End of the year and New Year's Eve
The last weeks of December are the busiest of the year: cleaning, parties, cards and getting home. This lesson covers the year-end jobs, asking about holiday plans, and New Year's Eve at home. Tap to hear any line. The bar at the bottom plays a hands-free drill for walking.
About this festival
December is busy. Workplaces and groups of friends hold year-end parties, , often at an izakaya. Families do the big clean, , to start the year fresh, and many people send New Year cards, , posting them by about the 25th so they arrive on 1 January. Families in mourning skip them and send a short card in November or early December instead, so people know not to send them New Year cards.
Most offices close from about 29 December to 3 January. Many people go back to their home towns, , so trains, planes and roads are packed. City offices close for the holidays and banks shut from the 31st to the 3rd, so do errands and get cash early.
New Year's Eve, , isn't a public holiday but feels like one. Families eat (long noodles for a long life), many watch NHK's song show, and around midnight temples ring their bells 108 times, . It's a quiet family night more than a party.
25 year-end words
Each card shows a word and a sentence for the last weeks of the year: at home, at work and out and about. Eight reuse words from earlier lessons.
The end of December
When each job happens, roughly. Dates vary a little by workplace and family.
| When | What happens | Word |
|---|
- and . The end of the old year and the start of the new one. A sign saying gives a shop's or clinic's holiday dates.
- Before the year is out. means "before the end of this year": (Will it arrive this year?)
- You'll hear. is what people say when they part for the last time before New Year.
Four patterns to use today
Say it in Japanese
Say each one out loud before you reveal the answer. Getting close counts.