Pinyin Sheets

Chinese New Year Words for Kids: Printable Pinyin and Character List

Published 2026-10-06 · Updated 2026-10-06

Chinese New Year Words for Kids: A Printable Pinyin List

Lunar New Year is the easiest time of year to get children interested in Chinese. There are red envelopes, dumplings, lanterns and decorations on every door, and every one of those things has a short, useful word attached to it.

This page gives you a ready-made list of 15 New Year words with characters, pinyin with tone marks and plain-English meanings. It also has a handful of four-character greetings for older children to copy, and a simple plan for turning the list into worksheets in the weeks before the holiday.

Dates checked on 6 October 2026. In 2027, Lunar New Year's Day falls on Saturday 6 February (GovHK). The Hong Kong Observatory's conversion table calls 2027 the year of the Goat and shows the first lunar month starting on 6 February (HKO), so the Lantern Festival (the 15th day) falls on 20 February 2027 by our count from that table.

What the festival is, in one paragraph for kids

UNESCO added the Spring Festival to its list of intangible cultural heritage in 2024. Its description says the festival starts on the first day of the first month of the Chinese lunar calendar and that the celebrations are known as guonian, "passing the year". It lists customs such as cleaning the home, stocking up and preparing food, the New Year's Eve family dinner, staying up late, wearing new clothes, making offerings and visiting elders to wish them well (UNESCO). Almost every word below links to one of those customs, which gives children a story to hang the vocabulary on.

The word list

The pinyin and meanings in this table are our own, written for beginners. Words are spelled as joined words, as the national pinyin orthography standard recommends for words (GB/T 16159).

Characters Pinyin Meaning Kid-friendly note
新年 xīnnián New Year Two first-and-second-tone syllables: a good warm-up
春节 Chūnjié Spring Festival The festival's name in Chinese
过年 guònián to celebrate New Year Literally "pass the year"
红包 hóngbāo red envelope Usually holds money from relatives
饺子 jiǎozi dumplings 子 is neutral tone (no mark)
年夜饭 niányèfàn New Year's Eve dinner The big family meal
福 fú good fortune One character, one syllable: easy to write large
春联 chūnlián spring couplets Red paper verses beside the door
灯笼 dēnglong lantern 笼 is neutral here in everyday speech
新衣服 xīn yīfu new clothes Two words, so there is a space
拜年 bàinián to pay a New Year visit Visiting family and friends
舞狮 wǔshī lion dance Third tone + first tone
元宵 yuánxiāo sweet rice balls (Lantern Festival) Eaten on the 15th day
生肖 shēngxiào zodiac animal See the zodiac list linked below
新年快乐 xīnnián kuàilè Happy New Year The first greeting to teach

Two notes for parents:

  • Neutral tones. Words like 饺子 and 衣服 end in a neutral tone, which has no tone mark. Children often add a mark because "every syllable has a tone." Point out that the light, short syllable is simply written without one.
  • Spaces. 新衣服 is written xīn yīfu with a space because it is an adjective plus a noun, two words, while 新年 is one word and written joined. Don't worry if a young child misses this; it matters more for older learners.

Spring couplets and 揮春: phrases to copy

Hong Kong's Education Bureau has a teaching resource on the New Year that separates two kinds of red paper decorations. Spring couplets (春联) are pairs of parallel lines. 揮春 (also called 福贴 or 春条) developed from couplets and are usually four-character phrases, or a single character such as 福 or a two-character phrase such as 大吉 (EDB PDF). The same resource suggests students practise writing these phrases.

That makes 揮春 phrases a natural writing task for children who already know a few characters. Here are five to start with. The pinyin and meanings are ours.

Phrase Pinyin Meaning
大吉 dàjí great luck
新年快乐 xīnnián kuàilè Happy New Year
恭喜发财 gōngxǐ fācái wishing you prosperity
身体健康 shēntǐ jiànkāng good health
万事如意 wànshì rúyì may everything go as you wish

If your family uses traditional characters, the resource itself is written in traditional Chinese, so you can copy the forms from there.

Weave in the zodiac story

The EDB resource also tells the folk story of the "great race" that set the order of the twelve zodiac animals, with the rat first and the pig last. It notes that this kind of tale may be a later embellishment rather than the true origin (EDB PDF). Children love the story anyway. Tell it, then move on to our full list of Chinese zodiac animals for kids, which gives each animal in characters and pinyin.

A three-week worksheet plan

Twenty minutes, three times a week, is plenty for most primary-age children.

Week 1: listen and point

  • Say five words aloud and have your child point to the picture or character.
  • Clap the syllables: 年夜饭 has three claps, 福 has one.
  • Print a tracing sheet of 福, 年 and 春.

Week 2: read the pinyin

  • Print a full sheet (characters with pinyin) of 10 words.
  • Ask your child to read the pinyin aloud before you say it.
  • Practise the tones in 新年快乐 slowly, then at normal speed.

Week 3: write and give

  • Print a blank (dictation) sheet of five words: it shows only the pinyin, and your child writes each character from memory.
  • Copy one 揮春 phrase in large squares and hang it on the door.
  • Use 新年快乐 and 恭喜发财 when greeting relatives.

If your child mixes up tone marks or forgets where they go, our guide to the pinyin initials and finals chart covers tone-mark placement and the other spelling rules you'll meet in this list.

Make the worksheets

Paste any of the words above into the pinyin worksheet generator. Choose full mode for reading practice, tracing for writing the characters, or blank for dictation. Each sheet prints on A4 with tianzige squares and pinyin above every character, so the 15 words fit on one or two pages.

Sources

Sources