How to Say “Hail a taxi” in Chinese
Getting around · HSK 3
"Hail a taxi" in Chinese is 打车 (dǎ chē). 打车 is the everyday way Mainland speakers say 'grab a cab'; it literally means 'hit a car' but nobody thinks about the characters. In Taiwan people say 叫计程车 (jiào jì chéng chē) instead; 出租车 sounds a bit foreign there.
Primary translation
打车
dǎ chē
Traditional: 打車
Variants by register
Formal
叫出租车
jiào chū zū chē
Casual
打个车
dǎ gè chē
When to use it
打车 is the everyday way Mainland speakers say 'grab a cab'; it literally means 'hit a car' but nobody thinks about the characters. In Taiwan people say 叫计程车 (jiào jì chéng chē) instead; 出租车 sounds a bit foreign there. In practice almost no one flags down a taxi on the street anymore; you open Didi (滴滴) and the driver finds you. If you say 我打个车 with 个, it sounds more relaxed, like 'let me just grab a cab'.
Example sentences
下雨了，咱们打车吧。
Xià yǔ le, zán men dǎ chē ba.
It's raining, let's grab a taxi.
这个点儿打不到车。
Zhè ge diǎnr dǎ bu dào chē.
You can't get a taxi at this hour.
我用滴滴叫了一辆车。
Wǒ yòng Dīdī jiào le yí liàng chē.
I ordered a car on Didi.