Kanji Months
Comments: 18
Someone did a search recently for the spelling of January in kanji. They probably wouldn’t have found it here, but that’s fixed now. Here are the months in Japanese along with the days of the week:
I hope this doesn’t disappoint, but the months in Japanese are simply called “First Month” for January, “Second Month” for February and so on. A little prosaic I know, but it gets the job done. The days of the week are somewhat more interesting: getsu = moon; ka = fire; sui = water; moku = wood; kin = gold; do = earth; nichi = sun (which should rightfully appear as the first day of the week, I guess – my mistake).
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Posted to MetaStuff • 2002.12.05 (Thu) • 12:45
Comments
Posted by frazerjones 2002.12.05, 18:44
Hi ya- Those characters you used for explaining the Japanese calander, do you have larger res. versions?- I would like to use them for so image work I am doing. But I have no idea where to get hold of them, can you help? Thanks in advance. Frazer
Posted by jh 2002.12.05, 23:52
Frazer — I’ve made you an Illustrator version so you can save out a copy at whatever resolution you require (if you have Illustrator!). It’s a gzipped AI8 file (164K) and you can find it here.
Posted by frazerjones 2002.12.06, 01:31
many thanks! very much appreciated!- when this (my work) is done- I’ll post you the results. thanks. fraze =(^.^)=
Posted by frazerjones 2002.12.06, 01:31
many thanks! very much appreciated!- when this (my work) is done- I’ll post you the results. thanks. fraze =(^.^)=
Posted by Mike G 2002.12.06, 10:36
You’re right — the months are relatively easy. How about the days of the months, and the weeks of the month? Those are what I’m having trouble remembering. Hatsuka!? Where on earth does that come from?
Posted by jh 2002.12.06, 11:27
Mike — Counters in Japanese are so elaborate and obscure that a group of comedians has been able to make a TV show out of them. I don’t mean to reinforce stereotypes of Japanese weirdness, but sometimes it can’t be helped: here’s how it goes.
There are half a dozen guys dressed up like bõsõzoku (delinquent motorcycle gang members) and they sit on souped-up motorcycles that have been set up on a kind of merry-go-round with the camera in the middle. As their merry-go-round rotates, each member comes into view and says their piece. They play a game where you have to aggregate the count of things or objects and then say either the same object or throw out a different one. The next person has to increase the count by one using the correct counter for the object the previous person said.
If someone makes a mistake, a group of sumo wrestlers appears from backstage and beats up the offending player.
I’m not making this up.
The difficulty derives from Japanese having a bewildering variety of counters for different objects. In English we can simply say “one dog,” “two dogs” &c., but in not in Japanese. For smaller animals you count “ippiki, nihiki, sanbiki…” and for larger animals you count “ittõ, nittõ, santõ….” Birds have their own counter: “ichiwa, niwa, sanwa….”
There are counters for long thin things (bottles, pens, neckties), flat things (pieces of paper, towels), larger flat things (tennis courts, ponds), machines (tractors, cameras), small ships, larger ships, planes, hand tools, books, newspapers, letters and forms, large buildings, apartments, houses, vacant lots, events, bundles (spinach, beans), other bundles (flowers, rice), slices, cups or glasses, mouthfuls of something, plates of something, suits, socks, sets of things (tableware, decks of cards), and then a variety of ordinals depending on whether we’re talking about first place in a competition, in class, in a list or order, in a generation, and so on apparently ad infinitum.
What’s worse is that some counters are pronounced the same as others, but are spelled differently. For example, houses are counted “ikken, niken, sanken…” but vacant lots are counted “ikken, niken, sanken…” with a different kanji for “ken”!
If you ever want to drive yourself to very brink of insanity or beyond by learning another language, Japanese counters are an excellent place to start.
Posted by pixelkitty 2002.12.06, 15:46
Thank you so much for the japanese months/days.
I have been wanting to use them in a project I am working on, but my three Japanese dictionaries don’t even touch on the subject of calendars.
That hi-res Illistrator file is perfect!
