Expressing Time： Phrases for the Date and Days of The Week

大家好！
This is the second post in a series on expressing time. To go to the first (how to talk about hours of the day), click Here.

The Date:
The general pattern to know: 今天(today) 是 (the number of the month) 月 (number of the day) 号。

What is today's date? 今天是几月几号？

Today is August eleventh. 今天是八月十一号。
Today is August 11th of 2012 今天是 二0 十二 年八月十一号.

Next year: 下年

Last year: 上年 

This year: 今年

The year before last year: 去年

The year after next: 后年 

Here are some example sentences with the English, Chinese, pinyin and literal translation of the Chinese sentence. These literal translations might help you follow a complicated phrase. Keep in mind, however, that most words do not literally translate into English very cleanly, so these interpretations can be very rough.

Next year I will start college.

下年我上大学。

(next year) (I) (start) （college)

Where were you last year?

上年你在哪儿？

(last year) (you) (at) (where?)

My birthday is March 11th: 

我的生日是三月十一号。
(my)(birthday) (is) (third month) (tenth day)

When is your birthday?

你的生日是几月几号？
(your) (birthday) (is) (what month) (what day)

What are you doing this summer?

今年夏天的时候你做什么？
(this year) (summer) (time) (you）（do) (what)?

*note: here, I'm using the ....的时候 construction. For more information about this, go to the previous lesson on time, linked here.

Day of the week:Day of the week:

星期-
This word has a couple translations. First off, it means 'week'. 

Next week: 下个星期 

Last week: 上个星期
Two weeks: 两个星期

However, it can also be used to express the day of the week.

Monday: 星期一

Tuesday: 星期二

Wednesday: 星期三 

Thursday: 星期四

Thursday: 星期五 

Friday: 星期六

Saturday: 星期七

Sunday: 星期日 

Note that we start the week on Monday, making it the first day and Saturday the seventh day. Also remember that Sunday is special; it's usually called 星期 日, ( 日 means sun), or 星期天.
The days of the week are used in sentences exactly as they would be in English:
Today is Monday
今天是 星期一
Wednesday I will go to the library.
星期三 我想去 图书馆

Remember that, like all other Chinese sentences, the time phrase must go first. Thus the phrase "I will go to the library on Thursday" needs to be reordered like the one above：
星期四我想去 图书馆
and you can NEVER say:　 我想去 图书馆星期三

Keep these rules in mind and these sentences will be a breeze! Let me know if I missed anything. What other concepts do you find difficult? Comment below :)
再見！
Sophie Sino 

Expressing Time: Phrases for Hours in the Day

大家好！
I'm starting a series on how to express time and dates. Most of my Chinese textbooks lumped all the time-related concepts together in one chapter, which can get confusing. So I'll break these up a little and explain them in more detail.

Let's start with some handy words to know when expressing the time of day:
Vocab
early morning (like until 10 or 11 AM)              早上                      zǎo shàng
morning (from about 10 to 12)                          上午                      shàng wǔ
noon （from 12:00 to 1:00 PM)                       中午                      zhōng wǔ
afternoon (from 1:00 to 6:00 PM)                     下午                       xià wǔ
evening  (6:00 on)                                             晚上                      wǎn shàng
hour                                                                    点                        diǎn
minute                                                                 分                         fèn
half (as in, half hour)                                            半                        bàn
and quarter (as in, quarter of an hour)                   刻                         kè

Notice the repeat of the word 午. This character can mean noon by itself. The 上 means up, but it can also mean 'before'. 下, then, would mean down and 'after' 早 means early, so 早上 forms 'early morning'.
What about 中？ This character means middle, so 中午 is literally middle of the noon. This also makes sense when you think about the name of China: 中国。 国 (guo) means country or kingdom. So China is, literally, the 'middle kingdom'. So cool!

Anyway, translating time between Chinese and English is fairly straightforward.  There's just one difference: the Chinese always express units of time (and also locations) from largest to smallest. (year, month, day, etc.)  So 'the 7th of may, 2012' would read '2012 may the seventh' in Chinese. Or, “2:30 tomorrow afternoon” would read “tomorrow afternoon 2:30”

The general setup for a phrase expressing time in Chinese would run:
(general time expression)+（hour)+ 点 + (minute) + 分。

The general time expressions are those that say what portion of the day you're talking about- morning, afternoon, etc.   So a few examples of these phrases would run like this:

Four in the afternoon
下午四点

Seven in the morning
早上七点

Six thirty at night
晚上六点半

Ten forty five in the morning
上午十一点三刻

 Twelve in the afternoon
中午十二点

Notice that the corresponding times to 'morning', 'afternoon' etc. are fairly loose; therefore, if you're setting a time at exact noon (12:00) you would need to specify both the general time expression 中午 and the exact hour 十二点.

