70 in Japanese
七十
Updated May 2026
Seventy: nana-ju in everyday counting
NUMERAL
70
KANJI
七十
HIRAGANA
ななじゅう
ROMAJI
nana-jū
Build-by-place breakdown
Counter-attached forms
How 70 attaches to common counters. Each links to the per-counter deep-dive.
Cultural context
The age 70 has a traditional Japanese name: koki (古希, “antiquity-rare 70”), from a poem by the Tang-dynasty Chinese poet Du Fu suggesting that living to 70 was rare. Modern Japan celebrates koki-no-iwai (古希の祝い) at age 70.
Real sentence examples
七十歳のお誕生日おめでとうございます (nana-jus-sai no o-tanjoubi omedetou gozaimasu): happy 70th birthday.
七十パーセント以上が賛成しました (nana-jup-paasento ijou ga sansei shimashita): more than 70 percent agreed.
Pronunciation and morphology notes
Seventy uses nana in standard counting. The form shichi-ju exists but is non-standard outside fixed compounds. Nana is unambiguous; shichi can be misheard. The age 70 in everyday Japanese is nana-jus-sai. The traditional cultural name koki is reserved for the celebration, not the ordinary age statement.
Related numbers
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