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Spring Festival characters — free printable worksheets
The characters that go on doors, red envelopes and dinner tables across the lunar new year — with the reason each one is there.
20 characters · 2 sheets · A4 and US Letter
Why these 20
Spring Festival vocabulary is unusually rewarding for a beginner, because almost every character is doing a visible job somewhere in the room. 福 is on the door, usually upside-down on purpose. 红 is the colour of the envelope in a child's hand. 鱼 is the one dish nobody finishes, because the word sounds like "surplus". These are not abstract words to memorise; they are labels on things you can point at during the fortnight the holiday lasts.
All 20 characters
| 春 | chūn | spring | 9 strokes |
| 节 | jié | festival; joint | 5 strokes |
| 年 | nián | year | 6 strokes |
| 红 | hóng | red | 6 strokes |
| 福 | fú | blessing; good fortune | 13 strokes |
| 喜 | xǐ | joy; happy event | 12 strokes |
| 鱼 | yú | fish | 8 strokes |
| 饺 | jiǎo | dumpling | 9 strokes |
| 灯 | dēng | lamp; lantern | 6 strokes |
| 花 | huā | flower | 7 strokes |
| 家 | jiā | home; family | 10 strokes |
| 团 | tuán | round; to reunite | 6 strokes |
| 龙 | lóng | dragon | 5 strokes |
| 财 | cái | wealth | 7 strokes |
| 乐 | lè | happy | 5 strokes |
| 快 | kuài | fast; happy | 7 strokes |
| 新 | xīn | new | 13 strokes |
| 糖 | táng | sugar; sweets | 16 strokes |
| 门 | mén | door; gate | 3 strokes |
| 天 | tiān | sky; day | 4 strokes |
Questions people ask
It is a pun. "Upside-down" is 倒 dào, which sounds exactly like 到 dào, "has arrived". A visitor reading an inverted 福 says "the fu is upside down" and hears "fortune has arrived". It is deliberate in almost every house that does it.
Yes. Print, copy and hand out as many as you like. Please don't resell the sheets as your own product.