Abstract: To study the Chinese semantic meaning of the subjective impression of reverberation,the different definitions of reverberation are discussed.An investigation is carried out to interview two groups of subject with the professional background of audio engineering and architectural acoustics respectively.The effective questionnaires are studied with the sorting of the information of the subjects.A laboratory test is designed to survey the relationship between the reverberance and the reverberation time.Prom the investigation and the test,it has been revealed that the reverberation time is not the only factor contributed to the reverberance.The reverberance has much more semantic meanings and depends on the personnel background and experience of the subjects.