Written by Angela Chen, Chinese language teacher at BLCU

Xīnnián kuàilè！
新年快乐! Happy New Year 2021!

疫苗(yìmiáo) vaccine

We all hope this will be a better year than the last one. We do have some good news recently. The vaccine for COVID is coming. So this week, we are going to talk about vaccine or “疫苗(Yìmiáo)” in Chinese.

The word “疫苗(yìmiáo)” is coming from transliteration of the word immune, which is “免疫(miǎnyì)” in Chinese. Because the vaccine will give you immunity, in Chinese “免疫力(miǎnyìlì).

But the vaccine won’t stop covid, vaccination will. So get the vaccine in Chinese is

打(dǎ)疫苗(yìmiáo)
接种(jiēzhòng)疫苗(yìmiáo)

In oral speaking we’ll use the same word as injection “打针(dǎzhēn)”，since you will get the vaccine by injection.接种(jiēzhòng)疫苗(yìmiáo) is a more formal way of saying vaccination.

The vaccine now is free in China. My husband already get vaccinated.

Tā yǐjīng jiēzhòng yìmiáo le.
他已经接种疫苗了。
Or you can also say
Tā dǎ le yìmiáo le.
他打了疫苗了。

Because he works for the subway company in Beijing. The first people to receive the vaccine will be front-line workers like people working in hospital, public transportation workers and border staffs.

一线工作人员(yīxiàn gōngzuò rényuán) front-line workers

Some of the vaccine need to take 2 does.
剂(jì)  dose
两剂(liǎng jì) 2 doses

Hopefully the vaccine works and the COVID will be finally controlled this year!

Study Chinese at Beijing Language and Culture University

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