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It is time to wish friends and neighbours Happy New Year, so how will you say it - an or ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð? 

You have probably already heard the phrase bonne année, so you may already know the answer, but do you know why?

The word ‘year’ in French has two options: an, which is a calendar reference, and ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð, which is a span of 12 months. 

Read more: What is the difference between being bilingual and fluent?

When to use an and when to use ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð

To give your age in French, you probably learned j’ai douze ans, literally saying that you ‘have’ 12 years.

Your teacher may have explained that an is used like an accounting term, when you are giving the total, so it is always used after cardinal or ‘counting’ numbers (one, two, three etc).

What about ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð? This word is all about duration, so for me ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð feels rather like ‘a yearful’. 

If you are wishing someone a Happy New Year, you are wishing them an entire year full of happiness. If you are very enthusiastic, you say: Je vous souhaite une excellente ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð (you want their entire ‘yearful’ to be excellent).

Indeed, every time you want to describe a year with an adjective, you need ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð: a disastrous year is une ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð désastreuse, while a marvellous year would be une ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð merveilleuse. It is simply not possible to describe a year without using ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð.

´¡²Ô²Ôé±ð is also used after ordinal numbers (first, second, third and so on). So in the third year of your studies, you would say je suis en troisième ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð d’études, and if it is your fifth year in France, c’est ma cinquième ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð en France. 

So much more could be said, but simply remember the sense that ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð focuses on the duration. When you see le nouvel an, it usually refers to the first day of the year, but la nouvelle ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð suggests the entire year ahead. 

Bonne ²¹²Ô²Ôé±ð et bonne santé to you all!