Chinese Zodiac Rat

According to Chinese zodiac signs, 2020 is the year of Rat (鼠), to be more specifical, a Metal Rat year. Lunar new year starts from January 25, 2020, and ends on February 11, 2021.

Chinese Zodiac Rat is the first of the 12 zodiac animals, before ox, tiger and Rabbit. There are three main reasons why the Rat ranks first on the list of Chinese zodiac signs. First, it is in line with the arrangement of Chinese zodiac signs in folklore. Second, ancient Chinese scholars explained the relationship between the Earth Branch and zodiac animals from the perspective of the ancient day and night. Third, according to the Chinese belief in Yin and Yang. The twelve zodiac animals are divided into Yin and Yang, and the Yin and Yang of animals are arranged according to the odd and uneven toes of animals. The number of animal front and back toes are generally the same, and the rat alone has four toes for the forefoot, and five toes for the rearfoot. It is different from the other animals and so rare, so of course Rat is in the first place.

People born in the year of Rat are usually out-going, alert, intuitive, smart, curious, agile and flexible. Rats are optimistic about life and career. However, they lack courage, authority, and command ability, hence insufficient to assume the leadership in an organization or a group.

chinese zodiac rat years

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  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Years 
  • Rat in Chinese Culture
  • Lucky and Unlucky Things for People Born in the Year of the Rat
  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Traits and Personality Base on Five Elements
  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Love Compatibility 
  • Guide for Rats’ Career & Jobs
  • Zodiac Rat Famous People
  • Rat s’ Horoscope in 2024
  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Vocabulary & Idioms
  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Years – Am I a Rat?

    Chinese Zodiac years are synchronized with Chinese Lunar Year that is different from the Gregorian calendar year. A zodiac Rat year begins with Chinese New Year, usually starting from late January, and ends in middle February of the next year.

    Therefore, to see what your Chinese zodiac animal is, or to confirm whether you are a Rat, you have to change your Gregorian calendar birthday to Lunar Calendar of the year you were born. For example, if you were born on February 1, 1984 (a year of Rat), one day before Lunar New Year, which was so very close to Rat year, but you are a Pig.

    In addition to 1984 and 2020, do you know any other Chinese zodiac years of Rat? The years of the Rat increase regularly, with 12 years between each Rat year. With a zodiac calculator, you can calculate the rat years yourself. Any year with a remainder of 4 divided by 12 is the year of the Rat. For example, 2032÷12= quotient, and the remainder is 4, so 2032 is the zodiac year of the Rat. Recent Chinese zodiac Rat years include 1900, 1912, 1924, 1936, 1948, 1960, 1972, 1984, 1996, 2008, 2020, 2032, etc.

    When the Rat people have many in common and may share similar personality. But are they exactly the same? Obviously, no. Besides, they may have very different horoscope. Chinese zodiac signs give the reason that there are five elements: gold (Metal), Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth that influence every Rat’s zodiac signs. Each element comes in a 60-year cycle. 2020 is a Metal Rat year, and next Metal Rat year will be 2080. For the question, “am I a Rat? If you were born in 1960 or 1984 (or other zodiac years of Rat), you are most likely a Rat, but there is also chance you are a Pig. With the table of the exact start date and end date of recent Rat zodiac years, you can have a clear idea whether you are a Rat.

    Recent Chinese Zodiac Rat Years

    January 25, 2020 February 11, 2032
    Rat YearStart DateEnd Date Element
    1924 February 5 ,1924January 23, 1925 Wood Rat
    1936January 24, 1936February 10, 1937Fire Rat
    1948February 10, 1948January 28, 1949 Earth Rat
    1960January 28, 1960February 14, 1961Metal Rat
    1972February 15, 1972February 2, 1973Water Rat
    1984February 17, 1988February 5, 1989Wood Rat
    1996February 19, 1996February 6, 1997Fire Rat
    2008February 6, 2008January 25, 2009Earth Rat
    2020January 25, 2020February 11, 2021Metal Rat
    2032February 11, 2032January 30, 2033Water Rat

    Chinese Zodiac Calculator

    Select your date of birth and find out your Chinese zodiac sign.

    Chinese Zodiac Rat in Chinese Culture

    Rat have appeared in human life since ancient times, and can be seen everywhere in the human cultural and artistic works. However, in Chinese culture, the image of the rat is hardly positive. In most Chinese idioms, proverbs, allusions in Chinese history, Chinese folklores, and novels, rats are always short-sighted, bad-looking, cowardly, stingy, and hard to succeed. In short, rats are notorious. However, there are still rats hero, ritual rats, righteous rats, intelligent rats and spirit rats.

