“他今年多大？”
“How old is he?”

“宋华一九八二年十月二十七日出生，属狗。”
“Song Hua was born on August 27th, 1982. He belongs to dog.”

今天我们先来看一句话：“宋华一九八二年十月二十七日出生，属狗。”
In the dialogue, we have a sentence which is “Song Hua yi jiu ba er nian shi yue ershiqi ri chusheng, shu gou”.

句子的前半部分，我想大家都明白是什么意思，即宋华出生于1982年10月27日。
Well, we understand the first part of the sentence pretty well, which means Song Hua was born on August 27th, 1982.

但是“属狗”是什么意思呢？
What does “shu gou” mean?

“属”就是属于的意思，“狗”就是狗这种动物。
“Shu” means “belong to”, and “gou” means “dog”.

那么“属于狗”到底指什么？
What does mean “belong to dog”?

实际上这是说他出生于狗年。
But it means he was born in the year of dog.

你也许听说过中国人用十二生肖动物作为纪年的周期系统。
Maybe you know that we Chinese people have a kind of zodiac system based on twelve animals.

我们用十二种动物来标记不同的十二个年份。
We have twelve animals to mark different twelve years.

它们不断循环，例如今年是狗年，再过十二年，就又是狗年。
And it’s in a cycle, for instance, this year is the year of dog, and in the other twelve years we have another year of dog.

这十二种动物的排列顺序是固定的。
And those twelve animals are in the very set order.

不能随意改变。
We cannot change that.

因此你可以根据动物的顺序来判断哪一年是哪一年。
So you can follow the order of twelve animals, and you can tell which year is which.

这十二种动物是：鼠、牛、虎、兔、龙、蛇、马、羊、猴、鸡、狗、猪。
Now the twelve animals are “shu (mouse)”, “niu (ox)”, “hu (tiger)”, “tu (rabbit)”, “long (dragon)”, “she (snake)”, “ma (horse)”, “yang (sheep)”, “hou (monkey)”, “ji (rooster)”, “gou (dog)”, “zhu (pig)”.

它们当中除了“龙”不是真正存在的动物，其它的都是。
Well, among the twelve animals, eleven of them are real ones, real animals but the “dragon”.

“龙”是想象中的动物，在中国文化中，“龙”并不是邪恶的。
“Dragon” is the imaginary one, and in Chinese culture “dragon” is not a fierce evil animal.

它是好运、吉祥的化身。
“Dragon” always does something good to us.

因此“龙”在中国文化中是一种美好的形象。
So “Dragon” in Chinese culture is some good image.

正如我们刚才所说的，如果你知道了十二种动物的顺序，你就能判断哪一年是什么年了。
Just now we said that if you know the system of those twelve animals, you can find out which year is which.

现在我们来试试看。
And now let’s try.

比如，2007年是猪年，你就能知道2008年是鼠年。
For instance, 2007 is the year of pig, and you can figure it out that 2008 is the year of mouse, “shu nian”.

而2006年则是狗年。
And 2006 is the year of dog, “gou nian”.