“Hands off” in Chinese: how to say it and how to write it
Hands off
“Hands off!” in Chinese is 把手拿开, bǎ shǒu ná kāi. Word for word: “take your hand away”. It is a sharp, direct request — exactly what you say when someone reaches for your things or for you. It is also a neat example of one of the most useful patterns in Chinese grammar, the 把 sentence.
How to write “hands off” in Chinese
- 把bǎpreposition: “take … and”
- 手shǒuhand
- 拿náto take, to hold
- 开kāito open; after a verb — “away”
Four characters, and three of them are about the hand. 手 is a drawing of a hand with its fingers. On the left of 把 is the same sign in a squeezed form, 扌: it marks almost every action done with the hands. And 拿 is 合 “to join” on top of 手 “hand” — a hand closing around something. Chinese nouns have no plural, so 手 is both “hand” and “hands”. You can write the characters stroke by stroke in the writing worksheets.
One catch: read on its own, 把手 (bǎshou) is also a word — “handle”, like a door handle. In 把手拿开 there is no handle, though: 把 is the preposition and 手 is your hand. The verb 拿开 at the end makes it clear.
How the phrase works: the 把 construction
The normal Chinese word order is the same as in English: who — does — what. The preposition 把 moves the object to the front, before the verb: “take the hand — and move it away”. You use it when you do something to an object and the result matters. The pattern is 把 + what + verb + result.
Here “what” is 手, the verb is 拿, and the result is 开: after a verb it means “aside, away”. 拿开 is “to take away”, literally “take-away”. You can’t stop at 把手拿: a 把 sentence without a result sounds cut off mid-sentence.
- 把手拿开！bǎshǒunákāihands off!
- 把你的手拿开。bǎnǐdeshǒunákāitake your hands off
- 把你的手拿回去。bǎnǐdeshǒunáhuíqùtake your hand back
In the last one 开 is replaced by : “take your hand back, to yourself”. The meaning is the same, the shade is different — not “away”, but “back”.
How to pronounce 把手拿开
Tones: bǎ and shǒu are both third, low. Two third tones in a row are never said that way: the first one rises, so you hear bá shǒu. Ná is second, the voice goes up; kāi is first, high and level. Listen to the syllables: . The pinyin b is not a voiced English “b”: it is unaspirated, like the p in “spin” — no puff of air. The sh is like English “sh”, but with the tongue tip curled back. Shou rhymes with “show”, and kai with “sky”. More about tones in “Chinese tones”.
Softer ways to say it: “don’t touch” and “please stop”
把手拿开 sounds harsh, like “get your hands off me!”. If you don’t want a fight, pick a phrase for the situation:
- 别碰我。biépèngwǒdon’t touch me
- 请不要碰。qǐngbúyàopèngplease do not touchthe wording you see on signs
- 别这样。biézhèyàngdon’t do that, stop it
- 请停下。qǐngtíngxiàplease stop
别 is a short “don’t”; 不要 says the same a little more fully. 请 at the start makes the request polite — more on it on the page “Please” in Chinese. In a museum or a shop, next to a display, you will most often see 请不要碰 or its formal version 请勿触摸 (qǐng wù chùmō), “please do not touch”.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say “hands off” in Chinese?
“Hands off” in Chinese is 把手拿开, in pinyin bǎ shǒu ná kāi.
How do you pronounce 把手拿开?
把手拿开 is read bǎ shǒu ná kāi. The marks over the vowels are the tones: each syllable has its own melody, so listen to the recording on this page and repeat it.
How do you write “hands off” in Chinese characters?
把手拿开 is 4 characters. What each one means and how the phrase is put together is explained on this page.
What does 把手拿开 mean?
把手拿开 (bǎ shǒu ná kāi) means “hands off”.
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