Use 挨家挨户 to express “door to door” in Chinese

Can we use “门到门” to translate “door to door”? No, please don’t! Actually there’s a Chinese idiom perfectly fits the meaning of “door to door”. It is: 挨家挨户 (āi jiā āi hù).

“挨”means “being adjacent”, “家” and “户” both means “home”, “house”. Literally, we can translate “挨家挨户 (āi jiā āi hù)” as “one house after another”, which as a matter of fact is equivalent as “door to door”.

When you use expression “挨家挨户 (āi jiā āi hù)” in Chinese in your own sentence, you can choose any pattern of the following to mean the same thing:

    tā āijiā’āihù qù mài bǎoxiǎn.

    他挨家挨户去卖保险.
    1. ai-jia-ai-hu-e1

    

    tā qù āijiā’āihù mài bǎoxiǎn.

    他去挨家挨户卖保险.
    2. ai-jia-ai-hu-e2

    

    tā āijiā’āihù dì mài bǎoxiǎn.

    他挨家挨户地卖保险.
    3. ai-jia-ai-hu-e3

All of the above have the same meaning: He went to sell insurance door to door. This expression can be used both in written and spoken Chinese.

Hope you enjoyed your day!