Lately I’ve seen a bunch of useful posts with great vocab in Chinese such as this on here on buying computers and this one here on social media. Both of these topics are really interesting to me, and very helpful to my learning, and so I thought I might share some vocab on another topic I’m particularly interested in, but often at loss for useful words for in Chinese: Politics.

These words aren’t targeted at any specific political situation, merely to give you some useful words if and when a debate pops up. Please note, the words are in English alphabetical order for no better reason than it was the simplest way I could think to categorise them. This list is also available in .PDF (88KB), PlecoDict Flashcards (16KB) and as a Google Doc. Without further ado:

激进分子/积极分子

Pinyin: jījìnfènzǐ /jījí fēnzǐ
Meaning: Activist

竞选运动

Pinyin: jìngxuǎn yùndòng
Meaning: (Election) Campaign

候选人

Pinyin: hòuxuǎnrén
Meaning: Candidate

资本主义者

Pinyin: zīběnzhǔyì zhě
Meaning: Capitalist

共产主义者

Pinyin: gòngchǎnzhǔyì zhě
Meaning: Communist

国会/议会

guóhuì /yìhuì
Meaning: Congress/Parliament

共识

Pinyin: gòngshì
Meaning: Consensus

保守

Pinyin: bǎoshǒu
Meaning: Conservative

民主

Pinyin: mínzhǔ
Meaning: Democracy

副总理

Pinyin: fùzǒnglǐ
Meaning: Deputy Prime Minister

独裁者

Pinyin: dúcáizhě
Meaning: Dictator

独裁主义

Pinyin: dúcái zhǔyì
Meaning: Dictatorship

选举

Pinyin: xuǎnjǔ
Meaning: Elected

政府

Pinyin: zhèngfǔ
Meaning: Government

政府部门

Pinyin: zhèngfǔbùmén
Meaning: Government Department

官方

Pinyin: guānfāng
Meaning: Government Official

意识形态

Pinyin: yìshì xíngtài
Meaning: Ideology

独立

Pinyin: dúlì
Meaning: Independent

法律

Pinyin: fǎlǜ
Meaning: Law

左翼

Pinyin: zuǒ yì
Meaning: Left Wing

自由主义者

Pinyin: zìyóu zhǔyì zhě
Meaning: Liberal

多数

Pinyin: duōshù
Meaning: Majority

部长

Pinyin: bùzhǎng
Meaning: Minister

少数

Pinyin: shǎoshù
Meaning: Minority

政策

Pinyin: zhèngcè
Meaning: Policy

政党

Pinyin: zhèngdǎng
Meaning: Political Party

政治体制

Pinyin: zhèngzhì tǐzhì
Meaning: Political System

政治

Pinyin: zhèngzhì
Meaning: Politics

总统

Pinyin: zǒngtǒng
Meaning: President

总理

Pinyin: zǒnglǐ
Meaning: Prime Minister

抗议

Pinyin: kàngyì
Meaning: Protest

改革

Pinyin: gǎigé
Meaning: Reform

代表

Pinyin: dàibiǎo
Meaning: Representative

右翼

Pinyin: yòuyì
Meaning: Right Wing

社会主义者

Pinyin: shèhuìzhǔyìzhē
Meaning: Socialist

副总统

Pinyin: fùzǒngtǒng
Meaning: Vice President

选票

Pinyin: xuǎnpiào
Meaning: Vote

Hopefully some of these words will come in handy for you sometime – learning more is always good! At least next time I’m trying to talk about New Zealand and our crazy political system, my Chinese friends won’t be at such a loss!

Oh, and if you’d like to see some of these words in example sentences, why not check out Jukuu.com? It’s a really handy bilingual sentence searcher for English, Chinese, and Japanese.

Do you like this list? Did I make any silly mistakes, or leave some useful words out that you’d like to see? What other topics would you like to see? Please let me know in the comments, and I’ll see what I can do! Cheers.