Today, in this vocabulary course, we will see together the number of the days. I assure you right away, there is nothing complicated, it is even very simple. But before getting to the heart of the matter, let’s make some quick comparisons with the English language.
In English, to say the number of days, we simply say the corresponding number. If we are the fifteen January, we will simply say : « we are the 15th January ». If it is February 2th, we’ll simply say : « We are February 2th ». Small exception, if we are the first of March, we will say : « we are the first March ». And it’s like that for all the first of all months of the year.
Well, depending on whether you are English or American, you will place the number of the day before or after the month.
And in Japanese, how is it going ? Well, let’s see that right away. Take a whole month of 31 days – anyway, it won’t go any further – we take the kanji of the « day » as the ending. I give it to you here with its purely Japanese and Sino-Japanese pronunciation :
日 .
ひ .
ニチ, ジツ
For the rest, we will write in kanji the number of days from 1 to 31.
The 1 . 一日
The 2 . 二日
The 3 . 三日
The 4 . 四日
The 5 . 五日
The 6 . 六日
The 7 . 七日
The 8 . 八日
The 9 . 九日
The 10 . 十日
The 11 . 十一日
The 12 . 十二日
The 13 . 十三日
The 14 . 十四日
The 15 . 十五日
The 16 . 十六日
The 17 . 十七日
The 18 . 十八日
The 19 . 十九日
The 20 . 二十日
The 21 . 二十一日
The 22 . 二十二日
The 23 . 二十三日
The 24 . 二十四日
The 25 . 二十五日
The 26 . 二十六日
The 27 . 二十七日
The 28 . 二十八日
The 29 . 二十九日
The 30 . 三十日
The 31 . 三十一日
Now let’s see the pronunciations.
From the first to the 10th of the month, the number of days has a rather particular pronunciation. In fact, they have a purely Japanese pronunciation. There is no particular reason, this is how it works for the first ten days of the month. Let’s see how it looks.
The 1 . 一日 . ついたち
The 2 . 二日 . ふつか
The 3 . 三日 . みっか
The 4 . 四日 . よっか
The 5 . 五日 . いつか
The 6 . 六日 . むいか
The 7 . 七日 . なのか
The 8 . 八日 . ようか
The 9 . 九日 . ここのか
The 10 . 十日 . とおか
These are special pronunciations. Learn them by heart. Little mnemonic trick: from number 2 to number 10, the name always ends with か.
Now let’s see how the numbers 11 to 31 are pronounced.
From the 11th to the 31st, we will have a Sino-Japanese pronunciation, all that is most classic as you have learned so far, with a few small exceptions for the 14th, 20th and 24th. These three exceptions, I put them in red.
The 11 . 十一日 . ジュウイチニチ
The 12 . 十二日 . ジュウニニチ
The 13 . 十三日 . ジュウサンニチ
The 14 . 十四日 . ジュウよっか
The 15 . 十五日 . ジュウゴニチ
The 16 . 十六日 . ジュウロクニチ
The 17 . 十七日 . ジュウシチニチ
The 18 . 十八日 . ジュウハチニチ
The 19 . 十九日 . ジュウキュウニチ
The 20 . 二十日 . はつか
The 21 . 二十一日 . ニジュウイチニチ
The 22 . 二十二日 . ニジュウニニチ
The 23 . 二十三日 . ニジュウサンニチ
The 24 . 二十四日 . ニジュウよっか
The 25 . 二十五日 . ニジュウゴニチ
The 26 . 二十六日 . ニジュウロクニチ
The 27 . 二十七日 . ニジュウシチニチ
The 28 . 二十八日 . ニジュウハチニチ
The 29 . 二十九日 . ニジュウキュウニチ
The 30 . 三十日 . サンジュウニチ
The 31 . 三十一日 . サンジュウイチニチ
For days 14 and 24, you’ll have noticed that we have quite particular pronunciations, a mixture between Sino-Japanese and purely Japanese pronunciation. Remember, I explained to you that there is an extremely strong superstition in number four in Japan, so much so that this superstition influenced the pronunciation of days 14 and 24 of each month.
Day 20 also has a special pronunciation, はつか, to be memorized, and Day 30, which is pronounced サンジュウイチニチ, can possibly be pronounced みそか, although this pronunciation is hardly used today.
You have understood that the days in Japanese contain a lot of peculiarities whereas, until now, we have seen that Japanese was a language which obeyed very strict rules. Besides, you will have noticed that the purely Japanese pronunciations of the days are very different from the purely Japanese pronunciations of the numbers, which does not facilitate the thing.
There are not really mnemonic methods to remember the days, the only solution is really to repeat them orally and in writing until you memorize everything, especially the days from 1 to 10, the 14, the 20 and the 24. It is very important to know them. Without that, you will not be able to give an appointment to a Japanese man or a Japanese woman if, for your misfortune, the appointment falls on the seventh of the month for example. You will also be unable to say the date in Japanese and since we are talking about it, the course on the subject will come very soon.
Before leaving you, I must clarify that to date, many Japanese, to say the 14th and the 24th, say ジュウよんニチ and ニジュウよんニチ. However, know that these are not the basic words, these are not the official words so learn what I told you above :
The 14 .
十四日 .
ジュウよっか
The 24 .
二十四日 .
ニジュウよっか
Just keep in mind that it can happen that Japanese people say the 14, ジュウよんニチ and the 24, ニジュウよんニチ. It can happen.
Introduction