Each colour is one part of the character. Parts repeat across thousands of characters, so learning them makes new words easier. See all 214 in our radicals chart.
明míngbright
日sun · rì
月moon · yuè
Memory aidThe light of the sun 日 and the moon 月 together: bright.
年niányear
年 is a single shape of 6 strokes. Learn it whole, then watch its stroke order below.
Memory aidA person carrying ripe grain: one harvest, one year.
How to write 明年
明 8 strokes · 年 6 strokes
Watch the order, then press Try writing it and draw each stroke in the grid. Each stroke is checked as you go.
Stroke order chart for 明年 (míngnián). Red marks the next stroke, so you can copy it onto paper one step at a time.
明年 (míngnián) means “next year”. It is an HSK 3.0 Level 1 word.
Say it míngnián: míng with a 2nd tone, then nián with a 2nd tone. Press Listen at the top of this page to hear it, or Slowly to hear each tone clearly.
Yes. 明年 is written the same way in Simplified and Traditional characters.
Add a Chinese (Simplified) pinyin keyboard to your phone or computer, type mingnian with no tone marks or spaces, then choose 明年 from the suggestions. Typing mingnian into this dictionary’s search box finds it too.
明年 is an HSK 3.0 Level 1 word in the official 2021 syllabus, and it is on our HSK 3.0 Band 1 word list. It is not on the older HSK 2.0 word lists.
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Sources: meaning and pinyin checked by a native Mandarin teacher against the official HSK lists. Extra meanings from CC-CEDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0). Example sentences from Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR). Character parts and stroke order from Make Me a Hanzi.
明míng2nd tone, rising
