Abstract Background Early distinguishing the cognitive impairment from healthy population is crucial to delay the progression of mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and Alzheimer disease (AD). Test Your Memory (TYM) has been proved to be a valid and reliable screening instrument for AD and MCI. This study aimed to develop a culturally appropriate and functional Standard Mandarin Chinese translation of the TYM, and to evaluate its reliability and validity in detecting AD and MCI in Chinese. Methods 182 subjects with AD/MCI and 55 healthy controls were recruited to participate in this study, and everyone undergo the test of Standard Mandarin Chinese version of the TYM (TYM-CN), Mini-mental State Examination (MMSE), Montreal cognitive assessment (MoCA-BJ), and Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) Scale. Concurrently, all the subjects with AD/MCI received the general physical and neurologic examinations, extensive laboratory tests, and brain computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Of which, 90 subjects were asked to complete the re-test of TYM-CN at 3 weeks after the initial visit. Intra-class correlation coefficient (ICC) and Cronbach’s alpha was used to assess the test–retest reliability and the internal consistency. The validity, sensitivity and specificity were also analyzed. One-way analysis of variance, χ2 test, correlation analysis, and receiver operating characteristic curve (ROC) analysis were employed, as needed. Results The total scores of TYM-CN was 43.89 ± 3.44, 40.88 ± 4.38, and 29.12 ± 7.44 (p