新(Xin) 年(Nian) 快(Kuai) 乐(le) !

Very much like in the U.S., we say “新年快乐” to each other in China when it comes to the lunar new year, which means exactly the same as “Happy new year”. But one difference I noticed between these two expressions is that the word order of the two sentences is different. In Chinese, we say “新年”(new year) before “快乐”(happy).In fact, it is the grammatical structures of the two sentences that are different. In English, the adjective “happy” comes before the noun “new year” whereas in Chinese, the noun “新年”(new year) is used before the adjective “快乐”(happy). Personally, I reckon this difference is purely grammatical, and it is more related to linguistics more than culture because it is merely a difference due to different grammars of the two languages.