Sentence pattern · Band 1
Dates and clock time: big to small
年 月 日 星期 点 分
Dates and clock time run big to small, like an address on an envelope: year, then month, then the day, then hour and minute. Say 九月二号 for the date and 三点半 for half past three. English flips between month first and day first; Mandarin never hesitates. The day of the month is friendly 号 in speech.
Hear it in a sentence
Mistakes people make
The order is always big to small, year, month, day; English flips to the little units first, Mandarin does not.
Clock time rides in front of the verb like every other time word; it does not tail the sentence with 在.
Words in this pattern
Quick answers
What does 年月日与钟点 mean?
Dates and clock time run big to small, like an address on an envelope: year, then month, then the day, then hour and minute. Say 九月二号 for the date and 三点半 for half past three. English flips between month first and day first; Mandarin never hesitates. The day of the month is friendly 号 in speech.
How do you build it?
年 月 日 星期 点 分
What is the most common mistake?
今天是二号九月。 → 今天是九月二号。
The order is always big to small, year, month, day; English flips to the little units first, Mandarin does not.
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