Year Reading

How do you read the year? I see things like 一九九六年 and 2046年.

Is that いちきゅうきゅうろくねん and にれいろくよねん? Or do they say the whole number or maybe subdivide it like in English? There aren't extra 十s or 百s or 千s so I'm thinking you read off each number. Is that right?

McCrutch67 said:

How do you read the year? I see things like 一九九六年 and 2046年.

Is that いちきゅうきゅうろくねん and にれいろくよねん? Or do they say the whole number or maybe subdivide it like in english?

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While there might be some contexts in which the numbers are read off individually, the most typical readings for those are probably going to be せんきゅうひゃくきゅうじゅうろくねん and にせんよんじゅうろくねん, respectively. (This is the way you'll generally hear them read out on the news and such.)

For one example of the opposite case -- with apartment/room numbers, you'll often (not always, but often) hear the numbers read out individually -- 101号室 being read as いちまるいちごうしつ, for example.

McCrutch67 said:

There aren't extra 十s or 百s or 千s so I'm thinking you read off each number. Is that right?

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Unfortunately you'll find that there are many times in Japanese that analyzing how something is written is less than completely helpful in figuring out how to read it.

I remember watching a music program on Japanese TV once that was playing a music video by a group named "175R." Neither I nor my (Japanese) fiancee had any idea how to read this until her sister informed us that it was a new band named "いなごライダー."

ありがとう jt_さん

今は年の読みが分かっている。 零とゼロが分かっていた。 まるを忘れた。

I was wondering what to use for zero because it doesn't come up often so I hadn't seen it much.

jt_ said:

I remember watching a music program on Japanese TV once that was playing a music video by a group named "175R." Neither I nor my (Japanese) fiancee had any idea how to read this until her sister informed us that it was a new band named "いなごライダー."

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Don't feel bad. I had the same problem with INXS when they first came out.

For one example of the opposite case -- with apartment/room numbers, you'll often (not always, but often) hear the numbers read out individually -- 101号室 being read as いちまるいちごうしつ, for example.

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Hehe, I'm glad to hear they are ever read as numerals, so far I've only seen that in my guidebooks and practice tapes but never in actual practice.

Since we are talking about year reading, which jidai/number corresponds with which year?
I think it is heisei 16 nen this year, but I'm not sure...

Gaijinian said:

Since we are talking about year reading, which jidai/number corresponds with which year?
I think it is heisei 16 nen this year, but I'm not sure...

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The current year of 2005 is 平成17年.

Here's a handy chart: 和暦西暦対応表

Thanks for that link!