2000 in Japanese
二千
Updated June 2026
2000 in Japanese is 二千, written にせん in hiragana and read ni-sen. Heisei 12 (the millennium year)
NUMERAL
2000
KANJI
二千
HIRAGANA
にせん
ROMAJI
ni-sen
Counter-attached forms
How 2000 attaches to common counters. Each links to the per-counter deep-dive.
Year context
Heisei 12 (平成12年). The 2000 Sydney Summer Olympics ran from 15 September to 1 October 2000. In July 2000 Japan issued the ¥2,000 banknote (二千円札) to commemorate the Kyushu-Okinawa G8 summit and the millennium; it is still legal tender but rarely seen in circulation. Heisei-era arithmetic: Heisei 1 = 1989, so Heisei 12 = 2000.
Real sentence examples
二千円札は二〇〇〇年に発行されました (ni-sen-en-satsu wa ni-sen-nen ni hakkou saremashita): the 2,000-yen note was issued in the year 2000.
西暦二千年は平成十二年に当たります (seireki ni-sen-nen wa heisei jū-ni-nen ni atarimasu): the Western year 2000 corresponds to Heisei 12.
Pronunciation and morphology notes
2000 is simply ni-sen (二千), not ichi-ni-sen; Japanese never prefixes the leading unit here. Watch the thousand-unit sound changes in nearby numbers: 3,000 voices to san-zen (三千) and 8,000 geminates to has-sen (八千), but 2,000 stays ni-sen unchanged. In imperial notation, 2000 is Heisei 12 (平成12年).
Frequently asked questions
How do you write 2000 in Japanese?
2000 is written 二千 in kanji and にせん in hiragana. In romaji (modified Hepburn) it is ni-sen.
What is 2000 in hiragana?
2000 in hiragana is にせん. Hiragana spells out the reading ni-sen phonetically; the kanji form is 二千.
What is 2000 in the Japanese imperial calendar?
2000 is Heisei 12 (平成12年) in the Japanese imperial (nengo) calendar.
Related numbers
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