How to say "festival"

[NinjaTurtle]

What is the best and most common way to say “festival” in Mandarin?

节            
节庆        
佳节        
欢宴        
节日            

 

[imron]

In what context?

[NinjaTurtle]

Context. Good idea. “Festival” as in the italicized word below:

 

“Sunday will be Dragon Boat Festival Day. They will have a boat race down at the lake. There will also be live music and food stand. Would you like to go to the festival with me?”

 

 

 

[anonymoose]

I'd say the most general word is probably 节日, but note that most festivals have a set name, like the dragon boat festival is 端午节. Note that in such set names, only the character 节 is used, but you cannot use this character in isolation.

 

If you wanted to say something like "The dragon boat festival is a traditional chinese festival", you would have to say something like 端午节是中国的一个传统节日.

 

As for the italicised festival in your sentence, I'd use a completely different word like 活动.

[imron]

36 minutes ago, NinjaTurtle said:

“Festival” as in the italicized word below:

...

...go to the festival with me?

You probably wouldn't translate it anything close to festival.  Maybe something like ...跟我一起去看热闹

[NinjaTurtle]

Does "temple festival" translate into Chinese as 庙会?

 

 

[anonymoose]

1 hour ago, NinjaTurtle said:

Does "temple festival" translate into Chinese as 庙会?

 

You're welcome.

 

Yes, 庙会 could be "temple festival", though I'd preferably call it temple fair.

[NinjaTurtle]

Thanks, everyone, for your continued help.

 

So, let’s review.

 

We don’t say, “Let’s go to the 节.”

 

We can say, “Let’s go to the 活动” or “Let’s go to the 热闹”.

 

How about for a music festival? Does “Let’s go to a 音乐节日” sound right? Also, my students say that “Let’s go to a 音乐节” sounds right, but I’m wondering what people on this forum would say.

 

[anonymoose]

1 hour ago, NinjaTurtle said:

How about for a music festival? Does “Let’s go to a 音乐节日” sound right?

 

To be clear, 节日 means a festival in the abstract sense, such as Easter, Dragon Boat Festival, Haloween, and so on. The 日 in 节日 means day, so you can think of 节日 as "festival day" or "festive occasion". 节日 does not refer to the activities taking place on that day. For that, you need to use specific words that refer to an activity, such as 活动 (activity in general), or at least the event in the concrete sense, such as 音乐节 (music festival).

[imron]

2 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

Let’s go to the 热闹”.

Let's go and see the 热闹

 

2 hours ago, NinjaTurtle said:

How about for a music festival?

音乐节 appears to be the Chinese term for 'music festival', however it surprises me that 节 is used for this and not 会 or something similar, as I would tend to associate the former more with holidays or special occasion 'days' (mother's day, father's day, international women's day, international teacher's day, international children's day etc), and the latter for events.

[NinjaTurtle]

So, in summary, we can say:

 

Let’s go to the 庙会。
Let’s go to the 端午活动。
Let's go and see the 端午热闹。
Let’s go to the 音乐节。

 

And we don’t say:

 

Let’s go to the 节。

 

Thanks, Anonymoose and imron, I appreciate both of you striving for excellence. 追求卓越！