Chinese New Year greetings in 3 Chinese languages

Chinese New Year greetings are written with the same characters across China and said differently in each Chinese language: the wish for a prosperous New Year is 恭喜发财 gōngxǐ fācái in Mandarin, 恭喜發財 gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4 in Cantonese and 恭喜发财 kon shi faeh ze in Shanghainese. Below are the New Year greetings worth knowing in all three, with how to say them and how to answer. The next Lunar New Year is 6 February 2027, the start of the Year of the Goat.

Updated 16 October 2026 · 5 min read

Tap 🔊 to hear an example. Shanghainese examples play the recordings from Verbavia’s course, made with a Shanghainese voice; Mandarin examples play a Mandarin voice.

The greetings, side by side

Mandarin and Shanghainese are written here in simplified characters, as they are in Shanghai and on the mainland; Cantonese is in the traditional characters used in Hong Kong. The characters are the same words. Only the writing style and the sound differ.

Any one of the four is a complete greeting. The first is the plain Happy New Year. The third is the one most associated with the festival, and in Cantonese it is the greeting people say first; its literal meaning is congratulations, get rich. The fourth is the one to say to older people.

To wish it to someone in Shanghainese, put 祝侬 tsoh non ‘wishing you’ in front: 祝侬新年快乐 tsoh non sin nyie khua loh ‘I wish you a happy New Year’, 祝侬身体健康 tsoh non sen thi jie khaon ‘I wish you good health’.

Four-character wishes

Much of what is said at New Year is set phrases of four characters, exchanged in pairs and strings. These three are the commonest after the ones above.

The last is heard most in Cantonese, where it is a standard wish for good health and energy. Shanghainese speakers say these phrases too, reading the same characters in Shanghainese sounds. This page gives a Shanghainese reading only where the course can vouch for every syllable, so they are left out of this table.

A surplus every year is a pun. 余 yú ‘surplus’ sounds the same as 鱼 yú ‘fish’ in Mandarin, which is why a whole fish is served at the New Year meal.

The words around the festival

Two rows are different words, not different sounds. The family dinner on New Year’s Eve is 年夜饭 niányèfàn in Mandarin and Shanghainese and 團年飯 tyun4 nin4 faan6, the reunion-year meal, in Cantonese. And the red envelope is 红包 hóngbāo, red packet, in Mandarin, but 利是 lai6 si6 in Cantonese, the word English speakers in Hong Kong know as lai see. The money that goes to children inside it has a Shanghainese name of its own, 压岁钿 aeh soe die, where Mandarin says 压岁钱 yāsuìqián: 钿 die is the Shanghainese word for money in old compounds.

How to say them

• Mandarin is given in pinyin, with a mark for each tone. Tap the speaker to hear it.
• Cantonese is given in jyutping, the standard romanisation. The number after each syllable is its tone, from 1 to 6. J is said like English y, so jyu4 starts with a y sound, and c is close to ts.
• Shanghainese is given in the romanisation Verbavia’s course uses. A final -h is a catch in the throat that cuts the syllable short, as in 乐 loh and 发 faeh. Gh, z and v are voiced sounds that Mandarin does not have: 红 ghon ‘red’, 财 ze ‘wealth’, 饭 vae ‘rice, a meal’. The sounds are explained on the pronunciation page.

Set the three side by side and the family likeness shows. 发财 fācái, 發財 faat3 coi4 and 发财 faeh ze are one word. Cantonese keeps a final -t that Mandarin lost long ago, and Shanghainese keeps a trace of it as its catch in the throat.

How to answer

Say it back. A New Year greeting is answered with the same greeting or another from the list, usually with thank you in front:

• Mandarin: 谢谢 xièxie ‘thank you’, then 新年快乐 xīnnián kuàilè.
• Cantonese: 多謝 do1 ze6, then 新年快樂 san1 nin4 faai3 lok6.
• Shanghainese: 谢谢侬 zia zia non ‘thank you’, then 新年快乐 sin nyie khua loh.

More everyday greetings are on the hello and thank you page.

Goat, sheep or ram?

The year that begins on 6 February 2027 is the year of the 羊 yáng, 羊 yan in Shanghainese. Chinese uses one word where English has three, so the sign is translated as Goat, Sheep or Ram, and all three are right. It is the eighth of the twelve animals in the cycle, and the year lasts until 25 January 2028.

Which one should you learn?

• For most of mainland China, Taiwan and Singapore: the Mandarin.
• For Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong and most overseas Chinatowns: the Cantonese. 恭喜發財 gung1 hei2 faat3 coi4 is the form that reached English as kung hei fat choy.
• For Shanghai: everyone will understand the Mandarin, and saying 新年快乐 sin nyie khua loh to an older Shanghainese person will be noticed.

Food is the other half of the festival, and its vocabulary is on the Shanghainese food words page; who you visit, and what to call them, is on the family words page. The free Shanghainese course teaches every Shanghainese word used here, and the Mandarin course the Mandarin.

Sources

1. Wiktionary: 恭喜發財 — Mandarin, Cantonese and Shanghainese readings, and the gloss “Happy New Year”.
2. Wiktionary: 新年快樂, 身體健康, 萬事如意, 心想事成, 年年有餘, 龍馬精神 — pinyin and jyutping.
3. Wiktionary: 拜年, 年夜飯 and 春節 — readings in all three languages; 團年飯 and 利市 (lai see) for Cantonese.
4. Wikipedia: Goat (zodiac) — the eighth sign, also translated Sheep or Ram; 6 February 2027 to 25 January 2028.
5. The Linguistic Society of Hong Kong: Jyutping, the Cantonese romanisation used here.