Write a date in japanese

Here we are at last on the ultimate course of this part on the Japanese numeral system. In this course, we will learn how to write a date in Japanese.

Before you start, know that to take this course, you must have previously taken the following vocabulary courses :

– 曜日の呼び方と太陽系 - Days of the week & The solar system
– 各月の呼び方 - The months of the year
– 各日の番号の呼び方 - The number of days

It is very important to have followed these courses. If it doesn’t, do it or you won’t understand anything next. Take your time to assimilate all these new concepts and come back to this course. If it’s already done, then we can continue.

In Japan, you should know that the writing system for a date is as follows : YYYY MM DD. In the United States, it is MM DD YYYY.

So, to write the date in Japanese, we are not going to write literally « the year », « the month », « the day », we are going to use kanji. As a reminder, the kanji to say « the month » is 月 and the kanji to say « the day » is 日. We will now discover a new kanji, that of the year. I give you below its purely Japanese and Sino-Japanese pronunciation :

年 . とし . ネン

For this course, the Sino-Japanese pronunciation is the one that interests us and that we are going to combine with the Sino-Japanese pronunciations of the numbers.

All that said, let’s try to write a first date. Okay, let’s imagine it’s Tuesday February 11, 2020. Here’s how we would write it :

2020 年 12 月 11 日火曜日

Besides, since we are in the context of a date, we can completely write « Tuesday » without the 曜日, like this :

2020 年 12 月 11 日火

Here, I used the Arabic numerals, this is what is done most often, but I can very well use the kanji like this :

二千四十年十二月十一日火曜日

I can also use the alternative writing we saw in a previous course :

二〇二〇年十二月十一日火曜日

All that said, I put below the three writings that we have just seen :

2020 年 12 月 11 日火曜日

二千四十年十二月十一日火曜日

二〇二〇年十二月十一日火曜日

The first is obviously the most used, then comes the third, then the second. Although there are kanji for numbers in their language, Japanese prefer Arabic numbers, for simplicity.

We will now see another way of writing dates in Japanese. So far, we have learned to write dates based on the Gregorian calendar, that is, based on the birth of Christ.

Now let’s see how to write dates based on the Japanese eras that correspond to the reigns of the Emperors of Japan. Each time a new Emperor ascends to the throne in Japan, the Japanese change era.

Currently, we are (from the Japanese perspective) in the Reiwa era, 令和 . レイワ. We were once in the Heisei era, 平成 . ヘイセイ, which began with Emperor Akihito in 1989. This era ended on May 1, 2019 when the same emperor abdicated. And since May 1, 2019, the Japanese have entered the Reiwa era 令和 . レイワ, the era of Emperor Naruhito.

For your general knowledge, know that 平成 . ヘイセイ means « achievement of peace » and 令和 . レイワ means « venerable harmony ». Understand that these are very symbolic names, it is not always necessary to refer strictly speaking in the sense of kanji. For example, in 令和 . レイワ, the kanji 令 . レイ means « order, decree » and the kanji 和 . ワ actually means « harmony ». Okay, well, understand that it is above all symbolic.

So, going back to our date, we can write it like this :

令和 2020 年 12 月 11 日火曜日

Of course, we can also write it with its variant in kanji and according to the particular case as we saw above.

Know therefore that it is this date format that you will find most frequently in Japanese newspapers, in books and manga, especially on the very last page where the date of publication is marked with the name of the publishing house…, on cinema and concert posters too. Even the dates of birth are written in this format, the Japanese being very attached to their culture, to their roots, they appreciate to write the date of birth with the name of the era, the year, the month and the day. It’s very traditional.

You should know already that in Japan, according to Japanese imperial tradition, emperors choose a posthumous name when ascending the throne. Thus, Emperor Mutsuhito, known by this personal name in the West, chose as his posthumous name Meiji, which also refers to the era of his reign, known as the Meiji era. Since then, the custom has been established for his successors to make the eras coincide with the reign of the emperors and to give their posthumous name to the period of their reign.

