Did you just finish your finals? If so, your much anticipated winter break is right there for you to enjoy. Let’s learn how to say ” My winter break has just begun” in Chinese: 我的寒假才刚刚开始。wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.
wo3 de5 (我的 possessive pronoun, my) han2 jia4 (寒假 han2 originally means cold, jia4 means holiday; winter break took place at very chilly and freezing month, thus, it is called han2 jia4) cai2 (才 adverb, just now) gang1 gang1 （刚刚adverb, just recently) kai1 shi3 (开始 compound verbs, start).
Cai2 才, gang1 刚 and gang1 gang1 刚刚 all are adverbs, and all mean just now, just recently. Gang1 gang1 刚刚 is similar to gang1 刚, but the time is much shorter than 刚 “gang”.
You can say:
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 刚 开 始
or
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 才 开 始
or
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 刚 刚 开 始
But if you really want to be emphatic, and sound like it just happened like two seconds ago, then you can use 才 cai2 + 刚刚 gang1 gang1 to show your enthusiasm about something is soooooo new, it JUST happened!!! As today’s one Chinese sentence a day’s main sentence
wo3 de5 han2 jia4 cai2 gang1 gang1 kai1 shi3.
我 的 寒 假 才 刚 刚 开 始
My winter break has ***JUST**** begun!!!!!!!
Besides the meaning of just now, just recently, Gang1 gang1 has another definition – just, exactly.
For example,
This pair of shoes, not big not small, just fine （exactly fine).
这双鞋， 不大不小，刚刚好。
For winter break, we know it is 寒假 han2 jia4, for summer break, it is 暑假 shu3 jia4, and spring break it is 春假 chun1 jia4. The verb to go with break is 放 fang4. 放假 means to get time off school or work due to holiday.
For example, you can say “Yay, we have winter break now!” in Chinese, it is: Yay wo3 men5 xian4 zai4 fang4 han2 jia4 le5. Yay 我们现在放寒假了。
Fang4 jia4 放假 is different from 度假 du4 jia4 (have vacation). Du4 jia4 is like you go to Europe two weeks for traveling. If you want to have a vacation when you are having your winter break, then you can say: wo3 fang4 han2 jia4 de5 shi2 hou4 xiang3 qu4 du4 jia4. 我放寒假的时候想去度假。
Have a wonderful winter break there, and enjoy your holiday season. Don’t forget to memorize the poems if you want to do the contest !!!!!! Annie, Rory, Cam, Zack and 朋美!
Let’s conclude today’s post with one of Green Day’s songs; Yes, the song is called — Holiday!!! In Chinese, we call it jia4 qi2 假期