Relative times for Years

I wrote in previous posts how Chinese refer to relative days , relative weeks and relative months in Mandarin. In this last post of this short series, we’ll look at how they refer to years.

年 (Nián) is the word for Year. It’s pronounced roughly like “knee-en”.

今年 (Jīnnián) means “This year”

Years don’t use up and down words like weeks and months. Instead:

去年 (Qùnián) means “Last year” (where Qù means “Go” - or in this case gone)

明年 (Míngnián) means “Next year” (where Míng literally means “Clear or bright”)

Other periods are a bit different though. You don’t double up the words like they do with weeks:

前年 (Qiánnián) is “The year before last”. Qián usually relates to “in front of”.

次年 (Cì nián) can be used for “The year after next”, although there are alternatives to this.

2020-01-17