I will now introduce you to the last five eras that have passed through Japan. Before starting, I give you a short list of proper names to memorize:

睦仁 . みつひと . Mutsuhito
嘉仁 . よしひと . Yoshihito
裕仁 . ひろひと . Hirohito
明仁 . あきひと . Akihito
徳仁 . なるひと . Naruhito
安倍晋三 . アベシンゾウ . Shinzō Abe
菅義偉 . よしひですが . Suga Yoshihide
竹内まりや . たけうちまりや . Mariya Takeuchi

Note: if I haven’t told you already, remember that in Japanese you have to write the last name first and after the first name, the opposite of what we usually do in the West.

明治時代 . メイジジダイ . The Meiji era

Era of Emperor Mutsuhito (睦仁), the latter officially became Emperor at barely 15 years old. It takes the name of the Meiji reign and officially assumes all powers. He moves his official residence from Kyoto to Edo. The new capital of Japan takes the name of Tokyo.

Mutsuhito gives himself the chrysanthemum as his official insignia. He also reinvents a « Japanese national tradition » based on the state cult, Shintoism. The Buddhists, very influential during the Tokugawa (徳川) era, were forced to align themselves with the new patriotic values.

During his reign, he faced some resistance from samurai who opposed his reforms, resulting in the Boshin War in January 1868 and the Battle of Shiroyama in 1877. Each time he won the victory and forcibly applied his reforms to the recalcitrant, wishing to open Japan to the rest of the world and initiate a process of modernization in order to make the country an industrial power comparable to the Western powers of the time.

大正時代 . タイショウジダイ . The Taishō era

Era of Emperor Yoshihito (嘉仁). His reign is characterized by a strengthening of imperialism and a rather liberal domestic policy. In 1919, he signed an « act of reform » and in March 1925, accepted the principle of universal suffrage.

Despite a great industrial boom, Japan was marked by several dramatic events: the First World War, a terrible revolt in Korea, a catastrophic earthquake in September 1923 which affected all of Kantō and almost completely destroyed the city of Tokyo, and finally the Spanish flu.

The Emperor died on December 25, 1926 at 1:25 a.m. of a heart attack (myocardial infarction) at Hayama Palace.

昭和時代 . ショウワジダイ . The Shōwa era

Era of Emperor Hirohito (裕仁). With its duration of 64 years, the Shōwa era is currently the longest in the history of Japan. It lasted exactly until 1989, Emperor Hirohito having died on January 7, 1989.

Japan experienced during this period a strong nationalist feeling, a desire to expand the Empire and also the conquest of Manchuria, the Second World War, the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the American occupation. There was also the reconstruction of Japan, which later became the world’s second largest economy.

Many Japanese companies are burgeoning at the heart of this economic boom in the electronics, computer and video game fields as well as in manga and animation. Sony (ソニー), Sega (セガ), Nintendo (任天堂) and Capcom (カプコン) for video games. Toei Animation (東映アニメーション), Madhouse (マッドハウス), Mushi Production (虫プロ), Sunrise (サンライズ), Gainax (ガイナックス) and Studio Ghibli (スタジオジブリ) for animation (series and feature films). Suzuki (スズキ), Honda (本田), Hyundai (ヒュンダイ) and Toyota (トヨタ) for the automobile. Panasonic (パナソニック) for electronics (televisions, camcorders, cameras, walkmans, faxes, copiers, ...).

In full economic boom since the 1950s, Japan exports its cultural products all over the world.

平成時代 . ヘイセイジダイ . The Heisei era

Era of Emperor Akihito (明仁). Japan was then a constitutional monarchy. The Emperor is an extremely strong symbolic figure for the Japanese people but has no concrete power, politically speaking. The government is held by a Prime Minister who is currently Fumio Kishida (岸田文雄). He succeeds in 2021 to Yoshihide Suga (菅義偉), himself successor of Shinzō Abe (安倍晋三), former prime minister with the longest term in Japanese history.

Hard hit by a social, economic and political crisis, Japan is not spared by the global economic crisis linked to the financial crisis. The country went into recession in 2008.

On the cultural level, Studio Ghibli finally made itself known internationally thanks to « Princess Mononoke » and « Spirited Away » which achieved phenomenal success.

In the 2010s, City Pop, a musical genre that appeared during the Shōwa era but never crossed Japanese borders, experienced an incredible and unexpected resurgence in popularity on the Internet. Especially on the YouTube platform thanks to the song Plastic Love by Mariya Takeuchi (竹内まりや).

