How to say power bank in Chinese? 充电宝 chōng diàn bǎo

My phone died at 11 PM on a Shanghai street, and with it went my map, my translation app, my ride home, and my ability to pay for anything. A stranger pointed at a glowing white kiosk on the bar counter, I scanned a code, and a charged battery pack slid out like magic. That was my introduction to how to say power bank in Chinese: 充电宝 (chōng diàn bǎo), quite possibly the most survival-critical piece of tech vocabulary for life in China.

充电宝 matters more in China than almost anywhere else, because your phone is your wallet, your metro card, your translator, and your taxi dispatcher all at once. A dead phone is not an inconvenience here; it is a small emergency. China’s answer is a planet-spanning network of rentable power banks, and the vocabulary around charging comes up daily: at rental kiosks, at phone shops, at airport security, and in every group chat where someone’s battery is at 3%.

This guide covers the full picture: what 充电宝 literally means, the difference between a power bank and a wall charger, how to rent a shared one, what to say when your phone is dying, and the airport rules that decide whether your power bank flies with you or gets confiscated.

Key Takeaways

• 充电宝 (chōng diàn bǎo) is power bank: 充 (charge) + 电 (electricity) + 宝 (treasure). The rental version is 共享充电宝 (gòng xiǎng chōng diàn bǎo, shared power bank).
• A wall charger is 充电器 (chōng diàn qì), the cable is 充电线 (chōng diàn xiàn), and “my phone is dead” is 手机没电了 (shǒu jī méi diàn le).
• Renting is fully self-service: 扫码 (sǎo mǎ, scan the QR code), pay a small fee by the hour, and 还 (huán, return) it to any station of the same brand.
• Flying in China: power banks go in your 随身行李 (carry-on), never checked bags, and on domestic flights they need a clear 3C认证 (CCC certification) mark.

The Basics: Breaking Down 充电宝 (chōng diàn bǎo)

Character Meaning

充电宝 is a three-character word where each part pulls its weight:

• 充 (chōng), to charge or to fill up. You see it in 充电 (chōng diàn, to charge a device) and on prepaid card machines as 充值 (chōng zhí, to top up credit).
• 电 (diàn), electricity. The character is a stylized picture of lightning striking a field, and it anchors dozens of modern words: 电话 (telephone, literally electric speech), 电视 (TV, electric vision), 电脑 (computer, electric brain).
• 宝 (bǎo), treasure or precious thing, the same 宝 as in 宝贝 (bǎo bèi, baby/treasure) and 支付宝 (Zhī fù bǎo, Alipay, literally payment treasure).

So 充电宝 is the “charging treasure,” a name so charmingly literal that once you know it, you never forget it. The Chinese-Tools dictionary glosses it simply as “power bank” or “portable charger,” and it is the word every shop assistant, kiosk screen, and rental app uses. You will occasionally also see the formal technical term 移动电源 (yí dòng diàn yuán, mobile power source) on packaging, but nobody says it out loud.

Pronunciation Guide

充电宝 is chōng diàn bǎo, tones 1-4-3: a flat high tone, a sharp falling tone, then a dipping tone.

• chōng, first tone, high and level, rhymes with the “ong” in “song” said with a steady pitch. Do not slide into the fourth tone: chòng (as in 冲, to rush at) means something else entirely.
• diàn, fourth tone, falling hard like a decisive “dyen!” in English.
• bǎo, third tone, dip low and rise, like the vowel in an exaggerated “wou…ld you?”

Say it at normal speed and the first two syllables blur together: chōngdiàn bǎo. That is exactly how locals say it, so do not over-enunciate each character.

充电宝 vs 充电器: Power Bank or Wall Charger?

The single most useful distinction in this whole topic:

• 充电宝 (chōng diàn bǎo), the portable battery pack you carry around. Ends in 宝 (treasure).
• 充电器 (chōng diàn qì), the wall charger, the brick you plug into an outlet. Ends in 器 (qì, device/appliance), the same suffix as 机器 (machine) and 电器 (electrical appliance).
• 充电线 (chōng diàn xiàn), the charging cable. 线 (xiàn) is line/wire.

