(I have no idea if this goes here or not)
We have a friend turning sixty this week. He spent ten years in Japan, so I thought it would be fun to make him a Year of the Rat cake with kanji on it. Does 六十年 work? Should it be 六十歲?
[QUOTE=Helena]
六十歲?
[/QUOTE]
I just looked through Google Japan’s images of birthday cakes and the standard seems to be:
お父さん
おたんじょうび おめでとう
Or
６０さい
おたんじょうび おめでとう
Kanji are hard to write in icing, so hiragana seems to be the order of the day unless it’s a simple character.
お父さん means dad, so I would not recommend that unless he is your dad.
六十歳 means 60 years of age. The kanji is a bit tricky so you could put 六十さい as SageRat mentioned.
六十年 just means 60 years.
おめでとう (omedetou) is the standard congratulations so you could add that too, of course.
[QUOTE=Tanaqui]
お父さん means dad, so I would not recommend that unless he is your dad.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, sorry I should have pointed that out. I was assuming the OP understands Japanese so I just used a fill-in word figuring they would catch it.
[QUOTE=Sage Rat]
Yes, sorry I should have pointed that out. I was assuming the OP understands Japanese so I just used a fill-in word figuring they would catch it.
[/QUOTE]
If not, you just missed a golden opportunity to get Helena to write, “Warning: Cake is poisonous” on the birthday cake.
注: 毒入リ
死ぬよ。まじ。
How well does he speak, understand Japanese?
Japanese have special names for certain ages, including 60, which is called as follows:
還暦（かんれき）kanreki
However, if he doesn’t understand Japanese well, he may not understand this.
Thanks! I’m not writing it myself–I’m doing one of those “picture on a cake” things.
Tokyo Player–I think he’s pretty conversant, but I don’t know if he’d know that or not! Maybe.
[QUOTE=TokyoPlayer]
還暦（かんれき）kanreki
[/QUOTE]
By the way, the 60th birthday is a special event in Japan, which is why it has its own word. There’s even a particular costume men wear for their kanreki:
http://www.marumi-bridal.co.jp/costume/tyouzyu/red.jpg
The colour is important, red is for 60, purple for 70, 77 and 80, gold for 88 and 90 and white for 99 years.