    Symbol of Spirituality

    Rat’s spirituality consists of two aspects: cleverness and psychic performance. Rat has a keen sense of smell and flexible body. It is timid suspicious and very alert. The Chinese often use the phrase "cleverer than a mouse" to describe someone that is shrewd. Folk also believes that the rat is naturally psychic, and can predict good luck and disaster. This may be because rats are born and grow in nature and respond quickly to the unexpected events such as earthquakes, floods, droughts and locust plagues. Somehow rats became psychic objects in the minds of Chinese people.

    Symbol of Strong Vitality

    The second symbolic meaning of the rat is its strong vitality, mainly because it has super strong fertility and high survival rate. For example, a mother rat in the natural state of each fetus can give birth to 5-10 baby rats, and up to 24. And the gestation period is only 21 days. Beyond that, the mother rat can be pregnant again on the day of delivery, the baby rats mature after only 30-40 days, among which the female join the ranks of reproduction. Over and over again, female rats can give birth to around 5,000 children a year, and the number of grandchildren and great-grandchildren is too many to count. According to a study, a unique chemical in the mother's womb stimulates male and make them always submit to their spouses, which may be one of the reasons for the crazy breeding of rat.

    Therefore, in Chinese folklore, a mother who is good at giving birth to her children is called "rat fetus" or "rat belly", which refers to her strong fertility.

    Besides that, the survival rate of rats is high and the life span is long. If it is not for the attack of cats or large-scale extermination of human beings, most of them can enjoy their old age in peace, die of old age, and have a full family of offspring, which is unattainable for other animals.

    >> Keep reading top 10 Legends about Chinese New Year to know Rat's story in Chinese culture

    Lucky and Unlucky Things for People Born in the Chinese Zodiac Year of the Rat

    chinese zodiac rat horoscope

    Things to Bring Rat Good luck

  • Lucky numbers: 4, 9, 1, 6 and all possible number combinations of these numbers
  • Lucky days: the 4th, 13th and 30th of every Chinese lunar month
  • Lucky colors: gold, white, blue (especially or career), green
  • Lucky flowers: lily, Lily of the Valley
  • Lucky direction: west, northeast, southeast
  • Lucky months: the 1st, 3rd, and 12th Chinese lunar months
  • Lucky stones: Amethyst, garden crystal, amber
  • Lucky places: range, village, bank
  • Things to Bring Rat Bad Luck

  • Unlucky colors: yellow, brown
  • Unlucky numbers: 0, 5
  • Unlucky directions: south, east
  • Unlucky months: the 4st and 6th Chinese lunar months
  • Chinese Zodiac Rat Traits: Smart, Talkative, Easy-going, Curious and intuitive...

    Here comes the zodiac Rat personality. Rat is one of the most active Chinese zodiac animals.

    They usually have a magic personality that make them as popular as Mickey Mouse. However, their friendly manners sometimes seem to be a bit restrained.

    According to Chinese zodiac signs, Rats are open, honest, hard-working, happy, and easy to get along with. Once in a while, you may run into a few critical, whiny, and critical Rat-people. But, in general, they are gregarious and like group activities. You can always find them among close friends or associates. They like to get involved and be friendly.

    Rats are often frugal, thrifty, and will not give money to anyone unless they are very fond of them.

    Strengths of Rat:

  • Rats have a good memory and mental discernment
  • Potential to become a writer
  • They love family, parents, and kids
  • Happy, and have a positive and pleasant personality
  • Be honest and sincere to his friends
  • Work hard and live frugally
  • Self-collected
  • Weakness of Rat:

  • Like to gossip, criticize others, and dispute
  • The Rats' nature makes them very good at keeping their own secrets, but they are experts at sniffing out others
  • Can be loquacious and preachy
  • Frugal and thrifty, Rats may be a bit stingy
  • They often buy things they actually don’t need
  • They're nosy, though they mean well.
  • Male Rat Personalities

    Careful and quiet, Rat men are conscientious workers who take their jobs very seriously. The rat man is a good communicator. He will always find a way to get the information he wants and make changes to it.

    Rat men are emotionally rich, fantasizing and wanting a quality life, but on the other hand, they prefer to enjoy it with people only close to them. If you ask them what they want to do for a career, they probably will say something out of the popular professions. They prefer to be puppeteers, lifeguards or charity workers.

