暑假(shǔ jià) - summer holiday in Mandarin

暑假 (shǔjià) is the summer holiday, the long break from school or university. 暑 (shǔ) on its own means "summer heat", the same character that appears in 中暑 (zhòngshǔ), "to suffer heatstroke", and 假 (jià) means "holiday, leave", shared with 假期 (jiàqī), "vacation period".

It sits alongside 寒假 (hánjià), "winter holiday", as the two big breaks in the Chinese school calendar, and the two words are almost always taught together because they follow exactly the same pattern: a weather word plus 假 (jià).

One easy slip: 假 (jià) meaning "holiday" is pronounced with a falling fourth tone, but the character also has a reading jiǎ, third tone, meaning "false, fake", as in 假的 (jiǎ de), "fake". Same character, different tone, unrelated meaning, so keep an ear out for which one a speaker means.