You may know it, but maybe you don’t know it!

～The Japanese calendar and the Western calendar～

Are you often confused by the difference between the Japanese and Western calendars? Especially when you work with a recruitment agency, you see the Japanese calendar and the Western calendar on many occasions, as you write your work experience in chronological order on your CV and resume.

Showa 昭和 is often written as S, Heisei 平成as H, and Reiwa令和 as R. When writing your Japanese CV or resume, you should write Showa, Heisei or Reiwa in Kanji characters. You would use either the Japanese calendar or the Western calendar, but make sure to use one of them consistently for clarity. A common mistake is to write 令和１年 （the first year of Reiwa） instead of 令和元年Gannen in Japanese custom. What is meant by 元年Gannen is the first year of a new naming period and is also the marking of the starting point of things.

The Western calendar counts the year in which Christ was supposed to have been born as the first year of the year, whereas Japan’s original system of renderings is based on the accession of kings, with the 126th Emperor Tokujin ascending to the throne on 1 May 2019, marking the beginning of Reiwa. (*Heisei 31 means from 1 January 2019 to 30 April 2019, and Reiwa Gannen means from 1 May 2019 to 31 December 2019.)

Next, there is a way to convert from Western calendar to Japanese calendar without checking the table. An easy way to do this is by subtracting! For example, the current year is Reiwa 5 and the Western calendar is 2023. If you subtract 18 from the last two digits of the Western calendar, you can find out the year of 2023, so remember this method for the future. 23 -18＝Reiwa 5.

【Japanese to Western year conversion table.】