5.3. USING NUMBERS 267
The
era is the last most recent era still covering the 1900’s, run-
ning from 1912 till 1926The
era is the first of the ”recent” eras, starting at the Meiji
restoration in 1868 running till 1912The numbering for eras is reasonably intuitive: the first year of an era is
the year the era started. Thus, ” 1” corresponds to 1912, and ”
30” corresponds to 1955. If we write out the full date for when this section
was first wriĴen, we get:
( )
Heisei 17 (= 2005), may 24th (Tuesday), 2:19’55”While using kanji for the numerals is a perfectly valid way to write
full dates, it’s easier to read if numerals are used instead:
( )It might also be a good idea to list the days while we’re at it. The
Japanese week is as follows:
”sun day of the week” Sunday
”moon day of the week” Monday
”fire day of the week” Tuesday
”water day of the week” Wednesday
”wood day of the week” Thursday
”metal day of the week” Friday
”earth day of the week” SaturdayWhile many of the western days of the week derive their name from
Norse mythology (more specifically, the names of the Norse gods), the
Japanese - as well as several other Asian countries - use the elements for
their day naming.
When indicating day-series such as ”mon-wed-fri” in English, the
Japanese use two syllable pronunciations for the days in question. How-
ever, days with only a single syllable before the
part will have their
vowel doubled: