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Happy New Year! 新年好! [ xīn nián hǎo] Can you recognize what the Chinese zodiac
sign is on the screen? Last year was the year of the snake so this year must be
the year of the horse. In Chinese, horse is called 马 [ mǎ ]. So the year of the horse is called
马年 [ mǎ nián ]. There are 12 animals in the Chinese zodiac and 马 [ mǎ ] is the 7th of them.
Chinese people have a long history using the zodiac as an alternate way of telling you
what year it is and they call the zodiac 生肖 [shēng xiào].
Today, even though Chinese people adopt the Gregorian calendar, zodiac is still
attached to Chinese society. Why? It is because the zodiac can tell people's ages.
For example, instead of directly asking what your age is, Chinese people may ask you what is your zodiac sign.
If horse is your zodiac, they know you were born on one of a few years the year of
the horse cycles every 12 years, it is not so hard to figure out your actual age.
As you may know, Chinese people have many ways to ask questions in order to avoid embarrassing moments.
So asking someone's zodiac instead of actual age works perfectly for them.
Chinese people also believe that zodiac can tell you about other people's personalities.
Just like many people believe that constellations show how people have distinct characters.
For this reason, many Chinese parents would like to have their child marrying to
someone who has matching zodiac sign. To do so, parents would ask their children what their girlfriend
or boyfriend's zodiac sign is. And if the parents are very traditional, they may even
ask the girlfriend or boyfriend's day and time of birth to calculate what they may
bring to the family - good luck or bad luck? Well...in the old times, this is how Chinese
parents selected their daughter or son-in-law.
Before we say goodbye, let's learn three greeting phrases with the word "horse" in them.
龙马精神 lóng mǎ jīng shén
马到成功 mǎ dào chéng gōng
一马当先 yī mǎ dāng xiān
That's all for today. Check out our playlist for Chinese New Year. The LearnHowToChinese
team wishes all of you a Happy year of the horse! 马年快乐! [mǎ nián kuài lè]
Bye.