    In a relationship, male Rats may choose to observe the object of their affection in silence at first, but after being together, they become suspicious, often insecure, and worry that their partners do not love them enough. Such feelings are also related to their deep sense of inferiority. After marriage, they love their family very much and are patient with their wife and kids.

    chinese zodiac Ox personality

    Female Male Personalities

    In Chinese zodiac signs, women born in the year of the Rat are thrifty, resourceful, clever, and hard-working. They are good at hiding themselves, have a positive attitude towards work and life, have a strong memory, and are good at finding problems. They are always curious, and interested in new people and things around them. Female Rats are always ready to help others, and very popular with friends.

    Except doting children and being overly concerned with her husband, a Rat mother is a very good housewife. She will help her husband with his career, and drive kids to piano practice, ballet and violin. She is also able to undertake heavy and frequent social work.

    As for their downsides, female Rats are timid, suspicious and conservative. They are shortsighted and lack cognitive ability in some problems. They seem very nosy, keeping their eyes on people and things with curiosity. especially the affairs of their relatives and friends. And, they would worry about and take care of even trivial matters.

    Chinese Zodiac Rat Five Elements for Five Characteristics

    ElementsPersonalitiesRecent Years
    Fire RatSuave, active, full of energy, straight-forward 1936, 1996, 2056
    Earth RatVery intelligent with unique thinking ability, high self-esteem, warm and kind, adventurous1948, 2008, 2068
    Metal RatEloquent, positive, insistent, good at money, an idealist1900, 1960, 2020
    Water RatVery compassionate, always have original ideas on things, make every penny count 1912, 1972, 2032
    Wood RatAggressive, good at analyzing and understanding, a little grumpy, difficult to accept other people's advice 1924, 1984, 2044

    Chinese Zodiac Rat Love Compatibility – Your Most Compatible Zodiacs

    “I m a Rat, and I wonder whether a Rabbit is a good partner for me”.

    If you have a similar question and want to work on a relationship using the Chinese zodiac signs for reference, here we go.

    Rats are positive, easy going, and smart. When a Rat is always popular among friends, how they behave in a relationship? What are the best and worst match for Rat?

    Best Matches: OX, Dragon, Money

    People born in the zodiac sign year of Ox are calm and peaceful. They are very loyal to a relationship and will not betray their lovers easily. What's more, they are steady and responsible. When a rat starts a relationship with an Ox, the Rat will be happy and feel secure. Rat and Ox are truly a perfect match.

    Rats are mild and sincere. They respect and care for others, while the Dragons are a bit haughty, usually have many ideas and fantasies, and are desire to be always concerned in a relationship – Rats can satisfy Dragon in every way. Therefore they can take very good use of the advantages of each other, and realize their shared dreams.

    Rats and Monkeys share common topics and goals, and admire and trust each other. Rats can tolerate each other's many shortcomings, and take good care of their partners, while Monkeys are smart and intelligent, and generally can make a difference in the workplace. They cooperate very well in life and relationship.

    chinese zodiac rat compatibility

    Least Matches: Sheep, Horse, Rabbit

    When Rat people meet Sheep people, there will be hatred and no sympathy for each other. They have nothing in common and can't get along well with each other.

    When Rat people meet Horse people, there will be displeasure and personality conflict. The competition between Rat and Horse is very fierce. There is likely a strong conflict in their work, business, or a love relationship between Rat and Horse.

    Rats and Rabbits tend to have less friendly relationship with each other, not reaching a friendship and having strong conflicts of consciousness.

    Rat’s Love Compatibility with 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals

    RatOxTigerRabbitDragonSnake
    GoodPerfectAverageBadPerfectAverage
    HorseGoatMonkeyRoosterDogPig
    BestAverageWorstAverageBestBest

    Guide for Rats’ Career & Jobs

    From the perspective of Chinese zodiac signs, Rats are motivated and independent, they are better suited to unrestricted work than being employees of large corporations. Good jobs for Rat people include academics, musicians, doctors, critics, researchers, entertainers, running a personalized shop, running a coffee shop, and accounting.

    With their keen powers of observation, Rats are well perfect for media jobs, old things improvement or creative work. Rat people have a profound and full understanding of life. They have their own way of painting facts and dreams.

    In addition, some fine crafts and jobs requiring careful attention are also suitable for Rats people, such as those work about handling general affairs, commodity management and acceptance, decoration, beautification, gardening, handicrafts, photography, etc. When being engaged in these kind of jobs, Rats can give full play to their strengths, and easy to obtain the highest sense of achievement.

