How do quote a year in Japanese?

4 comments

1. Just say the number followed by 年(ねん)

2. as another commented, it’s really as simple as adding “年” to the end of the year. dates in japanese tend to be written YYYYMMDD, like 2023年10月22日. occasionally, especially in older media or more “official” type media you’ll see the years written in the “era” form (i know what the concept is i just genuinely cant remember the actual name at the moment, someone chime in and correct me please), like instead of 2001 you might see 平成13年 because 2001 was the 13th year of the heisei era. in modern times most people would go off normal gregorian calendar years as far as i’ve seen.

3. I’m not sure if I’m understanding but they just read it out as it were a normal number, e.g., sen kuhyakj kyuujuu hachi-nen. Or sometimes kyuujuu hachi-nen for short. There’s nothing like the English practice of saying nineteen eighty-eight.

4. 2021 can refer to 令和三年(れいわさんねん)
   令和元年(the first year of Reiwa) has started since 1 May 2019.

   1998 can refer to 平成十年(へいせいじゅうねん)
   平成元年(the first year of Heisei) had started since 8 January 1989.

   Plus, the day before 8 January 1989, Showa died at the age of 87.