Japanese Time

Hi Guys,

Today I thought about a really cool topic that is great for people that want to learn Japanese, and that telling the time! So let's get into it

The first thing that you need to learn before you can learn the time is Japanese numbers.

1 - Ichi

2 - Ni

3 - San

4 - Shi/Yon

5 - G0

6 - Roku

7 - Nana/ shichi

8 - Hachi

9 - Kyu

10 - Juu

Great! Now let's take a quick look at how to say the minutes in Japanese as these are not exactly like numbers but I am sure you will see the similarities.

1 Ip-pun

2 Ni-fun

3 Sam-pun

4 Yom-pun

5 Go-fun

6 Rop-pun

7 Nana-fun

8 Hap-pun

9 Kyu-fun

10 Jup-pun

"What's the time now?"

Ok so in order to ask: 'What's the time?' you say 'Ima nan ji desu ka'

Make sure that you don't pronounce the 'U' in desu.

When saying the time you simply say the number and then after it say the word for O'clock, which is 'Ji'. So 5 O'clock is 'Go ji'

Now let's have a look at hours and minutes together:

2:46 would be: Ni Ji Yon Juu Roppun desu. So as you can see you use a combination of numbers to form larger numbers, so 40 was 'yon' and 'juu' together and then 46 adding roppun on the end.


Next you need to know how to same A.M. or P.M.

It help you know if it morning or evening, so to do that all you need to do is add 'Gozen' from a.m. and Gogo for p.m. in the front of the sentence. So 7:12 p.m is: Gogo Nana ji Juu nippun

The last thing I want to show you today is how to say half past the hour. The word we use is "han". So to say 5:30, we say Go ji han desu.

That's all for today, so now you can confidentally ask and tell someone the time in Japanese!

If you want my advice on the best ways to learn Japanese and also grab a 100% free 7 day audio course you can do so on my website here: Rocket-Japanese-Review

I also have another lesson here too: Useful Japanese Travel Phrases