快问快答 Quick Help Thread: Translation Requests, Chinese name help, "how do you say X", or any quick Chinese questions! 2026-08-26

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[u/AnnualCriticism2428]

Is it right to say that "相当于" equals "等于"?

[u/Zagrycha → u/AnnualCriticism2428]

Sometimes they are the same ((lol)) yes, but not always.  Depends on context and grammar of the sentence. Even the terms themselves can have different meanings from other sentences with with same term, if that makes sense.  

[u/AnnualCriticism2428 → u/Zagrycha]

Can you go into more detail? I also forgot an ‘等同于’ here.

[u/Zagrycha → u/AnnualCriticism2428]

相当于 is often "equivalent to" in a simile kind of way, maybe its only a certain part that is the same or its metaphorical etc.  

等于 is often a literal equals, saying the two things are exactly alike in a mathematics kind of way.  

Depending on grammar and context  though  等于 could also mean "similar to" rather than literal equals and   相当于 might  be used for something that is more literally equivalent.  

等同于 is usually stuff that is not literally equivalent but should be treated as literally equivalent-- actually its really common to use it to say  "A should not be equated to B" its using the same meaning whether its negated or not though.  

I'll emphasize again, just in case, these are very similar words, and actual context and grammar will matter a lot for recognizing their meaning compared to each other. They do have differences and aren't 100% interchangable but there is no blatantly obvious difference at a glance etc.  Actually simplified chinese calls these types of words   近义词  near synonyms and they are loved and hated in native chinese language classes lol-- loved by teachers and hated by students =P