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开玩笑

kāi wán xiào

Old HSK 4 HSK 3.0 level 4 3-character word Traditional 開玩笑

开玩笑 (kāi wán xiào) means "to joke / to kid". It is an HSK 3.0 level 4 word, and was HSK 4 in the old six-level list.

What 开玩笑 means

1. to play a joke; to make fun of; to joke

The characters in 开玩笑

• 开kāito open (transitive or intransitive); (of ships, vehicles, troops etc) to start…
• 玩wánto play; to have fun; to trifle with
• 笑xiàoto laugh; to smile; to laugh at

Example sentences

• 我开玩笑。
  I'm just kidding.
• 别开玩笑了。
  Stop joking around.
• 你开玩笑吧！
  You're kidding!
• 我不开玩笑。
  I'm not kidding.
• 你在开玩笑吗？
  Are you kidding?
• 你在开玩笑吧！
  You're joking!

Where 开玩笑 is taught

In the GraphChinese course it is part of Sports & leisure (HSK 4), each one a topic in the dependency graph of HSK 1–6 that opens only once its prerequisites are solid.

Go deeper

• Every HSK 4 word, with the rest of its level.
• The four tones and the neutral tone, to read kāi wán xiào correctly.
• Look up another word in the free dictionary.