How to read and speak dates and times in Chinese?

Let’s learn how to read and speak dates and times in Chinese.

Dates and Time
Dates and time in Chinese is 日期 (rì qī) 与 时间 (shí jiān)

Days (Numbers, not names)
Months and days of the week do not have names in Chinese. They are numbered instead.

MON 星期一 xīng qī yī
TUES 星期二 xīng qī èr
WED 星期三 xīng qī sān
THURS 星期四 xīng qī sì
FRI 星期五 xīng qī wǔ
SAT 星期六 xīng qī liù
SUN 星期日/天 xīng qī rì/tiān



From big to small
When talking about dates and time, a rule of thumb in Chinese is to always go from the most general (big) to the most specific (small). In English, it’s the opposite!

Dates
Start with the most general information (the year) and work your way down.

Structure

FORMAT (nián) year 🡻
(yuè) month 🡻
 (rì)  or
(tiān)
day 🡻
星期(xīng qī) day of the week


Example

FORMAT 二零一四年 一月 三日 is January 3rd, 2014.
2021年 1月 4日 is January 4th, 2021.
2021年 5月 10日 星期一 is Monday, May 5, 2021.


Time
Going from largest to smallest is something you'll often find yourself doing in Mandarin.

Structure

FORMAT Period of the day >
(diǎn) hour >
(fēn) minutes >
(miǎo) seconds


Example

FORMAT 下午 五点 三十四分 is 5:34 p.m.
现在 夜里 一点 一刻。It's 1:15 a.m.

Useful Vocabulary
Here's some useful vocabulary to talk about period of the day:

Period of the Day
早上 (zǎo shang): early morning
上午 (shàng wǔ): morning
中午 (zhōng wǔ): noon
下午 (xià wǔ): afternoon
晚上 (wǎn shàng): evening
夜里 (yè lǐ): night
(bàn): half an hour
(chà): here minus to, as in:
二十 分就 两 点: Twenty minutes more to 2.