今年
ことし
kotoshi
= this year
Kotoshi (今年) — “this year” — is a small but indispensable word in Japanese, anchoring conversations about plans, resolutions, and reflections to the shared present that speaker and listener inhabit together.
Kotoshi means “this year” and is used as a time expression that can modify verbs or stand independently. It appears at the start of a sentence to set the time frame: Kotoshi wa ryokou wo ippai shitai (This year I want to travel a lot). It pairs naturally with kara (from), made (until), and juu (throughout): kotoshi juu ni owaru (to finish within this year). Neighboring time words include kyonen (去年, last year) and rainen (来年, next year) — together they form the core tense-setting trio that every learner needs early on.
Note that kotoshi is written with a unique reading: the koshi reading of 年 (toshi) is used here, not the more common nen (as in sannen for three years). This reading appears in several time words (kyotoshi variants aside) so it’s worth memorizing as part of the ima/ko- pattern: kore (this one), koko (here), kotoshi (this year).
今年 combines 今 (ima, now/present) and 年 (toshi/nen, year). 今 depicts a person bowing under a roof — “under this moment” — while 年 originally showed a person carrying grain at harvest time, each harvest marking a year. Together they point to the harvest — and the year — that is happening right now.
Everyday use
今年の夏は北海道に行くつもりです。
Kotoshi no natsu wa Hokkaido ni iku tsumori desu.
I’m planning to go to Hokkaido this summer.
Casual / Social Media
今年こそダイエット成功させるぞ！って毎年言ってる気がするけど笑
Kotoshi koso daietto seikou saseru zo! tte maitoshi itteru ki ga suru kedo wara
This year I’ll finally stick to my diet! …I feel like I say that every year lol
Formal / Cultural context
今年度の予算案につきまして、改めてご説明申し上げます。
Konnendo no yosan-an ni tsukimashite, aratamete go-setsumei moushiagemasu.
Allow me to explain the budget proposal for this fiscal year once more.
In Japan, the start of a new year carries more cultural weight than almost anywhere else in the world. Kotoshi mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu — “I look forward to your continued support this year too” — is exchanged in the first days of January through nengajou (New Year’s cards), at workplaces, and among friends. The phrase encodes the Japanese cultural value of ongoing relationship maintenance across the boundary of each new year, making kotoshi a word loaded with social ritual.
The expression kotoshi koso (“this year, for sure”) is a widely recognized pattern used for New Year’s resolutions — learning a new skill, finishing a project, or finally taking that overseas trip. The koso emphasizes a determination born of previous failures, making the phrase simultaneously optimistic and self-aware. It appears so often in January social media posts that it has become a mild cultural meme.