卯年 – 2023 the Year of the Rabbit in Japanese
2023 is the Year of the Rabbit according to the Chinese Zodiac. The last year of the Rabbit was 12 years ago in 2011. This year is all about the rabbit so let’s take a look at how to say the Year of the Rabbit in Japanese.
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卯年 – The Year of the Rabbit in Japanese
The Year of the Rabbit in Japanese is 卯年. This can be pronounced as either うどし or うさぎどし.
- 卯 – Rabbit
- 年 – Year
Reading the two characters separately, 卯 is Rabbit and 年 is year. These words both need a bit more explanation though, so I will explain more below.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/年 – Year in Compound Words like 卯年
In isolation the word for year in Japanese is pronounce toshi. However in compound words the t will become d. This is a phenomenon in Japanese called 連濁. This is when unvoiced consonants become their voiced versions. In this example, d is the voiced version of t. So, if you are learning Japanese and you ever see a word in a compound turn from s to z or k to g and so on, this is what is happening.
十二支 – The 12 Chinese Zodiac Animals in Japanese
卯 – Rabbit
I mentioned earlier that the word 卯年 can be pronounced as both udoshi and usagidoshi. Well, the reason is that some the animals in the Chinese Zodiac have different, archaic names from their everyday animal names.
Rabbits in Japanese Culture
う vs うさぎ
The word for Rabbit in old Japanese was う which later became うさぎ. So, the old word can still be used when talking about The Year of the Rabbit in Japanese. But, people will still often say うさぎどし.
The Year of the Rabbit vs the everyday Rabbit
The characters for the animals in the Zodiac are different from the ones you use for the everyday animals. The Kanji 卯 is mainly just for the Zodiac. The Japanese Kanji, 兎 however is the everyday character for rabbit, or うさぎ in Japanese. Like many other Japanese words though it can also be written in Hiragana as うさぎ.
Resources
- Chinese Zodiac (Japanese)
