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Hi

I'm new to learning Japanese and with Valentine's Day coming up next week, I want to surprise my partner (who is a primary school Japanese teacher) with a message.

I tried a few sites on the internet.

ハッピーバレンタインデー

幸せの valleytine の日

Which one is more correct, or is there a better phrase?

Arigatou
Jason

Jason-san,

Your first sentence, ハッピーバレンタインデー isn't Japanese: it's just the English "Happy Valentine Day" written in katakana. However, even if it's English, a phrase like that will be used in Japan quite commonly. (Note that in Japanese it's Valentine Day, not Valentine's Day, but that's the only real difference.)

However, a (slightly) more natively Japanese way you could say it is:-
バレンタインデーおめでとう (barentain dē omedetō)
(Or バレンタインデーおめでとうございます (barentain dē omedetō gozaimasu) to be more polite.)

おめでとう often means "congratulations", but it's more generally a statement of "this is a good occasion". It's often used for Happy New Year (あけましておめでとう - akemashite omedetō), and Happy Birthday (おたんじょうびおめでとう - o-tanjōbi omedetō), but I have seen it used for Valentine's Day, too.

I'm not sure about your second sentence. I don't think it's common to use 幸せ (shiawase, which literally means "happiness") as a greeting. It could be translated as "Valentine's Day of happiness", but using "happy" to celebrate an occasion is English thinking that doesn't necessarily translate to other languages. I also don't think it's common to use 日 for what you might call "borrowed" holidays (though it's definitely used in the names of natively Japanese holidays).

小狼

Hi 小狼

Thank you for your descriptive post and for your help. So much to learn.

Arigatou gozaimasu.


Regards
Jason

Jason san,
Konnichiwa.
I think your first one is good.
ハッピーバレンタインデー
Yuki 由紀
Team JapanesePod101.com

Yuki-san
konbawah
arigatou gozaimasu

Jason