We are currently experiencing summer in Beijing, and if you want to learn how to express “Blimey, it's hot!” in Chinese, you’ve come to the right place! Thankfully, the Chinese language offers numerous entertaining and inventive phrases for hot weather, making it ideal for venting, cursing, and endlessly complaining about the heat. So, set aside “hǎo rè” and discover these imaginative phrases to truly convey just how scorching it is! (For maximum impact, we suggest using multiple exclamation marks with these expressions, though we've avoided doing so here for clarity.)
For beginners:
太热了 tài rè le – It's extremely hot.
热死了 rè sǐ le – It's so hot that I feel like I could die.*
热晕了 rè yūn le – It’s so hot that I feel faint.
热疯了 rè fēng le – It’s so hot that it’s driving me crazy.
热傻了 rè shǎ le – It’s so hot that I’m losing my sanity.
热爆了 rè bào le – It’s so hot that I might explode.
热炸了rè zhà le – I'm feeling so hot I'm frying.
*If you've been studying Chinese for a while, you may have noticed that 死了sǐ le (“dead”) is commonly used in spoken Chinese to emphasize intensity (such as heat, hunger, fatigue). The typical sentence structure is adjective/verb + 死了.
For HSK 3 and above:
热得不得了 rè dé bù dé liǎo – It’s incredibly hot.
热得不行了 rè dé bù xíng le – It’s so hot that I can't bear it any longer.
热得快融化了 rè dé kuài róng huà le – It’s so hot that I feel like I'm melting.
热得快变形了 rè dé kuài biàn xíng le – It’s so hot that I feel like I'm becoming misshapen.
热得像蒸笼一样 rè dé xiàng zhēng lóng yī yàng – It feels as hot as a (baozi) steamer.
热得像蒸桑拿一样 rè dé xiàng zhēng sāng ná yī yàng – It's like a sauna in here.
快被烤焦了 kuài bèi kǎo jiāo le – It's intensely hot.
快被蒸熟了 kuài bèi zhēng shú le – It’s as hot as an oven.
热到没脾气 rè dào méi pí qì – It’s so hot that I'm losing my cool.
热得找不着北 rè dé zhǎo bù zháo běi – It’s so hot that I can’t even find north.
热得六亲不认 rè dé liù qīn bù rèn – It’s so hot that I can't even recognize my family.
For foul-mouthed jokers:
热成傻逼 rè chéng shǎ bī – It’s so hot that I look foolish.
热懵逼了 rè měng bī le – It’s so hot that I feel like a dizzy fool.
热成狗 rè chéng gǒu – I'm as hot as a dog (sweating profusely).
Internet slang:
热skr人 (This is often used in texting as a variant of 热死个人 rè sǐ gè rén, meaning “It’s so hot I might die.”)
热到没朋友 rè dào méi péngyǒu – It’s so hot that I feel friendless.
热到怀疑人生 rè dào huáiyí rénshēng – It’s so hot that I'm questioning the purpose of life.
我的这条命都是空调给的 wǒ de zhè tiáo mìng dōu shì kòngtiáo gěi de – My life is sustained by the air conditioner.
READ: Mandarin Monday: Essential Vocabulary for Surviving the Beijing Summer
Photos: Unsplash, Giphy, Pixabay
Let's come up with some fun expressions about just how scorching it is!
