Structure of dates

Revision as of 08:22, 20 February 2014 by Yangrenjun (talk | contribs)

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 27, 1940
  • 1973 7 20 July 20, 1973
  • 1868 1 18 January 18, 1868
  • 1910 8 9 August 9, 1910
  • 10 1 我们 去 上海。We will go to Shanghai October 1st.
  • 我 1990 7 出生。I was born in July 1990.
  • 我 2006 4 17 认识 了 他。I met him on April 17, 2006.
  • 我 的 生日 是 11 17 My birthday is November 17th.
  • 1980 9 4 我们 结婚 了。We got married on September 4, 1980.
  • 1 1 是 新年。January 1st is New Years Day.
  • 12 24 是 平安夜。December 24th is Christmas Eve.

See also

Sources and further reading

Books