Kilo Lingo

(nián) - year, annual in Mandarin

nián

Traditional: 年

Line drawing of 年
Coloured illustration of 年
HSK 1
#224 of 5,000 Core 1000

Translation

year, annual

Word origin

年 (nián) 'year' originally depicted a person bent under a ripe head of grain (禾), representing the yearly harvest, from which the sense of a full cycle of seasons developed.

Origin
ideograph
Root
禾 (grain) carried by a person (harvest cycle)

Stroke order

Stroke order for 年

Examples

This year is a good year.

I am twenty years old this year.

See you next year.

Last year I went to Japan.

I have lived here for three years.

年 (nián) means year, annual. It is used as a noun in everyday Mandarin speech.

Where this fits

Appears in 5 words

Multi-character compounds in the corpus that contain 年.

Used in

Grammar articles

(18)

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Mandarin · Free printables

年: worksheet, infographic and listicle

Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "年" (year, annual): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.

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This word is part of lesson 5.