Expressing enthusiasm about Christmas in Chinese

[learner2]

I am having trouble working out how to say a lot of simple phrases that people usually say around Christmas time in Chinese.

 

When you see friends or colleagues around this time of the year, it is usual to say something along the lines of

 

"Are you looking forward to Christmas?" or "Are you excited about Christmas?"

 

I can't think of a way to express this question or idea naturally in Chinese and I have hit a wall.

 

If I translate it literally I get

 

"你有沒有期待聖誕節？“

 

“你對聖誕節興奮嗎？”

 

but I bet I would get a lot of weird looks in response if I said any of those two sentences in real life.

 

Can anyone help me out here?

[learner2]

Now that I think about it, it seems that the most common question I hear locals say in Chinese around Christmas time is

 

"你聖誕節去哪裏玩啊?"

 

Such a question would not get weird responses because I have heard this question asked many times before. Usually, one would get an enthusiastic response to such a socially accepted question.

 

Perhaps this is the Chinese native equivalent of the English question "Excited about Christmas?"

 

No doubt it is not a literal translation, but it serves the same purpose of asking a person politely a relevant question about Christmas.

[OneEye]

Yup, that's about what I was going to suggest. I hear a lot of that, and a lot of “你們那個什麼...聖誕節快到了吧...?”

[Meng Lelan]

Well, the question of "are you excited about Christmas" sounds very 美国  not very  中国. And even then that's what adults usually ask of little kids. I agree with what OneEye said, you would ask about plans for the holidays not about excitement for the holidays.

[tooironic]

China celebrates Christmas, to a certain degree. Western countries with Chinese residents celebrate Spring Festival, to a certain degree. But I wouldn't expect the holiday greetings for one native festival to be able to be expressed nicely in the other language. I mean, have you ever asked a native speaker of English what they are doing for Dragon Boat Festival, or whether they were excited about Tomb Sweeping Day?

[Demonic_Duck]

Man I always get so damn excited for Tomb Sweeping Day.

[Hofmann]

Wait...you can talk about Christmas in China?

[learner2]

I am in Hong Kong.

 

These answers are all very enlightening!

 

Yes, good point: I shouldn't really be asking colleagues whether they are excited about Christmas (unless I am very close to them), otherwise they may think I am treating them like children or that I cannot be taken seriously.

 

I was concentrating so much on translation that I forgot about what is appropriate.

 

Which leads me to think that the safest way to ask a colleague or senior colleague or boss how they are in Cantonese is probably to restrict the question to work

 

e.g. 最近工作忙唔忙啊？

 

or

 

最近工作點啊？

 

Since this is Cantonese, we would not say 最近工作怎麼樣？ It is too formal for spoken language.

 

Haha...i guess I should not be asking colleagues whether they are looking forward to Tomb Sweeping Day!

[imron]

Yeah, don't wish them 清明节快乐 either.