Days of the Week in Japanese (曜日 – youbi)

Apr 2

The days of the week are important to remember because they come up in all sorts of basic conversation!

Let’s start with a list of each of the words.

The chart below also includes romaji in case you haven’t memorized any kanji or hiragana yet.

English	Japanese
	Kanji	Furigana	Romaji	Kanji Meaning
Monday	月曜日	げつようび	getsuyoubi	moon day
Tuesday	火曜日	かようび	kayoubi	fire day
Wednesday	水曜日	すいようび	suiyoubi	water day
Thursday	木曜日	もくようび	mokuyoubi	wood day
Friday	金曜日	きんようび	kinyoubi	gold day
Saturday	土曜日	どようび	doyoubi	ground day
Sunday	日曜日	にちようび	nichiyoubi	sun day

You might have noticed that each day of the week contains 曜日 (ようび – youbi) which means day. On Japanese calendars and day planners you might see an abbreviation of just the element that proceeds the 曜日, such as just 月 in places where you’d usually see abbreviations like “Mon.” or just “M”.

Other Related Vocabulary

In addition to the names for each day of the week, you will also need to discuss relative time. So let’s finish off this article with a list of other related vocabulary that might come in handy as well:

English	Japanese
	Kanji	Furigana	Romaji
Today	今日	きょう	kyou
Tomorrow	明日	あした	ashita
Yesterday	昨日	きのう	kinou
The day after tomorrow	明後日	あさって	asatte
The day before yesterday	一昨日	おととい	ototoi
This week	今週	こんしゅう	konshuu
Next week	来週	らいしゅう	raishuu
Last week	先週	せんしゅう	senshuu
The weekend	週末	しゅうまつ	shuumatsu
3-day weekend	三連休	さんれんきゅう	sanrenkyuu
Everyday	毎日	まいにち	mainichi