How to say "New Year" in Japanese

If you are wondering what's the Japanese word for "New Year" you've come to the right place!

the Japanese word for "New Year" is "Shougatsu", written in japanese as "正月".

Here's a more detailed explanation:

The Japanese noun '正月 (しょうがつ)' refers to the New Year holiday period in Japan. It encompasses the first few days of January, including January 1st, which is the most important day. During this time, people celebrate the arrival of the new year with traditional customs, decorations, special foods, and gatherings with family. For example: We celebrate New Year's in January - (正月に新年を祝います).

The Kanji are characters that represent meanings. As you can see, this word is made up of 2 Kanji:

The kanji "正" means "Correct" and can be read as "Masa", "Shou", "Sei", and "Tada". And The kanji "月" means "Moon" and "Month" and can be read as "Tsuki", "Getsu", and "Gatsu".

Now, let's make sure you understand this word the other way around too.

What does "Shougatsu" mean in japanese?

"Shougatsu" means "New Year".

To learn more about the kanji in this word, checkout this pages:

If you also want to learn how to write this word in Japanese, you can checkout this page:

How to write "New Year" in Japanese

To make really sure you learn this word, I've prepared an interactive lesson for you. You are going to learn the readings and meanings of this word and of the characters that comprise it.

But first, you need to know a little bit about Hiragana and Katakana.

Hiragana and katakana are japanese syllabaries, this means that each character represents a syllable.

This are the characters you need to know for this lesson:

The hiragana "ま" is read as "ma". The hiragana "さ" is read as "sa". The hiragana "し" is read as "shi". The hiragana "う" is read as "u". The hiragana "せ" is read as "se". The hiragana "い" is read as "i". The hiragana "た" is read as "ta". The hiragana "だ" is read as "da". The hiragana "つ" is read as "tsu". The hiragana "き" is read as "ki". The hiragana "げ" is read as "ge". And The hiragana "が" is read as "ga".

About kanji, you need to know that most Kanji have two types of readings: Kunyomi, based on native japanese pronunciation. And onyomi, based on chinese pronunciation.

You are finally ready for your free japanese Lesson.

Heres a quick tutorial on how to use it. You'll be asked three type of questions: meaning, reading, and writing.

For meanings questions all you have to do is type the english meaning. If there is more than one meaning, you have to include them all in your answer separating them by commas (,).

For Reading questions you have to type the reading in romaji (roman letters, our normal alphabet) and it'll be automatically converted to hiragana if necessary. If there is more than one reading, you have to include them all in your answer separating them by commas (,).

For Writing questions some options will appear and all you have to do is select the correct ones.