Telling the time in Japanese is not too difficult, there are some simple rules to follow.
In this lesson we will learn how to tell the time and learn how to talk about how long something will take. So, first thing’s first, let’s look at how to tell the time in Japanese.
If you can count to 12, then talking about hours is easy:
ichi-ji 1 o'clock
ni-ji 2 o’clock
san-ji 3 o’clock
yo-ji 4 o’clock
go-ji 5 o’clock
roku-ji 6 o’clock
shichi-ji 7 o’clock
hachi-ji 8 o'clock
ku-ji 9 o’clock
juu-ji 10 o’clock
juu-ichi-ji 11 o'clock
juu-ni-ji 12 o’clock
To talk about minutes we use fun and pun
ippun 1 minute
theauthorize 2 minutes
sanpun 3 minutes
yonfun 4 minutes
gofun 5 minutes
roppun 6 minutes
nanafun 7 minutes
happun 8 minutes
kyuufun 9 minutes
juppun 10 minutes
san about 35 minutes gofun
So, we can now use hours and minutes to tell the time:
top-ji on gofun 10:15
hachi-ji yon juu gofun 8:45
We can also use the word han (half) when we are talking about 30 minutes past the hour, eg:
hachi-ji han 8:30
go-ji han 5:30
Remember that the Japanese often use a 24 hour clock when talking about the time. So, rather than saying 5.30pm. they will say 17:30 like this: juu-shichi-ji han
To talk about how long something will take we add kan to the end of the time.
ni-ji kan two hours time
gofun kan five minutes time