Eight Lunar New Year greetings you need to know

As people across the country and the world celebrate Lunar New Year, here are eight greetings that you can say to wish your friends and family a prosperous Year of the Ox.

Lunar New Year celebrations normally run for 15 days, starting from the first day of the new year and ending with the Spring Lantern Festival.

During the Lantern Festival, children usually go out at night carrying paper lanterns and solve the riddles on the lanterns.

In generations past, young people were chaperoned in the streets in hopes of finding love, thus it is also known as 'Chinese Valentine's Day'.

Below are eight greetings to wish people a wonderful and prosperous Lunar New Year. The Cantonese and Mandarin pronunciation of the greetings are romanised using the Jyutping and Hanyu Pinyin systems.

In Cantonese, there are nine tones in six distinct tone contours, which are marked as numbers at the end of the romanised pronunciation spellings.

The Mandarin Hanyu Pinyin system, on the other hand, uses four diacritics placed on the vowels to denote the tones and intonations.

(1) 新年快樂 / 新年快乐

Translation: Happy New Year

Cantonese: san¹ nin⁴ faai³ lok⁶

Mandarin: xīn nián kuài lè

(Note: "kuài" is pronounced as "kwai")

(2) 恭喜發財 / 恭喜发财

Translation: Wish you prosperity and wealth

Cantonese: gung¹ hei² faat³ coi⁴ 

(Note: "coi⁴" is pronounced as "choi")

Mandarin: gōng xǐ fā cái

(Note: "cái" is pronounced as "chai")

(3) 年年有餘 / 年年有余

Translation: May there be a surplus year after year

Cantonese: nin⁴ nin⁴ jau⁵ jyu⁴

(Note: "j" is pronounced as "y"; therefore, "jau⁵ jyu⁴" are pronounced as "yau yu"

Mandarin: nián nián yǒu yú

(4) 身體健康 / 身体健康

Translation: Wishing you good health

Cantonese: san¹ tai² gin⁶ hong¹

(Note: "g" in romanised Cantonese is pronounced as "g" as in "give", as opposed to "dʒ" as in "George")

Mandarin: shēn tǐ jiàn kāng 

New clothes, Luck food, a tradition practiced in the Lunar year Source: SBS

(5) 萬事如意 / 万事如意

Translation: May everything go as you hope.

Cantonese: maan⁶ si⁶ jyu⁴ ji³

(Note: again, "jyu⁴" is pronounced as "yu")

Mandarin: wàn shì rú yì

(6) 心想事成

Translation: May all your wishes come true

Cantonese: sam¹ soeng² si⁶ sing⁴

(Note: "soeng²" is pronounced as "seung")

Mandarin: xīn xiǎng shì chéng

(7) 大吉大利

Translation: Great fortune and good luck be with you

Cantonese: daai⁶ gat¹ daai⁶ lei⁶

(Note: again, "g" in "gat¹" here is pronounced as "g" as in "give")

Mandarin: dà jí dà lì

(8) 財源廣進 / 财源广进

Translation: May wealth come generously to you

Cantonese: coi⁴ jyun⁴ gwong² zeon³

(Note: pronounced as "choi yuen gwong jun")

Mandarin: cái yuán guǎng jìn