Fran Wrigley
Six Ways To Say "Happy Birthday" In Japanese
Whether you're sending a birthday card, or writing on a friend's Facebook wall, it's good to share. And you'll want to wish your Japanese-speaking friends "happy birthday" in Japanese, right?

Here are six different ways to say "happy birthday" in Japanese.

First of all, let's say “Happy Birthday”:

1) お誕生日おめでとう! <em>o-tanjoubi omedetou!</em>


Simple and classic, this phrase means "happy birthday", or literally "congratulations on your birthday".



2) お誕生日おめでとうございます。 <em>o-tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu</em>


Add ございます "gozaimasu" to make it more polite.
This longer phrase is more polite/formal, so it's good for people older than you, people you know less well, and definitely good for your boss.



3) ハッピーバースデー!<em>happii baasudee!</em>


This one is actually one of my favourites - a Japan-ified version of the English phrase “happy birthday”.

Adding another comment:


If you're writing a message, you can also add another comment, following up after the birthday greeting by also wishing the person well:

4) 楽しんでください <em>tanoshinde kudasai</em>


"Have fun!"

e.g. お誕生日おめでとう!楽しんでくださいね ^ ^
(Happy birthday! Have fun :) )



5) 素敵な一日を <em>sutekina ichinichi o</em>


"Have a great day."

e.g. お誕生日おめでとう!素敵な一日を〜
"Happy birthday! Have a great day."



6) 素晴らしい1年になりますように <em>subarashii ichinen ni narimasu you ni</em>


"I hope it's a wonderful year for you."

e.g. お誕生日おめでとうございます。素晴らしい1年になりますように。

"Happy birthday. I hope you have a wonderful year."



それじゃ、ステキな一日を!
And with that, I hope you have a wonderful day!

If you have any questions about learning Japanese, please feel free to ask me.
27 sty 2020 14:40
Komentarze · 3
1
I am afraid you are the one who misunderstood me. What you mean is thoroughly clear to me from the beginning because I had read your explanation titled "Adding another comment" before I made the first comment, of course. And still, I'd say again that we would more often say like No.6 rather than No.4 or No.5 even as additional comments for the reason I have already mentioned./It might be natural for native speakers of English to say that way, which is absolutely not here in Japan. You could write in a message like No.4 or No.5 because it is grammatically correct, but it would at least not sound like a native speaker of Japanese because most of us actually don't say that way. Nothing more, nothing less. Anyway, I suppose non-native speakers of some language don't need to speak it as native speakers do. /In other words, we are not people who say "Have a nice day", at least as often as you do. It is just like you don't say "お疲れ様" as we do. There are really big cultural differences between Western countries and Japan in the Far East, I'd say.
27 stycznia 2020
Hi Ueda-san, thank you for reading and leaving a comment. To be clear, what I mean is that numbers 4 and 5 are additional comments you can write in a message.

I don't mean to suggest that 素敵な一日を means "happy birthday", but that you can write (for example) お誕生日おめでとう!素敵な一日を when wishing someone happy birthday.

Likewise, of course 素晴らしい1年になりますように does not mean "happy birthday", but you can write お誕生日おめでとうございます。素晴らしい1年になりますように。

I hope that is clearer?
27 stycznia 2020
I am a native speaker of Japanese. Honestly, I have hardly ever heard someone say No.4 or No.5 here in Japan. They might be quite good translations for those English phrases such as "Happy birthday! Have fun :) " and "Happy birthday! Have a great day" , though most Japanese would not say that way. /It is probably because we are not so interested in how we just celebrate our birthdays as in how we spend a good time for another year, which would be much more difficult.
27 stycznia 2020