Schedules are everywhere in JFT-Basic: rubbish collection days, shift rosters, meeting changes, closure notices. All of them require the calendar words, and several of those words are irregular.
This is pure memorisation, and it is worth doing properly because it pays in every section.
Days of the week
にちようび (Sunday), げつようび, かようび, すいようび, もくようび, きんようび, どようび.
The kanji are worth recognising even if you cannot produce them - 日月火水木金土 - because a notice will use them in compressed form: 月・木 for Monday and Thursday.
Note the pair the exam likes: 木 (Thursday) and 土 (Saturday) look and sound nothing alike, but もくようび and どようび are often the two options in a rubbish-schedule question.
Dates: the first ten are irregular
There is no shortcut. These must be learned as words:
| Date | Reading | Date | Reading |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1日 | ついたち | 6日 | むいか |
| 2日 | ふつか | 7日 | なのか |
| 3日 | みっか | 8日 | ようか |
| 4日 | よっか | 9日 | ここのか |
| 5日 | いつか | 10日 | とおか |
After that it is regular (11日 じゅういちにち) with four exceptions worth memorising: 14日 じゅうよっか, 20日 はつか, 24日 にじゅうよっか, and the general trap that 日 is read にち, not ひ, in dates.
はつか (20th) catches almost everyone once.
Counting days versus naming them
Japanese uses the same words for both, which confuses learners:
- みっか can mean the 3rd of the month or three days
- ついたち means only the 1st; for one day it is いちにち
Context decides. In a notice, a date. In a sentence about duration, a count.
Periods and deadlines
～から～まで for a range, ～までに for a deadline, and the words that frame them: きかん (period), きげん (deadline), やすみ (closure, holiday), へいてん (closing), きゅうぎょう (business closed).
A closure notice combining a range and an exception - closed the 3rd to the 5th, but open on the 4th - is a standard reading item. See how to read a Japanese notice.
Drill it against your own calendar
The fastest way: say today’s date aloud in Japanese every morning for a month, and write your shifts for the coming week in Japanese with days and dates.
Two weeks of that and the irregular ten stop being a list you recite and become words you know. Pair it with numbers and time, then test both under a clock with the free exam demo.