The Ultimate Guide to Year of the Snake Greetings
Show off your language skills with basic, intermediate, and advanced phrases—ready to copy, paste, and share!
Hello!
Today is New Year’s Eve in the lunar calendar, or 大年三十 in Chinese.
So, now is the time to send eloquent and inventive seasonal greetings to your Chinese friends, colleagues, and family.
But you don’t just want to use the boiler plate, standard greetings.
You want something special.
Something to impress.
Something to give you that boost of confidence you need to kick-start your Mandarin in the Year of the Snake.
That’s when wordplay, puns, and homonyms come in. These are a "must-have" in authentic seasonal greetings in Mandarin.
Word play comes in two main varieties:
idioms and phrases with the zodiac animal in them already (basic)
homonyms (谐音词) which borrow the zodiac animal into a set phrase (more advanced)
Here are some of the best ones we’ve found.
Simply copy, paste, and share!
Basic Snake Year Phrases
Here are five solid “Year of the Snake” phrases you can use right away, from ARC by John Pasden and Peter Braden:
金蛇吐祥 jīn shé tǔ xiáng – “The golden snake brings good fortune”
蛇行天下 shé xíng tiān xià – “The snake moves freely across the world”
蛇年发财 shé nián fā cái – “Prosperity and wealth in the Year of the Snake”
灵蛇开运 líng shé kāi yùn – “The agile snake brings good luck”
蛇转乾坤 shé zhuǎn qián kūn – “The snake turns the world around”
Intermediate to Advanced Options
Now you have the basics, let’s dive into the more advanced stuff.
We’ll explain the background knowledge you need to know, and then apply it to increasingly “advanced” idioms and phrases.
You don’t need to “learn” all these, just pick the ones you like, copy and paste, and try them out with your Chinese speaking contacts!
Background
The Snake (蛇 shé) is the sixth animal in the twelve-year cycle of the Chinese zodiac.
Another way to denote the year according to the traditional Chinese calendar is using the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches (天干地支) system which is a sixty-year cycle.
There are twelve Earthly Branches (地支) which correspond to the twelve animals of the zodiac. The Year of the Snake corresponds to the Earthly Branch symbol, si (巳 sì)—which also means “snake”.
There are ten Heavenly Stems (天干) which correspond to yin and yang versions of the five elements (wood, fire, earth, metal, water).
So, this Year of the Snake, according to the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches system, is the Year of the Wood Snake (乙巳年 yǐ sì nián):
乙 (yǐ) is second Heavenly Stem, “Wood” (Yin).
巳 (sì) is the Sixth Earthly Branch, ”Snake”
Still with me?
Don’t worry if you’re not.
Because, having said all that, although everyone in China knows this stuff, it’s never really used other than around Spring Festival, mainly in festive expressions, and marketing campaigns.
So all you really need to know is there are two characters which mean “snake”— 蛇 shé and 巳 sì.
This is important for the seasonal wordplay—the two “snake” characters sound similar to other common characters:
蛇 shé sounds similar to "to give up" (舍 shě)
巳 sì sounds similar to "things" (事 shì), and "time" (时 shí)
Now, let’s apply this to some more challenging idioms.
Snake Idioms (intermediate)
Idiom homonyms with the character for "snake" (蛇)
有蛇有得 yǒu shé yǒu de — “Where there’s a snake, there’s a gain”
Source: 有舍有得 yǒu shě yǒu dé - "You must give something up to gain something"
蛇来运转 shé lái yùn zhuǎn — “When the snake comes, fortune turns”
Source: 时来运转 shí lái yùn zhuǎn - "When the time comes, luck turns around"
蛇拿九稳 shé ná jiǔ wěn — “When the snake bites, it's nine out of ten”
Source: 十拿九稳 shí ná jiǔ wěn - "When you try ten times, nine are stable"
出蛇入化 (chū shé rù huà) — “Achieving mastery in the Year of the Snake”
Source: 出神入化 chū shén rù huà - "To reach a state of excellence or perfection"
一蛇二鸟 yī shé èr niǎo — “Double success in the Year of the Snake”
Source: 一石二鸟 yī shí èr niǎo - "To kill two birds with one stone"
Idiom homonyms with the character for "si” (巳):
好巳成双 hǎo sì chéng shuāng — “Double happiness in the Year of the Snake”
Source: 好事成双 hǎo shì chéng shuāng - "Good things come in pairs"
巳全巳美 sì quán sì měi — “Perfection in the Year of the Snake”
Source: 十全十美 shí quán shí měi - "Perfect and flawless"