The Chinese New Year has been celebrated for more than 4,000 years and is a public holiday in China. The event is celebrated by millions of people around the world and is the most significant holiday in the Chinese calendar. Huge displays of fireworks and firecrackers are, like in many other cultures, a part of welcoming in the New Year.
How to wish someone a Happy New Year in Chinese
There are multiple blessings and greetings to be said during the Chinese New Year, including several variations for the simple phrase “Happy New Year”.
The simplest way would be to just say “Happy New Year” or 新年快乐 (xīn nián kuài lè).
But the Chinese language has many dialects, like the Beijing dialect, Mandarin, Cantonese, Shanghainese and more than 50 other minority languages.
However, Mandarin is the most common dialect and often uses the phrase “Happy Spring Festival” when celebrating the Chinese New Year.
In actual Mandarin this would be 春节快乐, pronounced “chūn jiē kuài lè”.
While in Cantonese the same phrase is pronounced “ceon1 zit3 faai3 lok6”.
You can also say 春节愉快 (chūn jiē yú kuài), which uses a more formal way to say “happy”.
When is the Chinese New Year?
The Chinese New Year of 2019 will fall on Tuesday, February 5.
However, the celebration will last for about 15 days in total – until February 19.
The public holiday will last from February 4 to 10, where the New Year’s Eve on February 4 and the New Year’s Day on February 5 are the peak time of celebration.
The dates for Chinese New Year changes slightly every year but usually happen between January 21 and February 20 in the Gregorian calendar.
The dates change every year because the festival is based on the Chinese Lunar Calendar and associated with the movement of the Moon.
What is the animal this year?
The zodiac animal for 2019 is the pig.
Zodiac animals rotate every 12 years, an approximation to the 11.85-year orbital period of Jupiter.
In recent years those born in the year of the pig have been born in 1935, 1947, 1959, 1971, 1983, 1995, 2007 and now 2019.