Yuán Dàn – January 1st
Chinese people have a name for the first of January, but they don’t actually celebrate it. Their historic lunar calendar starts on a different day. The first of January is called Yuán dàn (元旦), but it has no real significance.
The real Chinese New Year starts on the second new moon following the Winter Solstice. So it can occur anytime between the 20th of January and the 21st of February. Sometimes they add an extra month to fit the solar calendar.
Chinese Mini Lesson
The only way to learn Chinese is to practice it. Effective Chinese provides students with tons of opportunities to practice, like the dialog table below. This table has three parts … 1st column is the audio recording, 2nd column is Chinese characters, 3rd is pinyin (the phonetic representation of the language) and the 4th is English.
| Pinyin | Chinese | English | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Zài yuándàn de shíhòu zhōngguó rén zuò shénme? | 在元旦的时候中国人做什么？ | What did the Chinese do on New Year’s Day? | |
| Wǒmen méiyǒu zuò tèbié de shìqíng. | 我们没有做特别的事情。 | We didn’t do anything special. |
Vocabulary
| Pinyin | English | |
|---|---|---|
| 在元旦 | Zài yuándàn | on January first |
| 的时候 | de shíhòu | the day of |
| 中国人 | zhōngguó rén | Chinese people |
| 做什么 | zuò shénme | eggplant |
| 我们 | wǒmen | we |
| 没有做 | méiyǒuzuò | don’t |
| 特别 | tèbié | special |
| 的事情 | de shìqíng | thing, anything |