    Rat people work smoothly and successfully when working alone. However, it is likely for them to become uncreative when working with others, unless they learn to cooperate and coordinate with these people.

    However, although the Rats are widely thought as a public figure, they are not suitable to be engaged in political or social jobs, specifically, political officials or police officers.

    Zodiac Rat Famous People

    Politicians:

  • HRH Prince Charles: born on November 14 (the 14th day of the tenth lunar month), 1948, Earth Rat
  • Artists:

  • Scarlett Johansson: born on November 22 (the 30th day of the tenth lunar month), 1984, Wood Rat
  • Ben Affleck: born on August 15 (the 7th day of the seventh lunar month), 1972, Fire Rat

    Athletes:

  • Diego Armando Maradona: born on October 30 (the 11th day of the ninth lunar month), 1960, Metal Rat
  • Writers:William Shakespeare: born on April 23 (the 13th day of the third lunar month), 1564, Wood Rat
  • Zodiac Rat’s Horoscope in 2024 - the Year of Dragon

    According to the Chinese horoscope for the year of the Dragon 2024, Rat people will face a relatively average year. You will have only one auspicous star “Jiangxing” which represents leadership. Therefore, you are expected to demonstrate your leadership skills and have good promotion opportunities in 2024.

    In terms of love and wealth, there will be no lucky stars. Meanwhile, the unlucky stars “Baihu”, “Pitou”, “Feilian”, and “Tianxiong” will have a negative impact on fortune. So you’d better focus on career development and do everything yourself. It is not advisable to have too high expectations for wealth.

    Read the details of Zodiac Rat’s horoscope in 2024 and follow the advice.

    Health

    Though your health will not be defined with serious complications or illnesses in the year of the Dragon, you need to ensure that you maintain good living habits and a healthy diet, as well as appropriate exercise and rest. Be careful to avoid overexertion and stress from work, and maintain physical and mental balance.

    Due to the negative influence of the “Baihu” and “Disha” stars, you need to pay attention to road safety while driving and be cautious of car collisions. Also, Rat natives should pay close attention to your personal safety when going out alone. Avoid walking alone at night or exposing valuables to prevent being stolen or robbed.

    Career

    When coming to work and career, those who belong to the Chinese zodiac sign Rats will have a breakthrough. You will not only be appreciated for your talents and contribution, but also get an increase for position. So you’d better work hard in the year of the Dragon and seize the opportunity to express yourself.

    Despite the development in your career, you should be cautious. It’s suggested to stay modest and cautious, so as not to attract jealousy and villains.

    chinese zodiac animals rat

    Love & Relationship

    In 2024, Rats focus mainly on work. So the zodiac Rats’ love horoscope are not ideal for both singles and those in a relationship. Without the help of lucky stars, the year of the Dragon does not filled with many opportunities for single Rats to find love. 

    The relationships or marriages of Rat people tend to be peaceful. But you may be too busy at work and neglect your significant other. You have to strive for a balance between family and career. Avoid being too dedicated to work to care for your family. Spend more quality time with a loved one, communicate often, and consider planning a romantic holiday.

    Wealth

    Entering 2024, Rat's Wealth and Finance is neither too bad nor too good. For business owners born under the Rat zodiac sign, it is not advisable to set performance goals too high. It is necessary to increase revenue and reduce expenditures, and do not involve large or high-risk investments.

    The negative star “Baihu” implies unreasonable women. If you work in an industry that mainly serves female customers, beware of dealing with unreasonable female customers. It is recommended that you control your emotions and spend more time dealing with them patiently, so as not to offend your customers and affect your income source.

    Chinese Zodiac Rat Vocabulary & Idioms

    ChinesePinyinEnglish
    生肖 shēng xiāo Chinese Zodiac
    农历生日 nóng lì shēng rì Lunar Birthday
    你属什么 nǐ shǔ shén me What is your Chinese zodiac animal?
    我属鼠Wǒ shǔ shǔ I am a Rat in the Chinese zodiac signs
    胆小如鼠dǎn xiǎo rú shǔCannot say boh to a goose
    投鼠忌器tóu shǔ jì qìHold back from taking action against sb. for fear of injuring others
    罗雀掘鼠luó què jué shǔSpread a net for sparrows and dig for rats (in times of starvation)
    相鼠有皮xiàng shǔ yǒu píLook at there is still skin on the rat. It used to mean that one should have a sense of shame and honor

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