Japanese words for every day: days, months, numbers, greetings in kana
Japanese words are written in three scripts at once: kanji for most word stems, hiragana for grammar and native words, katakana for loanwords. The four pages below give the everyday vocabulary of dates, counting and greeting in all of them, with Hepburn romaji and notes on pronunciation.
How Japanese words are written
- 日本語Japanese Kanji
- にほんごJapanese Hiragana
- ニホンゴJapanese Katakana
The name of the language shows the system. 日本語 nihongo is written in kanji, the characters taken over from Chinese; in hiragana the same word is にほんご and in katakana ニホンゴ. Ordinary text mixes the three, often inside a single phrase. A sentence such as 月曜日に会いましょう, let's meet on Monday, has kanji for the weekday and the verb stem and hiragana for the particle and the verb ending.
Kanji carry meaning and usually more than one reading. The English Wikipedia article on the Japanese language counts 2,136 jōyō kanji, the characters approved for general use. The two kana syllabaries each write the same set of sounds: hiragana for native Japanese words and grammatical endings, katakana for loanwords, foreign names and emphasis. Both are laid out in the alphabet table for Japanese.
Romaji, the Latin alphabet, is a transcription for readers who do not know the kana. The pages here use Hepburn romaji with macrons, so a long vowel appears as ō in getsuyōbi. Japanese also has a pitch accent, which the kana do not show; the topic pages give IPA transcriptions where a dictionary source records them.
Japanese words by topic
Each page has a complete table with kanji, kana and romaji, then the rules that trip learners up: irregular readings, counters, word order in dates, and when a greeting is polite or casual.
- 01Days of the week in Japanese: seven names in kanji, romaji and IPAThe days of the week in Japanese are 月曜日 getsuyōbi (Monday), 火曜日 kayōbi, 水曜日 suiyōbi, 木曜日 mokuyōbi, 金曜日 kin'yōbi, 土曜日 doyōbi and 日曜日 nichiyōbi (Sunday). Each name is one kanji for a heavenly body or element, followed by 曜日 yōbi, "day of the week".
- 02Months in Japanese: readings, IPA and the old names 睦月 to 師走The months in Japanese are numbered: the number from one to twelve plus 月 gatsu, so January is 1月 ichigatsu and December 12月 jūnigatsu. Three of them take an older reading of their number: 4月 shigatsu, 7月 shichigatsu and 9月 kugatsu.
- 03Numbers in Japanese: counting 1 to 10 and beyond, kanji and countersThe numbers in Japanese from one to ten are ichi, ni, san, yon (or shi), go, roku, nana (or shichi), hachi, kyū (or ku) and jū, written 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十. Larger numbers are built from these ten and grouped in units of ten thousand, 万 man.
- 04Greetings in Japanese: hello, goodbye and polite forms, with bowingThe basic greetings in Japanese follow the clock: おはようございます ohayō gozaimasu in the morning, こんにちは konnichiwa during the day and こんばんは konbanwa in the evening. Parting is さようなら sayōnara, which sounds final, or a casual またね mata ne.
Dates, numbers and greetings in short
Dates are built from numbers. The months are one to twelve plus 月 gatsu, the days of the month number plus 日, and a full date runs from year to day: 2026年10月28日. The weekdays are the exception. They take their names from the seven luminaries, the Sun, the Moon and five planets named after elements, so Tuesday is fire day, 火曜日.
Numbers come in two sets, the Sino-Japanese ichi, ni, san for counting and arithmetic, and the native hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu for small quantities. Large numbers are grouped by ten thousands, 万 man, where English groups by thousands.
Greetings depend on the time of day and on politeness: ohayō gozaimasu in the morning, konnichiwa during the day, konbanwa in the evening, often with a bow. These everyday Japanese words are where most learners start.
Japanese is the de facto national language of Japan without any official status in law, according to the English Wikipedia article on the language, and an official language of the Palauan state of Angaur. The Japan country page gives the country's name in other languages, and the prefectures of Japan list all 47 in Japanese.
Questions about Japanese words
Why does Japanese use three scripts?
Each script has its job. Kanji, taken from Chinese, write most word stems; hiragana writes grammar and native Japanese words; katakana writes loanwords, foreign names and emphasis.
What is romaji?
Japanese written in the Latin alphabet. It is a transcription for foreign readers and learners; Japanese readers use kanji and kana. These pages use the Hepburn system with macrons for long vowels.
Where can Japanese words be compared with other Asian languages?
The Asian word list puts 243 Japanese words in kanji, hiragana and romaji next to Chinese, Korean, Thai, Vietnamese and other languages.