So, I am hoping most of you had a chance to read my last article that talked about how to tell time in Japanese. If you were new to the topic, I hope you had a chance to learn a little bit about it. Related to my last article, here is a bit more complicated expression about time. Below I have collected some useful and most often used ones.

 

~till

In English, we often say, “10 till 4” or “ 5 till 6”, etc. In Japanese, we have a similar way of saying this, and here are some examples for you.

 

10 till 7 (10 minutes before 7 o’clock)  Hichi ji jyu pun mae (７じ　１０ぷん　まえ)

** Note: 7 can be said either “Hichi” or “Shichi”.

5 till 8 (5 minutes before 8 o’clock) Hachi ji go fun mae (８じ　５ふん　まえ)

 

Notice that in Japanese, the numbers are flipped. “mae” above mentions “till” or “before”.

 

 

~after ~

10 after 4 (10 minutes after 4 o’clock) Yo ji jyu pun sugi (４じ　１０ぷん　すぎ)

Quarter after 7 (15 minutes after 7 o’clock)  Hichi ji jyugo fun fun sugi (７じ　１５ふん　すぎ)

 

Notice that the order of the numbers are again flipped in Japanese. “sugi” here means “after”.

 

Half ~ 30 minutes ~

For 8:30 or 9:30 etc, there are two major ways of saying this in Japanese..

• Using “Han (半、はん)”   11:30 will be “Jyuichi ji han” (１１じ　はん)
• Using “30 pun(Sanjyu pun)”  The same 11:30 can be also expressed as “Jyuichi ji San jyu pun” (１１じ　３０ぷん)

Both of these are commonly used, so it will be good to know both ways.

 

AM & PM

AM is “Gozen（午前、ごぜん）” in Japanese

PM us “Gogo（午後、ごご）” in Japanese

In formal letters or conversations, it is often used such as,

“Meeting will start at 10 am tomorrow”

This will be,

“Kaigi wa asu gozen 10 ji ni hajimarimasu.” (会議は　明日、午前　１０時に　始まります。かいぎは　あす　ごぜん　１０じに　はじまります。)

 

If you get a good understanding of these expressions mentioned in this article as well as my previous one, you are all set for telling time in Japanese. 🙂