Lesson Twenty Five: Telling Time
Imagine for a moment that you agree, speaking in Japanese, to meet a friend at a train station. You then head to the train station and wait. Shortly after you get there you realize that you didn’t understand what time she told you to meet! You could be there for hours!
Don’t worry, Haruka is on the case to teach you how to tell time! Part of telling time is easy, but another part if more difficult.
Let’s start with the hours. Since hours are numbered things they have a counter. The counter for hours is じ (ji). There are two numbers that are irregular with the hour counter.
4 o’clock is よじ (yoji) instead of よんじ (yonji). 9 o’clock is くじ (kuji) instead of きゅうじ (kyuuji).
The particle that is used for marking time is に (ni). For time, it translates to “at” in English. Here are some basic sentences with time in them.
I will go at 3:00. | sanji ni ikimasu. | さんじにいきます。 |
Satou ate at 4:00. | satousan wa yoji ni tabemashita. | さとうさんはよじにたべました。 |
Can you think of your own examples? Try to make your own sentences!
Using はん (han) directly after the hour counter puts another half hour on. So にじはん (niji han) means 2:30.
hour counter | ji | じ |
what time | nanji | なんじ |
time | jikan | じかん |
half | han | はん |
4 o’clock | yoji | よじ |
Here are some other words that are useful for telling time.
AM | gozen | ごぜん |
PM | gogo | ごご |
noon | hiru | ひる |
midnight | gozenreiji | ごぜんれいじ |
yesterday | kinou | きのう |
Don’t forget to work on your mastery!
GAME: Hit-a-word
Now onto the difficult part! Using minutes in Japanese. Minutes are more difficult than hours because they have more irregular readings with the counter. All the irregular counters are below.
1 minute | ippun | いっぷん |
3 minutes | sanpun | さんぷん |
6 minutes | roppun | ろっぷん |
10 minutes | juppun | じゅっぷん |
minute counter | fun | ふん |
When telling time, the hour goes first and the minutes follow right after. So 5:35 would be ごじさんじゅごふん (goji sanjuugofun).
なんじですか？ (nanji desu ka?) What time is it? Please tell me!
It’s game time!
GAME: Flash cards
Be sure to get practice in! Say, in Japanese, what time is it when you do things.
