6 in Japanese
六
Updated June 2026
6 in Japanese is 六, written ろく in hiragana and read roku. Roku, and the gemination that turns hon into rop-pon
NUMERAL
6
KANJI
六
HIRAGANA
ろく
ROMAJI
roku
Counter-attached forms
How 6 attaches to common counters. Each links to the per-counter deep-dive.
Daiji formal form (for cheques and contracts)
Real sentence examples
ビールを六本買いました (biiru o rop-pon kaimashita): I bought six bottles of beer.
六時に起きます (roku-ji ni okimasu): I get up at 6 o’clock.
Pronunciation and morphology notes
Six is roku, and it is one of the big gemination triggers. Before a counter starting with h, the h doubles into p: rop-pon (六本, long objects) and rop-piki (六匹, small animals). Before k it geminates too: rok-ko (六個). Counters starting with other sounds stay regular: roku-nin, roku-mai, roku-sai, roku-en, roku-ji. The general native form is muttsu (六つ). Tokyo’s Roppongi district (六本木, "six trees") preserves the rop-pon sound change in a place name. The daiji form is 陸.
Frequently asked questions
How do you write 6 in Japanese?
6 is written 六 in kanji and ろく in hiragana. In romaji (modified Hepburn) it is roku.
What is 6 in hiragana?
6 in hiragana is ろく. Hiragana spells out the reading roku phonetically; the kanji form is 六.
What is the formal (daiji) form of 6?
The daiji form of 6 is 陸. Daiji are elaborate kanji used on cheques, contracts, and official documents to stop anyone altering the simpler 六.
Related numbers
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