At my work we are making a Japanese website and we got a request to “write the date in Japanese”. The date is currently written as 22年6月1日. I suppose they mean to write it using kanji.
My colleague (who knows I am an enthusiastic amateur) asked if this would be normal, and I’m inclined to say that it’s more normal to use numerals on the internet for the date in articles. However, it occurred to me I don’t think I’ve seen the year written as 22年, only as 2022年, so I think we should write the year as 2022年.
Is 22年6月1日 correct, or should it always be 2022年? Thanks 🙂
5 comments
Generally not writing the whole 2022 can be a little confusing because Japan also has the era names for their emperors. Most often they write the era as well, such as 昭和 (1929-1986)、平成 (1989-2020)、令和 (2020~) accompanied by the count since the start of the current era. So 1989 could also be written as 平成1年 and so on. Writing just 22 could mean 平成22年 as the current emperor has been on the throne only for 2 years.
I’m not saying that writing 22年 is confusing. Someone could use contextual clues to understand that the year being referred to 2022 as opposed to the 22nd year in their reign of an unspecified emperor. But there is definitely potential for confusion.
EDIT: the current emperor was crowned in 2019. So it’s 令和3年 now.
..I think that this year is Reiwa 4. 令和4年
22年is ok.
But under context where there is no extra effort you should always write 2022
If you ate using japanese era it is always used with an alphabet. Like H22, S25. And hence there would be that we would have a generation which is all born R18
I believe you should always write western years with four digits, as a Japanese speaker may likely expect to see an era name preceding a one- or two-digit number (i.e. 明治22年, 昭和22年, 平成22年).
It is also worth mentioning that, depending on the formality and the proximity of your work to the [various levels of] Japanese government, I believe the Japanese government always uses era names when writing in Japanese. Japanese government forms may have a box for the year that reads : **明 大 昭 平 令 ___ 年**, and you are supposed to circle which era and write the one- or two-digit year number.
My two cents: When in doubt, write all four digits. 🙂
I work with food labels and 22年 is used. More specifically, in my case, it’s like this: 22.06.01
I think if space allows, 2022年would be good so be clear. If its for articles on the internet, 2022 would be better in my opinion!