# 歲次己丑



## kiseki_o_o

I've got those words in a wedding invitation card of my friend.
Been wondering what that means. It's followed by a date on the behind.
威次已丑 <date>

Thanks for anyone who helps.


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## w84u

It must be 岁次已丑（sui4ci4 ji3chou3), which means 'the year of 2009'.   

岁次 is an archaic expression which means 'year', and 已丑 is the Stem-Branch ordinal of 2009 in Chinese lunar calendar.


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## Jerry Chan

You must have seen the traditional character "歲", or there was a typo! 
And be careful it's 己, not 已.
Chinese year is named with 10 天干 and 12 地支
己 is the sixth 天干
丑 is the second 地支


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## kiseki_o_o

Now that you guys mentioned it and I took a closer look, it is 歲次己丑
So 歲次己丑 xxx basically only means the year of xxx?


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## AVim

kiseki_o_o said:


> Now that you guys mentioned it and I took a closer look, it is 歲次己丑
> So 歲次己丑 xxx basically only means the year of xxx?



Nope. 
天干 are ten Heavenly Stems;  such as "甲乙丙丁....",  the '己' is the 6th of the ten Heavenly Stems; 

地支 are twelve Earthly Branches; such as "子丑寅卯...", the '丑' is the 2nd of the twelve Earthly Branches, and the '寅' is the 3rd, '卯' is the fourth, and so on.

Well, for your instance, this year (2009) is 己丑 year, so the next year (2010) will be 己寅 year, the next next (2011) will be 己卯 year, and so on.

Now you can do the matching game by yourself.


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## w84u

AVim said:


> Nope.
> 天干 are ten Heavenly Stems; such as "甲乙丙丁....", the '己' is the 6th of the ten Heavenly Stems;
> 
> 地支 are twelve Earthly Branches; such as "子丑寅卯...", the '丑' is the 2nd of the twelve Earthly Branches, and the '寅' is the 3rd, '卯' is the fourth, and so on.
> 
> Well, for your instance, this year (2009) is 己丑 year, so the next year (2010) will be 己寅 year, the next next (2011) will be 己卯 year, and so on.
> 
> Now you can do the matching game by yourself.


 
The next year, 2010, is a 庚寅 year. Most native Chinese do not know how to calculate the Stem-Branch order, so there is no need for a foreigner to know that much about it


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## w84u

kiseki_o_o said:


> Now that you guys mentioned it and I took a closer look, it is 歲次己丑
> So 歲次己丑 xxx basically only means the year of xxx?


 
Yes. That's an old-fashioned expression in Chinese. Don't bother to understand what 己丑 really means. 歲次** xxxx just represents a year, and nowadays it's only used on special occasions like birthday celebrations、wedding feasts etc.


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## kiseki_o_o

Great. That gave me a much better understanding. Thanks all!


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## Jerry Chan

w84u said:


> The next year, 2010, is a 庚寅 year. Most native Chinese do not know how to calculate the Stem-Branch order, so there is no need for a foreigner to know that much about it



Right, both 天干 & 地支 changes every year.
So, there're only 60 combinations.
There's is a saying "六十年一甲子"
One 甲子 is 60 years because 甲子年 (the year that first 天干 & fist 地支 meets) repeats every 60 years.


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## w84u

Jerry Chan said:


> Right, both 天干 & 地支 changes every year.
> So, there're only 60 combinations.
> There's is a saying "六十年一甲子"
> One 甲子 is 60 years because 甲子年 (the year that first 天干 & fist 地支 meets) repeats every 60 years.


 
Yeah. There's a simple way we can get to know the Stem-Branch order of a year:

Since there are ten Heavenly Stems, the years with the same last-digit have the same Stem, e.g. 2009、2019、1999 are all a 己 year. Any xxx4 year belongs to 甲， xxx5 to 乙，and so forth. 

As for the Earthly Branches, it seems a little complicated, for there're 12 Branches. But we have 12-Animal-Symbol to help calculate and remember it. If we figure out the Animal symbol of the year, we can know the Branch of it, for the Animal signs correspond to the Branches: 子-鼠, 丑-牛, 寅-虎, and so on.


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## samanthalee

w84u said:


> Yeah. There's a simple way we can get to know the Stem-Branch order of a year:
> 
> Since there are ten Heavenly Stems, the years with the same last-digit have the same Stem, e.g. 2009、2019、1999 are all a 己 year. Any xxx4 year belongs to 甲， xxx5 to 乙，and so forth.
> 
> As for the Earthly Branches, it seems a little complicated, for there're 12 Branches. But we have 12-Animal-Symbol to help calculate and remember it. If we figure out the Animal symbol of the year, we can know the Branch of it, for the Animal signs correspond to the Branches: 子-鼠, 丑-牛, 寅-虎, and so on.



Which means the cycle we are currently in started in 1984 (甲子), which was a xxx4 year(heavenly stem = 甲), and was the year of the Rat (子-鼠)。


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## AVim

w84u said:


> The next year, 2010, is a 庚寅 year. Most native Chinese do not know how to calculate the Stem-Branch order, so there is no need for a foreigner to know that much about it



Oh god, did I leech the wrong thing? I should have done a better search. 
Sorry for the trouble, guys.


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## dstar1230

Hi,AVim,your explain in my opinion is perfect,right or wrong is not important,but you have got the 神 instead of the 形


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