Structure of dates

Dates in Chinese follow the order "year, month, day." This is in keeping with the larger "from big to small" trend in Chinese.

Structure

As with many things in Chinese, dates are arranged from largest unit to smallest: year, month, day.

x 年 y 月 z 日

So April 1st, 2013 is 2013年4月1日.

Note that 号 (hào) is commonly used in spoken Mandarin instead of 日 (rì): 2013年4月1. In written Chinese, however, you will see 日 rather than 号.

x 年 y 月 z 号

Examples

  • 1940 11 27 November 27th,1940
  • 1973 7 20 July 20th, 1973
  • 1868 1 18 January 18th, 1868
  • 1910 8 9 August 9th, 1910
  • 10 1 我们 去 上海。On October first we'll go to Shanghai.
  • 我 1990 7 出生。
  • 我 2006 4 17 认识 了 他。I was born November 17, 1985.
  • 我 的 生日 是 11 17 My birthday is the 17th of November.
  • 1980 9 4 我们 结婚 了。We got married on September 4th, 1980.
  • 1976 9 9 ,毛泽东 死 了 。
  • 每 年 的 12 24 是 我们 的 平安夜。Every year December 24th is our Christmas Eve.

See also

Sources and further reading

Books