Year of the Goat Greetings 2027: 12 Chinese New Year Wishes to Send (with Pinyin)
What to say for Chinese New Year 2027, the Year of the Goat. Twelve greetings with pinyin and meaning, from the everyday 万事如意 to the Goat-year pun 三阳开泰, and who each one suits.
Chinese New Year 2027 falls on 6 February and opens the Year of the Goat (羊年, yáng nián). A good greeting is usually two or three four-character phrases strung together: 新年快乐，万事如意 (happy new year, may everything go your way) is the everyday version. The first three below are the Goat-year specials. 三阳开泰 is the classic, often written 三羊开泰 as a pun, because 羊 (goat) and 阳 (yang) sound identical. 喜气洋洋 hides the same sound in 洋, and 吉祥如意 hides the goat itself: 祥 is built on 羊, and Han-dynasty bronzes wrote 大吉祥 as 大吉羊. The rest are the standard wishes that work in any year, followed by two quieter ones for elders, a traditional phrase for turning up with gifts, and one for the spectacle of the New Year market.
三阳开泰
sān yáng kāi tàiA fortunate new beginning
Literal: Three yang open into prosperity
This is the single most important New Year phrase of a Goat year, and it comes from the Book of Changes (《周易》). In the hexagram cycle, the eleventh month is 复 with one yang line born beneath, the twelfth is 临 with two, and the first month of the new year is 泰 with three — the point at which yin rece...
Example
At the turn of the year the family wished each other a fortunate new beginning.
新年伊始，祝您三阳开泰，万象更新。
喜气洋洋
xǐ qì yáng yángRadiating happiness
Literal: Joy brimming over
The phrase descends from Fan Zhongyan's 《岳阳楼记》, where a visitor climbing the tower feels his spirit widen until honour and disgrace fall away and he is simply 喜洋洋 — his spirits (气) brimming over, joyous without reserve. 洋 originally suggests vastness, the spreading of water; doubled, it turns a priv...
Example
The whole courtyard was radiant with celebration on the first morning of the year.
过年时家里张灯结彩，喜气洋洋。
吉祥如意
jí xiáng rú yìGood fortune and fulfilment
Literal: Auspicious, and as you wish
The commonest of all Chinese New Year wishes hides a sheep in plain sight. 祥, auspiciousness, is built on the 羊 radical, and in Han-dynasty bronze inscriptions the compound 吉祥 was regularly written 吉羊 — the sheep and the blessing were the same word. Ancient writers treated the animal as the emblem o...
Example
The card carried the plainest and best of wishes: good fortune, and everything as you hope.
祝您新春吉祥如意，阖家安康。
万事如意
wàn shì rú yìMay everything go the way you want
Literal: Ten thousand things as you wish
Probably the most-used Chinese New Year wish of all. 万事 is 'ten thousand matters', meaning everything, and 如意 means 'as one wishes' — the same 如意 as the ruyi sceptre, a curved ornamental object given as a token of good fortune. A well-known early appearance is in Dream of the Red Chamber (《红楼梦》, cha...
Example
Happy New Year — may everything go just the way you wish.
祝您新年快乐，身体健康，万事如意！
心想事成
xīn xiǎng shì chéngMay your wishes come true
Literal: What the heart wants, the matter achieves
A modern blessing rather than a classical idiom: dictionaries give it no ancient source, and it spread through twentieth-century greeting culture. 心想 is 'what the heart thinks of' and 事成 'the matter is accomplished' — whatever you set your mind on, may it happen. It is one of the most common phrases...
Example
Wishing you a year in which every wish comes true.
祝你在新的一年里心想事成，梦想成真！
吉星高照
jí xīng gāo zhàoMay good fortune shine on you
Literal: A lucky star shines high above
One of the standard Chinese New Year blessings, seen on greeting cards, spring couplets (春联) and red envelopes. 吉星 is an auspicious star — in traditional astrology, stars were believed to govern fortune, and a lucky star overhead meant protection and success — and 高照 means shining from on high. Unli...
Example
On the card she wrote: may your lucky star shine high all year.
新春佳节，祝您吉星高照，万事顺心。
马到成功
mǎ dào chéng gōngAchieve immediate success
Literal: Success upon the horse's arrival
The horse (马) arrives (到) and the thing succeeds (成功). It belongs to Yuan drama, where a general's mount reaching the field is the moment the outcome is settled, and the compression is the point: no campaign, no struggle, just arrival and result. Chinese uses it almost entirely as a wish rather than...
Example
The team wished her success from the moment she began.
团队祝愿她马到成功。
龙马精神
lóng mǎ jīng shénYouthful vigor despite old age
Literal: Dragon-horse spirit
The 龙马 is a single creature, not two: the dragon-horse that rose from the Yellow River bearing the diagram on its back, in the legend of how the trigrams were devised. So the phrase claims the vitality (精神) of a mythical beast rather than combining a dragon and a horse. It is used almost exclusively...
Example
The 85-year-old professor still taught full courses with remarkable energy
这位85岁的教授仍然精力充沛地教授全部课程
美意延年
měi yì yán niánCheerfulness brings a long life
Literal: A joyful heart extends the years
From Xunzi (《荀子·致士》): 'win the people and you move heaven; a joyful heart extends your years; sincerity works like the divine' (得众动天，美意延年，诚信如神). The Tang commentator Yang Liang glosses 美意 as a happy mind, and explains that one free of worry lives longer. It is used today as a blessing for longevity ...
Example
My grandmother laughs every day — proof that a joyful heart lengthens life.
老人家心态好，美意延年，九十岁还精神矍铄。
吉祥止止
jí xiáng zhǐ zhǐBlessings settle where the mind is calm
Literal: Good fortune comes and stays
From Zhuangzi (《庄子·人间世》), in the passage on the 'fasting of the heart' (心斋). Confucius, as Zhuangzi imagines him, tells his disciple Yan Hui: 'look at that empty room — the empty chamber fills with light, and good fortune comes to rest there' (瞻彼阕者，虚室生白，吉祥止止). The first 止 means to stop and stay; the...
Example
He hung a scroll reading "good fortune comes and stays" above his desk.
书房里挂着一幅“吉祥止止”的字，寓意福气常驻。
牵羊担酒
qiān yáng dān jiǔBring gifts to celebrate or give thanks
Literal: Lead a sheep and carry wine
In traditional China a sheep and a jar of wine were the classic gifts for a celebration, a wedding or a visit of thanks, and this idiom names the gesture directly. Its best-known early appearance is in the Yuan-dynasty play Meng Deyao Raises the Tray to Her Brow (《孟德耀举案齐眉》, act four), where an old f...
Example
When their daughter passed the exam, the grandparents arrived bearing gifts as if leading a sheep and carrying wine.
听说儿子考中了，老两口牵羊担酒，登门道谢。
洋洋大观
yáng yáng dà guānA rich and impressive array
Literal: Vast and magnificent to behold
洋洋 describes something vast and overflowing, and 大观 a grand spectacle. The root image goes back to Zhuangzi, which describes the Way as covering and sustaining all things, 'vast, how great it is' (洋洋乎大哉), though the four-character idiom itself is much later — it appears in the Qing memoir Six Record...
Example
The New Year market was a magnificent sight, with stalls of lanterns, sweets and paper-cuts as far as you could see.
春节庙会上各色年货应有尽有，真是洋洋大观。
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