It’s that time of year again, when the great minds of China’s language landscape come together and discuss the top words and phrases of the year.

Chinese Pandian 2017 is in its twelfth year since its inception and aims to summarise the past year with buzzwords. Hosted by the Commercial Press, Tencent, People’s Daily, and others, the event started in November and will run until December 21 when the results will be announced.

The competition goes through four phases. The first stage is for the public to nominate their choices for the hottest words of the year. Then experts take over and produce a shortlist of nominees, after which the public will once again be called into action to vote on their favourites for the final award ceremony.

There will be four winners from four different categories: Mainland Word, Mainland Phrase, International Word, and International Phrase. In addition, the committee will also present the top ten “most popular words,” “new words,” and “online words.”

Submissions for the preliminary stage is still open so those interested can go onto People’s Daily website and cast their votes. Please note that when nominating, contributors are required to state a reason for each.

In 2016, the respective winners for each category were “规” (rule), “小目标” (small goal), “变” (change), “一带一路” (One Belt One Road).

Cover image from sino-usinnovationtimes.com