"恭喜发财！"
Translation:May you be prosperous!
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1887
Sounds more like 'May the force be with you' than a New Year's greeting. For the latter, 'May you be prosperous' or 'May you prosper' (in the new year).
From now on, I will surely burst into laughter, every time someone says 恭喜发财 to me. :'D
The hints say 'congratulations' and 'make a fortune'. No way of sucking 'may prosperity be with you' out of that...
This sentence translates directly as congrstulations and good fortune. It should be taught though as "good luck this year" or some such because it is only used at new year.
Isn't this a set phrase? Meaning: may you have a prosperous New Year.
Doesn't 恭喜 mean congratulations? how did it translate to may you have prosperity I don't get it
It does not literally translate. It is a set phrase, an idiom. There are a lot of set phrases and vocabulary that do not translate literally. You just have to learn them over time.
Then the translation should be an English idiom not a have done attempt at a literal translation.
- 1360
Ideally perhaps, but there isn't a directly comparable English idiom. We don't say 'Happy new year! Hope you get rich!' in English.
- 450
This is daft. In other places this is translated as "Happy New Year" - which is a fairly standard English expression (unlike "may you have a prosperous New Year") but that translation isn't accepted here!
Okay how am I supposed to know this without knowing the idiom first? (sigh)
The sentence structure is the same as in: Congratulations! Get rich!
恭 alone means "respectful, polite".
喜 alone means "to like, to love; happiness".
Together as 恭喜 they mean "I respectfully wish you happiness" or simply "Congratulations!"
发 alone has many meanings. As a verb, it can mean "to issue, to launch, to produce, to bring forth, to yield".
财 alone means "wealth, riches, money".
发财 together becomes: "May you bring forth a fortune!" or simply "Get rich!"
Seems a bit weird to translate something that can't be translated... It's just a greeting for Chinese New Year
It can and should be translated - especially for language learners. On the other hand, the endless list of possible translations makes it rather hard to use it as a Duo phrase. Everything from "Happy new year!" to "Wish you a good and prosperous new year!", "May you have a happy and prosperous new year!" to "Happy new year! Hope you get rich!" (Thanks, StephanusG1, this one is my favourite :o) ) should be accepted.
Cung hỉ phát tài! Vietnamese translation. Gong relates to "get st" Xi relates to "happiness" Fa relates to "increase st" Cai relates to "money" This sentence is used as the wish in new year, open the new shop, hope you to be happy and have a successful business.
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thank you for the korean parallel and for the explaination:D, very interesting and mind opening.
If you look through the other posts above, there I broke it up for you character by character.