Posted by frazer 2002.12.09, 19:56
and i thought learning Finnish was tough… =)
Posted by dc 2004.08.10, 16:17
hey JH -
thats a famous drinking game, popular in kansai. As a gaijin I always end up under the table quickly! I saw that special tho, amazing how many japanese don’t know how to count chopsticks.
ichi-ZEN, ni-ZEN etc…
/dc
ps check out my japanese grammar site: http://www.pikkle.com/jgram
Posted by alis 2004.08.10, 22:04
shudders at memory of counters My favourite ones were for fish and small animals, if I recall correctly. Ippiki, nihiki. sambiki… just pleasing sounds. My favourite ones to use, naturally, were hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu… as my Japanese teacher would accept us using them for anything (and whisper conspiratorially, “don’t worry. A Japanese would do this too!” when we’d forgotten a particularly obscure one.)
Anyway - am I right in thinking that there are also less prosaic alternatives to ichigatsu, nigatsu, etc…, ending with -tsuki or -zuki instead of gatsu? I think they’re not often used, possibly old-style names for the months, but with prettier meanings. I’ve forgotten most of them but I think Satsuki was March or thereabouts (the name sticks in my head because of Totoro!) Another one was Nagatsuki, because the nights were long - so a winter month, I guess. And November, my birthday month, was “frost month” but I don’t remember the word.
Posted by Ellie 2006.01.05, 07:37
January sutsuki- Month of Harmony February kisaragi- Month of wearing extra layers of clothes March yayoi- Month of growth April uzuki- Month of Deutzia (unohana) May sasuki- Month of planting rice sprouts June minazuki- Month of no water July fumizuki- Month of literary August hazuki- Month of leaves September nagatsuki- Autumn long month October kannazuki- Month of no gods November shimotsuki- Month of frost December shiwasu Month of running priests
These are the old names and meanings
Posted by Dani 2006.01.10, 12:33
Hey - I was wondering how you say…. I have one cat. Is it …. Watashi wa necko ippiki desu? …
Or what is it. Plz help.
Posted by Cyberia 2006.01.11, 14:14
JH the show your talking about is mecha mecha iketeru or mechaike its a comedy variety show that comes on fuji. its freaking hilarious some of my favorite episodes are the counter episodes. There have been 2 that I have seen so far. Oh well just thought you might like to know
Posted by aaronn 2006.02.02, 12:29
Dani, You just said “I am 1 cat.” I have one cat will probably be ” Watashi wa nekko o ippiki katte imasu. ” katte - kau (raising, keeping)
You can only say “Watashi no nekko wa ippiki desu” but it translate to “My cat is only one” (weird sentence but just trying to show the change in the subject)
Posted by aaronn 2006.02.02, 12:31
only - also*
Posted by Nina 2006.02.03, 14:39
…for the person asking about the “I have one cat”…
“watashi wa neko wo ippiki katte imasu”…is ok, I guess…and, don’t get me wrong, very nicely said… only…no one talks like that! :S (so this works nice in a mail or something like it) though, if you actually need this in a conversation, most people would just say “neko wo ippiki katte imasu…” (leaving out the watashi wa…) or simpler… “uchi ni wa neko ga ippiki iru…”
ok, I realize that this may not be perfect Japanese, but at least you won’t sound like a college student fresh out of his Japanese 1 class…
Other than that, it’s “neko” not nekko…(nekko means root…)
Posted by aaronn 2006.02.06, 13:48
Yup, thats correct, but you usually start learning by knowing the basics. IT requires learning subject, the object and other stuffs and how you should arrange it in a sentence. I’ll probably just say “neko o ippiki katteru” but will this be example be a nice example to learn the language?
Posted by Oliver 2006.06.22, 04:04
I disagree about using iru (- to live/be) with regards to cats… very unconventional… it’s more general to use ‘aru’ when talking about children and animals… (watashi wa) neko wo ippiki arimasu/aru… kodomo futari aru … it depends on what you are asked… you wouldn’t just blurt out ‘i have a cat’ (see even in English we say have - aru) … it would be in response to a question… if someone asks - “neko wo nanbiki arimasu ka?” you could answer “(neko wo) ippiki arimasu”… if someone asks you “neko wo nanbiki katteimasu ka?” you should answer “(neko wo) ippiki katteimasu”… that is if you are raising cats and not just keeping one as a pet… (they’re not pets they’re friends…) you can say “I am a cat” it’s “Wagahai wa neko de aru”… a good book…
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