Ask a shop for 充电器 when you want a plug, 充电宝 when you want a battery, and 充电线 when you want a cable. Getting these mixed up leads to a pantomime session at the electronics counter that nobody enjoys.

Common Uses and Contexts

Renting a Shared Power Bank

Shared power banks are everywhere in Chinese cities: mall corridors, restaurant counters, metro stations, karaoke bars, hospital lobbies. The kiosk vocabulary:

• 共享充电宝 (gòng xiǎng chōng diàn bǎo), shared power bank. 共享 means shared, as in 共享单车 (shared bikes).
• 扫码 (sǎo mǎ), scan the QR code. The entire rental is one scan inside Alipay or WeChat.
• 押金 (yā jīn), deposit. Usually ¥99 as a hold, often waived if your payment app’s credit score qualifies. (We have a full guide to 押金 if deposits keep surprising you.)
• 还 (huán), to return. You can drop the unit at any station of the same brand, even in a different city.

Typical cost is ¥3 to ¥6 per hour with a daily cap, billed automatically when you return the unit. The big brand names you will see on kiosks: 怪兽充电 (Energy Monster, green), 街电 (Jiē diàn, white and blue), 美团充电 (Měi tuán, yellow), and 小电 (Xiǎo diàn, orange). You must return the unit to the same brand’s station, so take a mental photo of the logo before you walk away.

When Your Phone Is Dying

Battery distress has its own little phrase set, and these get used constantly:

• 手机没电了 (shǒu jī méi diàn le), my phone is out of battery. The single most urgent sentence in this post.
• 手机快没电了 (shǒu jī kuài méi diàn le), my phone is about to die. 快 (kuài) adds the “about to.”
• 这里可以充电吗？(zhè lǐ kě yǐ chōng diàn ma), can I charge here? Works in cafes, train stations, and airport lounges.
• 附近有共享充电宝吗？(fù jìn yǒu gòng xiǎng chōng diàn bǎo ma), is there a shared power bank nearby? 附近 (fù jìn) means nearby.
• 能借我一下充电器吗？(néng jiè wǒ yí xià chōng diàn qì ma), can I borrow your charger for a bit?

Buying Your Own

If you want your own unit, electronics shops, convenience stores, and every mall’s phone accessory stall sell them. Key shopping words:

• 毫安时 (háo ān shí), milliamp-hours (mAh), the capacity unit. Common sizes: 一万毫安 (10,000 mAh) and 两万毫安 (20,000 mAh).
• 快充 (kuài chōng), fast charging.
• 接口 (jiē kǒu), the port/connector. You will be asked whether you need USB-C or Lightning, usually by pointing.
• 多少钱一个？(duō shao qián yí ge), how much for one? The measure word for power banks is 个 (ge).

A decent 10,000 mAh unit runs ¥60 to ¥150 in a shop. If phone-shopping vocabulary in general is still shaky, FluentU’s list of 140-plus technical terms in Chinese covers the wider world of cables, apps, screens, and settings, and it pairs well with this post.

Airport Rules: Will Your Power Bank Fly?

China’s airports take power banks seriously, and security staff check them one by one. The rules that matter:

• 随身携带 (suí shēn xié dài), carry with you. Power banks must go in your carry-on, never in checked luggage. We covered the carry-on phrase itself in how to say carry-on luggage in Chinese.
• 额定能量 (é dìng néng liàng), rated energy, measured in watt-hours. Up to 100 Wh (roughly 27,000 mAh) flies freely in your bag; 100 to 160 Wh needs airline approval; above that it stays home.
• 3C认证 (sān C rèn zhèng), CCC certification. Since mid-2025, domestic flights in China require your power bank to carry a clear, intact 3C mark, and recalled models are banned outright. A faded or peeled-off label can get the unit confiscated at security.

