I always thought that "wo de ming zi shi ..." is the only correct form but today I found (and also a quite a few hits on Google" "wo de ming zi jiao ...". Is the latter normally used and correct?
4 Answers
First of all, I am not sure why the downvote on the question. It's a legitimate question at a basic level.
Now back to the question. Both are correct. /jiao/ literally "call".
/wo de ming zi shi .../ roughly translated to: My name is ...
/wo de ming zi jiao .../ My name is called ... (or, better, I am called ...)
I don't know why you thought the first one is the ONLY correct form. Perhaps it's what is in your textbook? Or it's what your teacher teaches in class? But in a language, it's very common to have more than one way to say something, especially something as common, and basic, as "my name is ...".
Welcome to language learning!
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1Good catch. The former is the formal teaching given to beginners and considered the formal way to introduce oneself. The latter is more casual.– r13Sep 6, 2021 at 20:33
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I'm an experienced Chinese speaker, and I totally understand your issue. "Wo de ming zi" (in Chinese: 我的名字) means my name is. Like in English, there are lots of ways to say "my name is". "Wo de ming zhi jiao" (我的名字叫)means "my name is called". In replying to @EmanAdam 's comment, both phrases are actually used very often in daily life. However, these phrases are mostly used in Mandarin, and not in Cantonese, which is a more "relaxed" style of language. In Cantonese, to say what your name is would be more like "我個名係...". As you can see, the language is much more natural to say. I hope you have a good time learning Chinese!
希望你喜歡學中文!
Wo jiao wang li Wo de ming zi shi wang li But it's my first time to hear ( wo de ming jiao....) I think it's grammatical true , but not in every day languages
Wo de Ming Zi SHI vs Wo de Ming Zi JIAO?
The following two statements are correct:
(1) Wo de Ming Zi SHI Zhang San.
(2) Wo JIAO Zhang San.
Where SHI and JIAO are verbs.
It is OK to say:
(3) Wo de Ming Zi JIAO Zhang San.
and people always say:
(4) Ni de Ming Zi JIAO Shen Mo?