#Go zen meaning how to

The first one is to say the exact time, such as 12:38. There are basically two ways to tackle this problem. We’ve talked about time and the hours, but what if something falls in between? We must talk about minutes in order to get the timing exact. What this means is that instead of saying 12時 as jū ni ji they will instead say 0時 as reiji.

The last thing to note is that it is common in Japanese for people to refer to 12:00 as 0:00. I’ll give you two examples and you should be good to go from there. In Japanese, they appear before the time, whereas in English they come after. Where things get a little different is the placement of these words. So we can see that 午前 means “before noon” and 午後 means “after noon” which is more or less the same way we do things in English. The way to remember the difference is to understand each kanji’s individual meaning. The Japanese word 午前 (gozen) is used for AM and the Japanese word 午後 (gogo) is used for PM. The last thing is that you’ll probably want to know the Japanese words for “AM” and “PM” so that you know which half of the day it is. You probably caught it when reading that list, but just to emphasize the point ４時 is yo ji and ９時 is ku ji. The second thing is that the numbers 4 and 9 have special readings when referring to time. In fact, it’s probably more common to see time in Japanese represented using Arabic numerals rather than kanji. For example, you can write 一時 as１時 instead. The first thing is that you can replace each of the kanji numbers in the above list with their Arabic numeral counterparts. Now, there are a couple of things I want to point out about this list. Here’s a complete list of hours 1-12 in Japanese and their pronunciations: The Japanese equivalent is the word 時 (ji) which is a suffix that attaches to the number. However, in Japanese you can’t drop the “o’clock” part as it is an essential part of the phrase. Another way is you could just say “the party is at two.” In English when we talk about time, we tend to use the word “O’Clock” which is an abbreviation for “of the clock” in reference to what time something occurs at.įor example, “the party starts at two o’clock” is one way that you could say it. However, in order to understand the answers that you receive from these questions, you’ll need to know several key Japanese words which we will go over next. So things such as business meetings, birthday parties, weddings, and so on. They can really be used for any event that has a start and end time. These phrases aren’t just limited to parties. If you find out that you can make it to the party, tell your friend “ yes, you’ll see them there!” To figure this out though, you need to ask what time it ends at. However, If the party continues on for long enough, you’re pretty sure that you can stop by before it’s over. Let’s say that it starts at the same time as your prior engagement, so going at the beginning is out of the question. That’s a pretty good phrase that you can use, but if you wanted to be more specific and ask about the starting time, then this next one might be more helpful.

#Go zen meaning how to

Here’s how to ask “at what time” in Japanese:

In this situation, you’ll need to know how to ask the other person what time the party starts at so that you can figure out if you can make it or not.

Well perhaps you can actually make them both depending on what time the party begins and ends at. What do you do if someone invites you to a party on Friday, but you’re not sure if you can make it because you’ve got something else going on that same day? This phrase will serve you well so be sure to try it out a couple of times to help remember it. Then we continue with 何時 (nanji) which means “what time.” Finally, we finish the question off with the “is it” part of the phrase with ですか (desu ka). Let’s break this phrase down word by word so that you can understand every part of it.įirst we start off with 今 (ima) which means “now at the present time” in Japanese. You flag down the nearest Japanese person, apologize for interrupting their day, and then ask them the following question:

You need to know what time it is so that you can figure out what you need to do next on your busy schedule. So there you are in Japan without a watch and your phone has died. 5) It’s Time To End Today’s Lesson How To Say “What Time Is It” In Japanese