59 Words to Master Talking About Jewellery in Chinese

Most people probably know the common names for types of jewellery in Chinese like earrings, necklace, ring etc.

But, we are delving deeper so that you can become a jewellery expert!

Perhaps you’re looking for more specific search terms for taobao, or are just a jewellery fan (like myself).

From more specific types of jewellery to different gemstones and famous brands, we’ve got everything covered for you.

Jewellery in Chinese – Different Types

Jewellery in Chinese – Types of Metal

Jewellery in Chinese – Gemstones

Jewellery in Chinese – Famous Brands

BONUS FREEBIE – Vocab Quiz

The most common word for Jewellery in Chinese is 珠宝 zhūbǎo. 珠 means pearl or bead and 宝 means treasure, or precious.

So jewellery is literally “pearl treasure”.

There is also another word for jewellery in Chinese which is 首饰 shǒushì.

Here 首 means head and 饰 means decorations or ornaments, making the literal translation “head decorations” – makes sense right!

If you’re into style and beauty, be sure to check out some of our other vocab blogs:

• Clothes in Chinese
• Makeup in Chinese

Jewellery in Chinese – Different Types

To start off with lets have a look at different types of jewellery in Chinese.

You’ll see here that the word for ring includes the character for finger 指 . To specify different kinds of rings, a description is added before just the same as it is in English. For instance you can see that the word for married 结婚 is added before ring to make the word wedding ring.

Similarly to the word for ring, in the word for necklace we have the character 项 which here means “nape (of the neck)”. 链 is the word for chain, so literally it’s “nape chain”.

You might begin to spot a pattern here, the word for bracelet includes the character 手 which means hand.

Both 手链 shǒuliàn and 手镯 shǒuzhuó can be used for bracelet, however 手镯 refers more to bangle type bracelets.

The word for charm in Chinese is either 串饰 chuànshì or 吊饰 diàoshì. This can refer to the charms on a bracelet or on a necklace.

There are two translations for earring Chinese, 耳环 literally means “ear ring” and 耳饰 is literally “ear decoration”.

If you add nose 鼻 or lip 唇 to ring 环 you have nose ring and lip ring, pretty easy right!

Bonus: Not really an item you would wear everyday (or ever for most people) the word for crown is 王冠 wángguān. 王 means king and here 冠 means crown, as in the top of something e.g. the crown of your head.

In case you’re looking for a place to store all your jewellery, the word for Jewellery box is 珠宝盒 zhūbǎo hé or 首饰盒 shǒushì hé.

Want to know what the right measure words are for different types of jewellery? Then our Chinese Measure Words Guide is perfect for you.

Jewellery in Chinese – Types of Metal

Along with talking about different types of jewellery in Chinese it’s also useful to know the different types of metal which it can be made from.

Here are the main metals that jewellery is made from:

You may also want to know what purity the metal is which you can see from the hallmark 金银纯度 jīnyín chúndù. 纯度 means degree of purity, so it’s simply “gold and silver purity”.

The word for sterling silver 纯银 (chúnyín) includes the character for purity (纯). This is a good word to learn if you’re planning on buying any jewellery in China, especially from markets etc.

This way you can ask if what you’re buying is real silver or not.

Another handy word to know is carat which is transliterated as 克拉 kèlā.

Jewellery in Chinese – Gemstones

Next up in our guide to jewellery in Chinese we have the all important gemstones!

What jewellery would be complete without a few adorning gemstones?

The word for gemstone in Chinese is 宝石 bǎoshí.

We already saw that 宝 bǎo means precious or treasure, so if you combine that with the character 石 it literally makes “precious stone”.

There are of course lots of different types of gemstone in Chinese so we’ve picked out some of the most common:

Most gemstones have a colour followed by the characters for gemstone (宝石) or stone (石) afterwards. However, you’ll notice that amethyst has the character 晶 which means quartz or crystal.

If you then wanted to know how to say a type of gemstone and a piece of jewellery combined, in most cases you just need to add the gemstone before the type of jewellery. For example:

• Diamond ring – 钻石戒指 zuànshí jièzhǐ
• Ruby necklace – 红宝石项链 hóngbǎoshí xiàngliàn
• Pearl earrings – 珍珠耳环 zhēnzhū ěrhuán

Jewellery in Chinese – Famous Brands

To finish off lets have a look at some of the most famous jewellery brands ( 名牌 míngpái) in Chinese:

Those are some the main most famous jewellery brands, but of course many other big designer brands also make jewellery.

Below you can see the Chinese names for some of the other high end brands:

For even more brand names, you can check out our dedicated brand blog.

https://ltl-chengdu.com/brand-names-in-chinese/

Jewellery in Chinese – Quiz

Think you’ve managed to learn how to talk about jewellery in Chinese?

Then have a go at our super quick quiz below to put your vocabulary to the test!

Time's up

Jewellery in Chinese – FAQs

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