Practical move: check the label before you pack, and if the printing has rubbed off a cheap unit, replace it before a domestic trip rather than arguing at the checkpoint.

Related Words and Phrases

Words with Similar Meanings

The 电 Family: Electricity Words

Once you own 电 (diàn, electricity), a whole grid of everyday words opens up:

• 电话 (diàn huà), telephone (electric speech)
• 电视 (diàn shì), television (electric vision)
• 电脑 (diàn nǎo), computer (electric brain)
• 电梯 (diàn tī), elevator (electric ladder)
• 电动车 (diàn dòng chē), electric scooter/bike (electric moving vehicle)
• 电影 (diàn yǐng), movie (electric shadow)

Chinese built its entire vocabulary of modern life on this one character, which makes it one of the highest-value syllables you can learn.

Cultural Context: Why China Runs on Shared Power Banks

The shared power bank is a distinctly Chinese solution to a distinctly Chinese problem. When your payment app, transit pass, translation tool, and social life all live on one device, battery anxiety becomes infrastructure-level serious, and China built infrastructure to match: millions of rental kiosks, tens of millions of users, and a proper industry with listed companies.

It is also a textbook chapter of the country’s 共享经济 (gòng xiǎng jīng jì, sharing economy) boom, the same wave that produced shared bikes, shared umbrellas, and shared basketballs. China Briefing’s overview of the sharing economy explains how mobile payment ubiquity made scan-and-rent services viable at a scale no other country has matched. The power bank kiosk is the surviving, profitable member of that family: bikes came and went, but the charging station on every restaurant counter is here to stay.

For an expat, the practical takeaway is cultural as much as linguistic: nobody in China carries a charging brick all day, because nobody needs to. Knowing the words lets you use the system the way locals do.

Common Mistakes to Avoid

• Saying 电池 when you mean 充电宝. 电池 (diàn chí) is a battery: AA cells, the battery inside your phone. Walk into a shop asking for 电池 and you will be handed a blister pack of AAs.
• Mixing up 充电宝 and 充电器. Treasure (宝) is portable; appliance (器) plugs into the wall. Shopkeepers hear this mix-up from foreigners daily, but save yourself the charades.
• Flatting the tones. chōng diàn bǎo is 1-4-3. A fourth-tone chòng changes the word; mumbling all three as one flat tone makes it mush.
• Forgetting 了 in 没电了. 没电 (méi diàn) is the state; the 了 marks the change: it has run out. 手机没电了 is the complete, natural sentence.
• Returning to the wrong brand’s kiosk. The slot physically will not accept another brand’s unit, and the rental meter keeps running while you hunt for the right station.

Advanced ways for how to say power bank in Chinese sentences

• 我的手机只剩百分之五的电了。 (Wǒ de shǒu jī zhǐ shèng bǎi fēn zhī wǔ de diàn le.), my phone only has five percent left.
• 扫这个二维码就能借充电宝。 (Sǎo zhè ge èr wéi mǎ jiù néng jiè chōng diàn bǎo.), scan this QR code and you can rent a power bank.
• 用完了记得还，不然会一直扣钱。 (Yòng wán le jì de huán, bù rán huì yì zhí kòu qián.), remember to return it when you are done, or the charges keep ticking.
• 你这个充电宝是多少毫安的？能带上飞机吗？ (Nǐ zhè ge chōng diàn bǎo shì duō shao háo ān de? Néng dài shàng fēi jī ma?), how many mAh is your power bank? Can it go on the plane?
• 押金退回来了吗？ (Yā jīn tuì huí lái le ma?), did the deposit come back?

The rental flow is nearly all self-service, but the moments that go wrong (a full station, a confused shop assistant, a security officer holding your unlabeled unit) are exactly the moments you need spoken Chinese. If you want to be ready for those, rehearse the whole rental scenario with a Chinese teacher on italki: ten minutes of role-play beats an hour of mime at a mall kiosk.