Just doing my lessons I came across the explanation of BC. It says
Remember how 紀元後 is “After death” or “AD”? Well, this is the opposite because it has a before (前) in it. It’s BC or Before Christ.
Wouldn’t that mean that there was roughly 33 years of missing between the date Jesus was born (marking the end of BC) and the date he was dead from where the AD would start?
English isn’t my mother tongue but I always understood AD as Anno Domini which is latin and means something like years of god.
You are correct. 
As they say in the Bugs & Errors section: “If you think you found a bug, or an error, it’s probably best that you just email it to hello@wanikani.com”
You are correct on what AD stands for, at least in that it stands for the Latin words for “In the age of God” or similar, but I’d wager most English speaking people think of if as “After Death” just because it’s easier to remember when you don’t speak Latin. But that doesn’t mean it is correct.
I just feel that if I saw Anno Domini on there and I didn’t know what it meant, I would completely focus on that meaning instead of what I’m actually trying to learn.
But yes, you are correct. Maybe they can put it in somewhere?
hehe, yeah, After Death is one of the biggest “miss quotes” if you can call it that =P
Probably more people claiming AD meaning After Death instead of Anno Domini than people claiming Vader said “Luke, I am your father” (he did NOT say Luke! He said “No, I!, am your father” (big stress on I))
@Snowflying Oh lol! I’ve already learned that word but didn’t read it through since it felt quite obvious. 
Thanks, Snowflying!
I’d never heard of anyone calling AD ‘after death’. It doesn’t even make any sense.
I must have completely skipped the explanation for those items, though, I have no memory of them.
Same here! First time I’ve heard it called that, feels weird. 
I used to think AD was “After Death”, When I was, like, ten. I’ve never thought that since I learnt it was Anno Domini, though.
I’ve had to explain to way too many people why exactly AD can’t mean “After Death.” The saddest part about the whole thing is how little sense it makes if you think about it for a bit, but since there’s really no need to think about it, it just sticks and gets passed on.
Although, for anyone non-religious, BCE (Before Common Era) and CE (Common Era) are the way to go, as that’s what the modern history and science realms are using now. Heck, I’m religious and still use BCE and CE mainly now, especially since the the birth date of Jesus is only approximated (and December 25th has been a known false date of birth for a long time).
Yeah, except the era is only common to the Christian world. For Islam the current year is 1439, while for the Jewish it’s 5778.
For Japan, of course, it’s 30. 
I’ve heard both. And while Jesus supposedly died in 33AD, wasn’t that only figured out relatively recently? Like, in the last couple hundred years, recently.
Record keeping wasn’t great, misinterpretations and understandings of all that fiction resulting in peoples dates being off. It was thought Jeebis died in 0, but that understanding later changed, after the fact.
At least that an explanation I seem to remember hearing. I’m not all that up on my fantasy lore.
Nope, the idea was that the birth of Jesus marked the start of the “new era”. Jesus died at 33 years old, so according to this calendar, he died in 33 AD.
“After death” makes absolutely no sense as an explanation for AD.
Oh. I thought new era started with his death. Oh well. Kinda dumb we base our calendar off this dude’s death/birth/whatever anyways.
Word.
Just a small follow-up on that, you’re absolutely right that the exact dates of Jesus’s birth and death are not really known. Accounts of his life vary, and so it was estimated that he was born somewhere between 6 and 4 BC and died somewhere between 30 and 36 AD (Chronology of Jesus - Wikipedia).
Which makes the whole thing even more ridiculous.
EDIT: typo
Any other system would probably be just as arbitrary. I’m just glad I don’t have to memorize the year of death of each emperor and then do math to figure out how old things are.
Hear, hear. How dumb a system would that be?
I’m not religious, but a have a deep respect for Christ’s contribution to datekeeping.
