Times and Dates
Welcome to Lesson IV: Times and Dates. In this lesson, you’ll be using the numbers you learnt in the last lesson, and a few more new numbers so you can tell the time and say the date in Japanese. First I’ll introduce the new numbers that you’ll need to know with the ones from the previous lesson.
More numbers
- zero - zero/rei
- eleven - jūichi
- twelve - jūni
- thirteen - jūsan
- fourteen - jūshi/jūyon
- fifteen - jūgo
- sixteen - jūroku
- seventeen - jūshichi/jūnana
- eighteen - jūhachi
- nineteen - jūkyu/jūku
- twenty - nijū
- twenty-one - nijūichi
- twenty-two - nijūni
- thirty -sanjū
- forty - yonjū
- fifty - gojū
- sixty - rokujū
Telling the time
Telling the time is quite easy in Japanese. First we need to learn a few more words.
- o’clock - -ji
- minutes past.. - -fun/-pun*
- half past - -ji han
- minutes to.. - mae desu
- a.m. - gozen
- p.m. - gogo
*-fun or -pun can be used, whichever sounds better for the number of minutes is used, for example 10 o’clock sounds better as jū-pun.
Using these new numbers and words, we can start to tell the time. Here are some examples of times.
- six o’clock - roku-ji desu
- five minutes past six - roku-ji go-fun desu
- quarter past six - roku-ji jū-go-fun desu
- half past six -roku-ji han desu
- quarter to six - roku-ji jū-go-fun mae desu
From these examples you can see that the hour-ji is always said first, followed by the amount of minutes-fun/-pun past or to the hour. For half past, you say the hour-ji han, and for saying the amount of minutes-fun/-pun to, you add mae before desu.
Dates
Saying what date it is in Japanese is also quite easy, and just follows some simple rules with the help of some new words.
Months
Months are easiest to learn first, as it’s just the number one to twelve (according to the month) with -gatsu added on to the end. So, January is simply ichi-gatsu.
- January - ichi-gatsu
- February - ni-gatsu
- March - san-gatsu
- April - shi-gatsu
- May - go-gatsu
- June - roku-gatsu
- July - shichi-gatsu
- August - hachi-gatsu
- September - ku-gatsu
- October - jū-gatsu
- November -jūichi-gatsu
- December - jūni-gatsu
Days
- Monday - getsuyōbi
- Tuesday - kayōbi
- Wednesday - suiyōbi
- Thursday - mokuyōbi
- Friday - kinyōbi
- Saturday - doyōbi
- Sunday - nichiyōbi
To say what the date is, first you say the month, then you use the number of the date and add -nichi. For example, 28th of October would be jū-gatsu nijūhachi-nichi desu. However, you can’t always use the number of the date as you’ve learnt them. You must use these irregular numbers when referring to dates.
- 1st - tsuitachi
- 2nd - futsuka
- 3rd - mikka
- 4th - yokka
- 5th - itsuka
- 6th - muika
- 7th - nanoka
- 8th - yōka
- 9th - kokonoka
- 10th - tōka
- 14th - jūyokka
- 20th - hatsuka
- 24th - nijūyokka