{"id":10653,"date":"2014-12-23T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T22:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/?p=10653"},"modified":"2015-12-09T09:48:14","modified_gmt":"2015-12-09T13:48:14","slug":"how-to-sing-we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-in-chinese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/how-to-sing-we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-in-chinese\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Sing &#8220;We Wish You a Merry Christmas&#8221; in Chinese"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s that time of year again, when &#8220;Jingle Bells&#8221; is playing non-stop, shopping malls have decked their halls, and &#8220;<strong>Christmas Old Man<\/strong>&#8221; (\u5723\u8bde\u8001\u4eba &#8211; sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n l\u01ceo r\u00e9n) can be seen all across the Middle Kingdom. Although most people in China don&#8217;t celebrate Christmas in the religious sense of the word, they sure love the discounts in the stores and gladly take the excuse for a celebration. The holiday is more and more popular, especially amongst young people &#8211; probably thanks to their English teachers and the amount of Western media they consume. With all this Christmas cheer around, don&#8217;t be a Scrooge &#8211; learn how to say &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; in Chinese!<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">Merry Christmas!<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">(\u5723\u8bde\u8282\u5feb\u4e50 &#8211; sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n ji\u00e9 ku\u00e0i l\u00e8)<\/h2>\n<div id=\"attachment_9638\" style=\"width: 490px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter post-item__attachment\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-9638\" class=\"size-full wp-image-9638\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2013\/12\/santacon.jpg\" alt=\"Merry Christmas from all the Santas in China!\" width=\"480\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2013\/12\/santacon.jpg 480w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2013\/12\/santacon-350x263.jpg 350w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-9638\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Merry Christmas from all the Santas in China!<\/p><\/div>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Learn How To Say &quot;Merry Christmas&quot; in Chinese\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/0EYtDx5tKI0?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Let&#8217;s break that phrase down to better understand it:<\/p>\n<p>The Chinese word for Christmas is\u00a0\u5723\u8bde\u8282 (sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n ji\u00e9). Let&#8217;s see what the characters mean individually to better help you understand the word:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>\u5723 (sh\u00e8ng) means &#8220;saint.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>\u8bde (d\u00e0n) means &#8220;birth.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>\u8282 (ji\u00e9) means &#8220;festival&#8221; or &#8220;holiday.&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So, all together the word for Christmas means &#8220;the birth of a saint holiday.&#8221; Despite the name of the holiday, you&#8217;d be surprised at how many people in China still don&#8217;t know the reason for the season.<\/p>\n<p>In Chinese, an easy way to wish someone a &#8220;happy&#8221; or &#8220;merry&#8221; holiday is simply to add the word \u5feb\u4e50 (ku\u00e0i l\u00e8). Unlike in English, where we&#8217;d say &#8220;Happy Birthday&#8221; or &#8220;Merry Christmas,&#8221; the word for &#8220;happy\/merry&#8221; comes after the name of the holiday when you say it in Chinese.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s common to shorten words in Chinese, and the phrase &#8220;Merry Christmas&#8221; is no different. You can drop the character\u00a0\u8282 and just say this:<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">\u5723\u8bde\u5feb\u4e50 (sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n ku\u00e0i l\u00e8)<\/h2>\n<p>Either way you say it, people will understand what you&#8217;re going for and will most likely reciprocate with a Christmas greeting of their own.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Learn Christmas and related terms in Mandarin Chinese \u5723\u8bde\u5feb\u4e50\uff01\u2764Learn Chinese with Emma\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LzXUirX4d6c?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Saying it is fun and all, but at this point you might as well learn how to sing it in Chinese:<\/p>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">We wish you a Merry Christmas&#8230;<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">\u6211\u4eec\u795d\u4f60\u5723\u8bde\u5feb\u4e50<br \/>\nw\u01d2 men zh\u00f9 n\u01d0 sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n ku\u00e0i l\u00e8<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">&#8230; and a Happy New Year.<\/h2>\n<h2 style=\"text-align: center\">\u795d\u4f60\u65b0\u5e74\u5feb\u4e50<br \/>\nzh\u00f9 n\u01d0 x\u012bn ni\u00e1n ku\u00e0i l\u00e8<\/h2>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"We wish you a merry Christmas(Chinese Version)\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NlRRnxAXquE?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Check this past post for more on <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/chinese-christmas-vocabulary\/\">Christmas in China and some useful holiday vocabulary<\/a>, and be sure to check the blog on Christmas for a very special video present from us to you.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<img width=\"350\" height=\"263\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2014\/12\/santacon-350x263.jpg\" class=\"attachment-post-thumbnail size-post-thumbnail wp-post-image tmp-hide-img\" alt=\"\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2014\/12\/santacon-350x263.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2014\/12\/santacon.jpg 480w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/><p>It&#8217;s that time of year again, when &#8220;Jingle Bells&#8221; is playing non-stop, shopping malls have decked their halls, and &#8220;Christmas Old Man&#8221; (\u5723\u8bde\u8001\u4eba &#8211; sh\u00e8ng d\u00e0n l\u01ceo r\u00e9n) can be seen all across the Middle Kingdom. Although most people in China don&#8217;t celebrate Christmas in the religious sense of the word, they sure love the&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"post-item__readmore\"><a class=\"btn btn--md\" href=\"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/how-to-sing-we-wish-you-a-merry-christmas-in-chinese\/\">Continue Reading<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":55,"featured_media":12302,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[255171,255172,115723,371222,371221],"class_list":["post-10653","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-chinese-christmas","tag-chinese-christmas-vocabulary","tag-christmas-in-china","tag-how-to-say-merry-christmas-in-chinese","tag-merry-christmas-in-chinese"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/55"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10653"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10653\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11833,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10653\/revisions\/11833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12302"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.transparent.com\/chinese\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}