生肖动物 Zodiac Animal

“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.