Holiday, Seasonal

Since January 1, 1873, Japan has used the Gregorian Calendar, with local names for the months and mostly fixed holidays. Before 1873 a lunisolar calendar was in use, which was adapted from the Chinese calendar. more...

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Years

Since the adoption of the Gregorian calendar, three different systems for counting years have or had been used in Japan:

The Western Common Era (西暦, seireki) designation; The Japanese era name (年号, nengō) based on the reign of the current emperor, the year 2006 being Heisei 18; The imperial year (皇紀, kōki) based on the mythical founding of Japan by Emperor Jimmu in 660 BCE;

Of these three, the first two are still in current use, in the following link you have a convenient converter between the two; the imperial calendar was used until the end of World War II.

Months

The modern Japanese names for the months literally translate to "first month", "second month", and so on. The corresponding number is combined with the suffix -gatsu (month):

January - 一月 (ichigatsu); February - 二月 (nigatsu); March - 三月 (sangatsu); April - 四月 (shigatsu); May - 五月 (gogatsu); June - 六月 (rokugatsu); July - 七月 (shichigatsu); August - 八月 (hachigatsu); September - 九月 (kugatsu); October - 十月 (jūgatsu); November - 十一月 (jūichigatsu); December - 十二月 (jūnigatsu);

In addition, every month has a traditional name, still used by some in fields such as poetry; of the twelve, shiwasu is still widely used today. The opening paragraph of a letter or the greeting in a speech might borrow one of these names to convey a sense of the season. Some, such as yayoi and satsuki, do double duty as given names (for women). These month names also appear from time to time on jidaigeki, contemporary television shows and movies set in the Edo period or earlier.

The name of month: (pronunciation, literal meaning)

January - 睦月 (mutsuki, affection month); February - 如月 or 衣更着 (kisaragi or kinusaragi, changing clothes); March - 弥生 (yayoi, new life; the beginning of spring); April - 卯月 (uzuki, hare month); May - 皐月 or 早月 or 五月(satsuki, fast month); June - 水無月 (minatsuki or minazuki, month of water — the na is actually a possessive particle and the 無 character is ateji); July - 文月 (fumizuki, book month); August - 葉月 (hazuki, leaf month); September - 長月 (nagatsuki, long month); October - 神無月 (kaminazuki or kannazuki, month of the gods), 神有月 or 神在月 (kamiarizuki, month of the gods – used only in Izumo province, where all the gods are believed to gather in October for an annual meeting at the Izumo Shrine); as with June, the na is actually a possessive particle and the 無 character is ateji.; November - 霜月 (shimotsuki, frost month); December - 師走 (shiwasu, priests run; it is named so because priests are busy making end of the year prayers and blessings.);

Read more at Wikipedia.org