Japanese Sizes, Weights, and Temperatures You Have to Handle

The measurement words you meet in the first month

Almost all of these words appear on labels and forms as well as in speech, so learning the reading is worth more than learning the translation. Note that senchi and kiro are borrowed short forms: kiro covers both kilograms and kilometres, and context decides which one is meant. The counter word for degrees, do, is the same for weather, body temperature and the bath.

Clothing sizes and how they generally work

Most Japanese clothing carries letter sizes, commonly S, M, L and LL, with 3L and above in larger ranges. Women's wear also uses numbered sizes written with the character 号, and men's shirts often list a neck measurement and a sleeve length in centimetres instead of a letter. Beyond that there is no single national standard you can rely on: two shops can label the same garment differently, and imported and domestic lines are cut differently again. Treat the letter as a starting point only.

What is reliable is the size chart printed on the label or shown on the shelf, because it usually gives actual measurements in centimetres for chest, waist, shoulder and length. Compare those numbers against a garment you already own and you will be right far more often than any conversion table would make you. If you cannot find the chart, ask a member of staff, who can check the stock details for you. The clothing vocabulary post covers the names of the garments themselves, and the shopping phrases post covers paying and returning.

Shoe sizes are given in centimetres

Shoe sizes in Japan are a length in centimetres, so a shop assistant expects to hear a number such as 24 or 26.5 rather than a letter or a foreign size number. Half sizes are normal and are said as ten-go, the decimal point read as ten. Some makers also print a width marking on the box or the insole, and widths are described in speech as habahiro for a wide fit; if you see a width code you do not recognise, ask staff what it means for that particular model rather than assuming.

As with clothing, the same number can fit differently between makers and even between two models from one maker, because the shape of the last differs. Shops are used to being asked to measure feet, and having it done once gives you a number you can quote confidently afterwards.

The questions that get you the right size

These are worth memorising as fixed units, because you will use them while somebody is standing in front of you. Two verbs do most of the work: arimasu ka for whether the shop has something, and moraemasu ka or itadakemasu ka for asking someone to do something for you. Both are polite enough for any shop.

Height and weight in metric

Height is stated in centimetres rather than metres, so a person is hyaku-nanajussenchi rather than one point seven metres. You will be asked at a clinic, at a gym and occasionally in casual conversation. Weight is in kilograms, and while people do state it in medical settings, asking someone else their weight is treated much the way it is elsewhere, so it is not standard small talk. The counters guide covers how numbers combine with these units in more detail.

Temperature: weather, fever and the air conditioner

Everything is Celsius, and the counter is do. Weather reports talk about kion for air temperature, with saikō kion and saitei kion for the day's high and low. Body temperature is taion, and there is one reading quirk worth learning: a decimal in body temperature is usually read with bu, so 37.5 degrees is sanjūnana-do go-bu. Air conditioners and bath units are set to a settei ondo, a target temperature, which is the number people argue about in an office all summer.

The seasonal adjectives come as a set with these numbers. Mushiatsui is the humid heat of the rainy season and summer, hiekomu describes a sharp drop in the evening, and atatakai and suzushii are the pleasant middles. The small talk post covers weather openers in general; here the point is simply to be able to state and set a number.

Room size in tatami mats and floor-plan codes

Japanese rooms are described in tatami mats, counted with jō, so a listing will say a room is roku-jō or hachi-jō even when the floor is wood rather than matting. Mat dimensions are not identical everywhere, since different regional standards exist and newer buildings often use smaller mats, so a six-mat room in one city is not necessarily the same area as a six-mat room in another. The square-metre figure, given as heibei, is the number to compare when it matters; tsubo appears in property documents as a larger area unit.

Alongside the mats comes the floor-plan code. The digit counts the rooms other than the shared living space, and the letters describe that space: K for a kitchen, DK for a dining kitchen, LDK for a living, dining and kitchen area. A wan-rūmu has no separating door between the sleeping area and the kitchen. Ask for the numbers you care about, because listings vary in how much they show.

Paper sizes at the copier and the office

Office documents in Japan are commonly A4, and A3 is the usual larger sheet for plans and posters. B5 and B4 also circulate, and B5 is a very common notebook size for students. At a convenience store copier you will be asked for the paper size, whether you want colour or black and white, and whether to print on both sides. Requirements for particular forms differ between offices and change over time, so follow whatever the form itself or the office tells you rather than assuming a size.

Blood type small talk

Newcomers are often surprised to be asked their blood type at a party or in a first conversation at work. It is a light, common topic in Japan, sitting roughly where star signs sit in other countries, and people trade personality generalisations about the four types for fun. It is not treated as science by most speakers, and nobody expects you to defend your type. Types are said with the letter plus gata, so A becomes ē-gata and O becomes ō-gata.

Two answers are completely acceptable. Give your type if you know it, or say you do not know, which is genuinely common among people who grew up outside Japan and usually leads to a friendly explanation of why the question gets asked. If you would rather not play, a smiling amari ki ni shinai n desu closes the topic politely.

Reading a label without a dictionary

Labels repeat the same handful of words, so learning them once pays off in every shop. On clothing you will see sozai for material, men for cotton and its percentage, and a row of washing symbols with tearai for hand wash. On food and household goods, naiyōryō gives the net contents, hozon hōhō the storage method, and shōmi kigen the best-before date. On boxes for furniture and appliances you will see the three dimensions written as width, depth and height in centimetres.

Mistakes that cost you a return trip

• Trusting a size letter instead of the centimetre chart on the label, which is the number that actually differs between brands.
• Buying shoes by number without trying them on, when the same size fits differently by maker and model.
• Giving your height in metres; in daily Japanese it is always centimetres.
• Reading a fever aloud as a decimal instead of using bu, which is how clinics expect to hear it.
• Assuming a six-mat room is a fixed area everywhere, rather than checking the square metres.
• Ordering furniture without measuring the entrance and the corridor first.
• Saying nothing when something does not fit; sukoshi kitsui desu gets you a different size in seconds.