Japan Know How archive
Japanese Eras
Japan has not banned Western years from official paperwork. The real rule is form by form: family-register records favor era years, residence cards use Western dates, and licenses mix both. This guide shows how to read the field before entering a date.
Your Name in Japanese
Japanese forms have two name fields and your passport has three names. Where the middle name goes, when to drop it, and when dropping it breaks a booking.
Your Name in Japanese
Japan flipped its own romanized name order in January 2020. What that means for the order you write, and where a swapped name creates a mismatch.
Your Name in Japanese
Residence card, bank, hotel, tickets: which field wants romaji, which wants katakana, and what happens when your two spellings stop matching.
Japanese Eras
Seven slots, always in the same order, and five character pairs to recognise. After that, any form in Japan becomes readable.
