Chinese New Year Greetings For The Year Of The Dog

Auspicious or lucky greetings are particularly important on a holiday like Chinese New Year, otherwise known as Lunar New Year.  Greetings wishing a new year of fortune offer respect for family, friends, and even strangers.  Saying simple phrases like Happy New Year is great, but you can really show additional effort and skill by adding new year blessings. 

The standard greeting is to start with "Happy New Year", 新年快樂 （Xīnnián kuàilè) followed by auspicious words in the section below.  Even though the literal translation may be "year of the dog wealth", the "wishing you" part of the phrase is understood, without needing an explicit verb.  Many of these sayings or couplets are displayed on wall scrolls or around doors, projecting well wishes.  

Year of the Dog 2018 Lunar New Year Greetings

Chinese folks love a play on words, so for each year in the zodiac, different sayings are used that make use of relevant sounds.  Typically auspicious words are combined with a reference to an animal sound or characteristic.  For example in Chinese, the sound that dogs make is "汪汪 wàngwàng" (the Chinese equivalent to woof woof).  汪 (woof) shares the same sound as 旺, which is part of the phrase 興旺, which means thriving or flourishing.  As a result, the Chinese character 旺 is used in many lucky greetings for the Year of the dog.