lonely planet Mandarin phrasebook
Time/ Calender terms

Month

The months in Mandarin follow a system of pure logic. The word "month" (yue 月) is prefaced with numbers one to twelve starting with January. The western style calender was only imported to China some 200 years ago and as the new calender was felt to be foreign enough, further complicated linguistic terms were thought to be avoided.

January- 一月 (yiyue)

February- 二月 (eryue)

March- 三月 (sanyue)

April- 四月 (siyue)

May- 五月 (wuyue)

June - 六月 (liuyue)

July- 七月 (qiyue)

August- 八月 (bayue)

September- 九月 (jiuyue)

October- 十月 (shiyue)

November- 十一月 (shiyiyue)

December- 十二月 (shieryue)

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Days

The days of the week follow a simple pattern in Mandarin. The word "week" (xingqi 星期) comes first followed by numbers one to six (starting from Monday). Sunday is the "day of the heaven" --the day of worship in the Western world from which seven day week was introduced.

Monday- 星期一 (xingqi yi)

Tuesday- 星期二 (xingqi er)

Wednesday- 星期三 (xingqi san)

Thursday- 星期四 (xingqi si)

Friday- 星期无 (xingqi wu)

Saturday- 星期六 (xingqi liu)

Sunday- 星期天 (xingqi tian)

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Season

Spring- 春天 (chuntian)

Summer- 夏天 (xiatian)

Autumn- 秋天 (qiutian)

Winter- 冬天 (dongtian)

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Telling the time...

Telling the time in Mandarin is simple. To express a time on the hour simply give the hour followed by dian 点 "point" and zhong 中 "clock". For all other times, give the hours followed by dian 点 and then the number of minutes past the hour followed by the word fen 分 "minutes".

AM- 早上。 (zaoshang)

PM- 晚上。 (wanshang)

wow.. this is so cool.. thanks..=]