhuǎng) means the same and is just as common in speech. For the noun, a lie or a falsehood, use 謊言 / 谎言, 謊話 / 谎话 or 假話 / 假话. In each pair the first spelling is traditional, used in Taiwan and Hong Kong and the second is simplified, used in mainland China and Singapore.
Is it said differently in some regions?
In Hokkien the word is 白賊 / 白贼 (pe̍h-chha̍t). In Dungan, the Chinese of Central Asia written in Cyrillic, you will find чә хуон and чуй.
Related words
How does it change in a sentence?
The word is a verb with its own object built in, so it does not take a direct object. To say you lied to someone, the person is introduced before the verb with a preposition.
How do you pronounce it?
It is pronounced shuōhuǎng, with a high level first tone and a dipping third tone.
What mistakes should you avoid?
Lie meaning to lie down uses a completely different word, so do not use 說謊 / 说谎 for that.
Did you know?
- The Hokkien term 白賊 / 白贼 literally translates to 'white thief'. In this context, 'white' implies that the person is stealing something intangible or is a fraud rather than a common thief.
- The common verb 撒謊 / 撒谎 uses the character 撒, which means to scatter or sprinkle. This paints a mental picture of the speaker scattering falsehoods like seeds across a field.
- The Dungan language, spoken by Chinese speakers in Central Asia, uses the Cyrillic alphabet to write the word for lie. This results in a Chinese word being written with characters typically used for Russian.
Example sentences for Chinese are not verified yet.
Sources
- Wiktionary, “lie” translations, CC BY-SA 4.0, dump of 2026-09-26.
