What 开玩笑 means
- Joke (make fun of)
These meanings come from the same dictionary that powers the Chinese to Pinyin translator and the Chinese to English translator, so a whole sentence containing 开玩笑 will read it the same way this page does.
Character by character
How to write 开玩笑
Stroke order is not decoration — it is what makes handwriting legible and what dictionary lookup by stroke count depends on.
Practise 开玩笑 on printable 田字格 sheets, trace it in the writing practice tool, or watch any other character in the Stroke Order Animator.
开玩笑 in a sentence
Every sentence on this site that uses 开玩笑 is collected on the 开玩笑 sentence page. Want pinyin above a sentence of your own? Paste it into the Pinyin Annotator.
Questions about 开玩笑
What does 开玩笑 mean in English?
开玩笑 is pronounced kāiwánxiào and means Joke (make fun of).
How do you pronounce 开玩笑?
开玩笑 is kāiwánxiào in pinyin — written kaiwanxiao without tone marks. Press the audio button on this page to hear it spoken by a native voice.
What are the characters in 开玩笑?
开玩笑 is written with 3 characters: 开 (kāi) Open (start - drive - boil), 玩 (wán / wàn) Play (have a good time - enjoy - visit); Antiques, 笑 (xiào) Laugh (smile). Knowing the parts is usually how the whole word becomes memorable.
How is 开玩笑 written in traditional Chinese?
開玩笑. The simplified form 开玩笑 is used in mainland China and Singapore; 開玩笑 is used in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau. Both are pronounced kāiwánxiào.
Is 开玩笑 an HSK word?
Yes — 开玩笑 is on the official HSK 4 vocabulary list. You can study it with the rest of that list on the HSK 4 page.
Studied around the same time
Keep going
Translate a whole sentence containing 开玩笑 with the Chinese to Pinyin translator, study it alongside the rest of HSK 4, drill it with HSK flashcards, or save it above and review it on your review deck.
Browse the dictionary
Every word on this site links to its entry — tap any word in a graded reader, a translation result or an HSK list to land on a page like this one.
Dictionary index