Use in Sentences: 
Keep in mind that time phrases come before ANY OTHER phrase in the sentence (location, verb, or otherwise). The only words that can go before the time are the subject.
For example:

我晚上八点睡觉。
I will go to bed at eight o'clock tonight.
Here's the sentence broken up by phrase:
   我            晚上八点         睡觉‘
(subject)      (time)         (verb phrase)

There's only one other place to put the time phrase: at the very beginning, even before the subject. Use this if you want to emphasize the time (I'm going to bed at EIGHT tonight, versus tonight I'm going to bed at eight).

Here's how the sentence would read with the emphasis on the time:
晚上八点我睡觉。

Asking what time it is:
现在 几点？ (right now how many hours?) (xiàn zài  jǐ diǎn )
现在是八点半。 （right now it is eight thirty) （xiàn zài shì bā diǎn bàn）

Other Time Words in Chinese: 
There are a few other words that are used in Chinese to talk about time. However, they are used in different situations.

时间 is more of a general term. Rather than being in sentences that talk about an exact time on the clock, 时间（shí jiān） is used to talk about having time, or how long something took to do.

时候 is also more general. This is used to talk about a time when something else was happening. For example:
When I am eating...
我吃饭的时候....
By attaching 时候 to the verb phrase, you can make the verb phrase a time and provide a context. Note that you always need to have a 的 between the verb and the 时. You do not, however, need a word that corresponds to 'while' in English. You can go straight into the second verb:
我吃饭的时候， 他看书 。
while i am eating, he reads a book.
时候 can also be used one other important way: asking people what time something will happen.
For example:
What time do you eat?
你什么时候吃饭？


That's all for now!  Next time, we'll learn days of the week and how to talk about what date it is.
再见！
Sophie Sino

Useful Expressions To Learn

大家好！ (Hello Everybody!)

你吃了吗？ This was the first full Chinese sentence I learned. Literally translated, it means "Have you eaten yet?". People respond with "我吃了” or "我还没有吃”  meaning, respectively, “I have eaten” or “I have not eaten yet”. This expression is similar to "what's up?" in English, because its literally translation has very little to do with what it actually means. Asking people whether or not they've eaten is like asking "How are you?".

Idioms and fixed expressions can be very useful, because they're often some of the most common phrases in spoken Chinese and because they can help you memorize certain grammar patterns. For example, I memorized how to say "I have already eaten" a year before I learned how to form the past tense. Having the sample sentence already stored in my brain helped as a reference point when I moved on to the more advanced grammar.

So here are some of my favorite fixed expressions. They are very common in conversation, and usually come up in the first few lessons of any beginner's Chinese textbook:

你吃了吗？　Have you eaten yet?  (nǐ chī le mā?)
    This one will help you remember how to form past tense sentences. If you memorize this short one, you can substitute in other subjects, verbs, and verb phrases while maintaining the original structure and you will always be right. 
好久不见！     literally: good time not seen, i.e. It's been a while! (hǎo jiǔ bú jiàn)

对不起！　I'm sorry. (duì  bù  qǐ)
    This is useful in all kinds of situations--it can be an "excuse me for bumping into you" kind of sorry or a "I apologize for making fun of your nose" I'm sorry. 

没问题！　literally: don't have problem, i.e. No problem, or it's allright! (Méi  wèn  tí)
     What you say when someone apologizes to you. wenti, 问题，can mean problem or question, depending on the context. Also, you should know that mei is a shortened version of meiyou 没有，which means not having. Because this is a short, commonly used expression, the 没有 is shortened to just 没. This is also easier to say, because the extra syllable makes the sentence cumbersome. 

不好意思　literally: not good meaning, i.e. I'm uncomfortable/ embarrassed, excuse me.（bù hăo yì si)
     Useful when you do something silly or embarrassing, but where "I'm sorry" doesn't quite fit. My class used it a lot when they blanked and had to ask our teacher how to write a very simple character.

新年快乐！     literally: new year happy happy, or  Happy new year! (xīn nián kuài le)

祝你生日快乐! literally: wish you birthday happiness, or Happy birthday! (zhù  nǐ  shēng  rì  kuài  le)

我叫爱美　　I am called Amy. (wǒ  jiào  ài  měi )
         also: 你叫什么名字？you are called what name? ( nǐ  jiào  shén  me míng  zi)
    Once you have this pattern down, you can substitute in other subjects or question words to ask others their names, to introduce yourself and your friends, and to ask about other people. 

 Feel free to ask questions about these, or share whatever expressions you found useful in the comments box below. I'd love to learn a few new ones!
That's all I've got for now.
再见！(see you later!)
Sophie Sino