There is one thing that almost all Mandarin Chinese language students here in China have in common: we don’t have our own personal cars. Owing a car in China and being licensed to drive is a complicated and expensive process. Plus, the public transportation such as trains, buses, and even bicycle-sharing is great!
For the most part, you won’t need a car when you’re in China. However, there are times that it would be faster or more convenient to hop in the back of a car than wait for a bus. For those trips to the grocery store or airport, my fellow students and I now prefer to use a car-sharing and taxi ordering app rather than hailing a taxi on the street. It’s more reliable, honest, safe and convenient for us to use our phones rather than take a chance with a random taxi driver. There is one app that we all use. It’s now considered to be the most-used ride-sharing app in the world: "滴滴出行 (Dīdī chūxíng) Didi Chuxing". Didi Chuxing is an application where taxis, private cars and designated drivers can be hired via smartphone. Didi carries 20 million rides per day, or seven billion rides per year. There are over 450 million registered users in China. These numbers are far higher than any other car service app in the
world!
Foreign travelers, students and workers alike should all be using the Didi app when traveling in China. It’s simple and affordable. In today’s lesson, I will help you get the app set up and some useful Mandarin Chinese expressions that will benefit your communication with the driver.
There Are 4 Steps That You Need to Know and Go Through When Using the Didi App:
Step 1: This part is easy; "安装 (Ānzhuāng) install" the Didi app onto your mobile device! 
You just need to search for this app in your App store and download it to your phone.
Step 2: "注册 (Zhùcè) Sign up" and create your account.
For this, you will need a phone number. You may want to read my previous article on buying a SIM card in China.
Once you’ve got your phone number set up: Open the ...Read More
