20 in Japanese
二十
Updated June 2026
20 in Japanese is 二十, written にじゅう in hiragana and read ni-jū. Where 20 is also hatachi (age 20)
NUMERAL
20
KANJI
二十
HIRAGANA
にじゅう
ROMAJI
ni-jū
Build-by-place breakdown
Counter-attached forms
How 20 attaches to common counters. Each links to the per-counter deep-dive.
Cultural context
Hatachi (はたち, 二十歳) is the traditional native (Yamato) reading for “20 years old”, surviving from before Sino-Japanese readings displaced the native count above 10. Seijin-no-hi (Coming-of-Age Day, the second Monday of January) celebrates Japanese who turned 20 in the past year. Until 1 April 2022, 20 was the legal age of majority in Japan; this was lowered to 18, but hatachi remains culturally significant.
Real sentence examples
二十歳になりました (hatachi ni narimashita): I’ve turned 20 years old.
二十人のクラスです (ni-jū-nin no kurasu desu): it’s a class of 20 people.
Pronunciation and morphology notes
Twenty in regular counting is ni-ju (2 x 10). But the age 20 uses the totally irregular native form hatachi (二十歳), not ni-jus-sai. The same 二十 kanji can be read either way depending on context: ni-ju when counting, hatachi for age 20. See /counters/age/ for the full age table.
Frequently asked questions
How do you write 20 in Japanese?
20 is written 二十 in kanji and にじゅう in hiragana. In romaji (modified Hepburn) it is ni-jū.
What is 20 in hiragana?
20 in hiragana is にじゅう. Hiragana spells out the reading ni-jū phonetically; the kanji form is 二十.
Related numbers
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