how do you write the date in japan
Date and time notation in Japan The most commonly used date format in Japan is "year month day (weekday)", with the Japanese characters meaning "year", "month" and "day" inserted after the numerals. Example: 2008年12月31日 (水) for "Wednesday, December 31, 2008". The weekday is usually abbreviated to a single character, e.g. 水 for 水曜日 ("Wednesday"), but may also be written in full, then usually without surrounding parentheses. Apart from the Gregorian calendar, the Japanese Imperial calendar is also used, which bases the year on the current era, which in turn is based on the current emperor. The current era is 平成 Heisei and began in 1989. When using the Imperial calendar, the year is prefixed with the era. For example, the above date using the Imperial calendar is written as: 平成20年12月31日 (水); a more direct translation might be: Heisei year 20, Dec 31 (Wed).