The Heisei era ended on May 1, 2019 when Emperor Akihito abdicated due to health issues.

令和時代 . レイワジダイ . The Reiwa era

And since May 1, 2019, the Japanese have entered the Reiwa era (令和), the era of Emperor Naruhito (徳仁).

Well, you’re in luck, the Japanese have entered the 令和 . レイワ era on May 1, 2019, so it wasn’t that long ago. Considering that 2019 is the year one of the Reiwa era, it is quite easy to count in which year of this same era we are today.

As of this writing, we are in 2022, so I will do the math based on the idea that we are in 2022.

To convert more easily, you take the year from the Gregorian calendar, subtract it from the start year of the Japanese era, and add a year, so you have the year expressed according to the Japanese era.

Gregorian calendar year – year of the start of the Japanese era + 1 = year expressed according to the Japanese era.
2022 – 2019 + 1 = 4

We are therefore in year 4 of the Reiwa era.

Conversely, if you reason according to the Japanese era and you want to know in which year we are according to the Gregorian calendar, you take the year expressed according to the Japanese era, you add it with the year of beginning of the Japanese era, you remove a year, so you have the year of the Gregorian calendar.

Year expressed according to the Japanese era + year of the start of the Japanese era – 1 = year of the Gregorian calendar
4 + 2019 – 1 = 2022

We are in 2022 according to the Gregorian calendar.

The first year of each era is called 元年 . ガンネン, so, 2019 is 令和元年 . レイワガンネン.

The word « era » in Japanese is 時代 . ジダイ, so to say « the Reiwa era », we say 令和時代 . レイワジダイ, although in general we just say 令和 . レイワ so we know what we’re talking about.

Finally, we have to see how we say « the centuries » in Japanese, here is the Sino-Japanese word : 世紀 . セイキ. And so, to say…

1^st century . 世紀 . イッセイキ
2^nd century . 二世紀 . ニセイキ
3^rd century . 三世紀 . サンセイキ
4^th century . 四世紀 . よんセイキ
5^th century . 五世紀 . ゴセイキ
6^th century . 六世紀 . ロクセイキ
7^th century . 七世紀 . ななセイキ
8^th century . 八世紀 . ハッセイキ
...
18^th century . 十八世紀 . ジュウハッセイキ
19^th century . 十九世紀 . ジュウキュウセイキ
20^th century . 二十世紀 . ニジッセイキ / ニジュッセイキ
21^th century . 二十一世紀 . ニジュウイッセイキ

I have colored in the examples below the small pronunciation details to remember. If you still remember your course titled « Count in Japanese (up to 9,999) », this should bring back some memories.

Know that you can of course write the centuries in Arabic numbers like this. This is also done a lot :

18^th century . 18世紀 . ジュウハッセイキ
19^th century . 19世紀 . ジュウキュウセイキ
20^th century . 20世紀 . ニジッセイキ / ニジュッセイキ
21^th century . 21世紀 . ニジュウイッセイキ

You can now say absolutely everything you want about dates in Japanese. You know how to write a date in Japanese, you know how the Japanese eras work and how to write the centuries. To be absolutely complete, I put some additional expressions below :

A decade → 十年紀 . ジュウネンキ
The 1990s → 1990年代 . ネンダイ
A millennium → 千年紀 . センネンキ
The second millennium → 二千年紀 . ニセンネンキ

It was once again a very big course and the penultimate of the season on Japanese language writing. We still have a vocabulary course to learn, how to read time in Japanese, and we can finally immerse ourselves in the second season which concerns grammar.

Thank you again for taking the time to read this course. As usual, take the time to read it again as many times as necessary to remember all these new concepts, do not forget to go back from time to time to revise the previous lessons and then let's meet for the next course on « Read the time » in Japanese.

I wish you to revise your course well and see you next time.

...And you are not going to cut it, there are exercises to do! As usual, follow the link below.

Introduction

Write a date

Write a date based on Japanese eras

The last five eras

1. Introduction

The Meiji era (1868 – 1912)

The Taishō era (1912 – 1926)

The Shōwa era (1926 – 1989)

The Heisei era (1989 – 2019)

The Reiwa era (2019 – Today)

Learn how to convert

The centuries

Conclusion

EXERCICES,