Time in Japanese: How to Tell and Ask the Time

How telling time in Japanese works

Time in Japanese is built from two words bolted onto numbers you already need for everything else. The hour is a number plus 時 (ji), and the minutes are a number plus 分 (fun, which sometimes becomes pun). Put the hour first and the minutes second, add です (desu) at the end to be polite, and you have a complete, natural sentence. That's the entire skeleton. Everything else in this guide is detail hung on that frame.

Here is the shape of it in one line. To say it is 3:15, you say 3時15分です (sanji juugofun desu). Literally that is "three-hour fifteen-minute is." The order matches a digital clock read left to right, hour then minutes, which makes it easy to remember. There is no "quarter past" or "twenty to" the way English rearranges things. You just say the hour number, then the minute number, in plain order.

The only real work is in a handful of irregular readings. A few hours change their number sound, and the minute word 分 flips between fun and pun depending on the number in front of it. Those irregularities are the whole difficulty, and once you have drilled them they stop being a problem. English speakers often expect telling time to be a grammar puzzle, but in Japanese it is mostly a pronunciation puzzle: know which readings are irregular, say them enough times that they feel automatic, and you are done.

Because time is so frequent, it is also a perfect early speaking drill. You already glance at a clock dozens of times a day, so you can quietly say the current time to yourself in Japanese every time you do. That free, constant practice is exactly the kind of thing that moves a phrase from something you can read to something you can say without thinking. We will come back to that habit at the end, but keep it in mind as you go through the pieces below.

The numbers you need first

You cannot tell time without the numbers one through twelve for hours and up to fifty-nine for minutes, so start there. Japanese has two counting systems, but for the clock you use the Sino-Japanese (on) readings, the ones borrowed from Chinese. These are the same readings you use for phone numbers, prices, and dates, so time is a great excuse to lock them in. If you want a deeper run at counting, our full guide to Japanese numbers covers both systems and the counters, but the short list below is all you need for the clock.

Building the teens and higher numbers is beautifully regular. Eleven is 十一 (juuichi), literally "ten one." Twenty is 二十 (nijuu), "two ten." Twenty-five is 二十五 (nijuugo), "two ten five." This stacking logic means that once you know one through ten, you can build every minute value up to fifty-nine without learning anything new. Thirty is 三十 (sanjuu), forty is 四十 (yonjuu), fifty is 五十 (gojuu), and you fill in the units after them. Minutes never go past fifty-nine, so that is the whole range you ever need.

Notice that four, seven, and nine each have two readings. Four is yon or shi, seven is nana or shichi, nine is kyuu or ku. Which one you use depends on what follows, and the clock has firm preferences that we will spell out in the hours section. For now, just register that these three numbers are the shape-shifters, because they are the source of almost every irregular reading in telling time.

Hours: adding 時 (ji)

To say an hour, you take the number and add 時 (ji), which means "o'clock" or "hour." One o'clock is 1時 (ichiji), two o'clock is 2時 (niji), five o'clock is 5時 (goji). Most of the hours are perfectly regular like this, so you already know them from the number list above. The trap is three specific hours that use an irregular reading, and those three are the single most important thing to memorize in this whole topic.

Here are all twelve hours, with the irregular ones flagged.

Focus your energy on three readings: 4時 (yoji), 7時 (shichiji), and 9時 (kuji). Four o'clock is yoji, not yonji and not shiji. Nine o'clock is kuji, not kyuuji. Seven o'clock is shichiji, using the shichi reading rather than nana, though you will hear nanaji occasionally. Everything else is simply the number plus ji. If you drill only those three until they are automatic, you have cleared the hardest hurdle in telling Japanese time.

A quick way to cement them is to say them in sequence, out loud, several times a day: ichiji, niji, sanji, yoji, goji, rokuji, shichiji, hachiji, kuji, juuji, juuichiji, juuniji. Run the full twelve like a scale on an instrument. The irregular ones stop feeling irregular once they live inside the rhythm of the whole count.

Minutes: 分 (fun) and its sound changes

Minutes are a number plus 分, and here is the wrinkle: 分 is read either fun or pun depending on the number in front of it. This is the same kind of sound change you see all over Japanese counting, where a consonant hardens or doubles to make the word flow. It looks fiddly written out, but there is a pattern, and after a little practice your ear starts to expect the right sound automatically.

Here are the single-digit minutes, which contain every sound change you need to know. The tens follow the same rules.

The rule underneath the table: after 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, and 10 you get the pun sound, and after 2, 5, 7, and 9 you get the plain fun sound. On top of that, one, six, eight, and ten also double or clip the consonant, giving ippun, roppun, happun, and juppun. Notice that four uses yon here (yonpun) and seven uses nana (nanafun), the opposite of the hour readings where four was yo and seven was shichi. That flip between the hour and the minute is worth noticing so it does not surprise you.

For the tens, you just build the number and apply the same ending. Twenty minutes is 20分 (nijuppun), thirty is 30分 (sanjuppun), forty is 40分 (yonjuppun), fifty is 50分 (gojuppun). Because every ten ends in juppun, that sound recurs constantly, so it pays to nail it early. The most common everyday minute values are the fives: 5分 (gofun), 10分 (juppun), 15分 (juugofun), 20分 (nijuppun), 25分 (nijuugofun), 30分 (sanjuppun), and so on. Drill those seven and you can express most real times you will ever need.

Fifteen minutes, worth calling out, is 15分 (juugofun), built as ten (juu) plus five (go) plus fun. Twenty-five is 25分 (nijuugofun), and forty-five is 45分 (yonjuugofun). English speakers reach for "quarter past" and "quarter to," but Japanese has no quarter, it just states the number. So 3:15 is 3時15分 (sanji juugofun) and 3:45 is 3時45分 (sanji yonjuugofun). Say the minutes exactly as the digits read.

Half past and o'clock with 半 (han)

There is a lovely shortcut for the half hour. Instead of saying 30分 (sanjuppun), you can say 半 (han), which means "half." So half past six is 6時半 (rokuji han), half past nine is 9時半 (kuji han), and half past twelve is 12時半 (juuniji han). It is shorter, it is more natural in everyday speech, and native speakers use it constantly. Both 6時30分 (rokuji sanjuppun) and 6時半 (rokuji han) are correct and mean exactly the same thing, but han is what you will hear most.

One thing to remember: 半 only works for the half hour, thirty minutes. There is no equivalent word for a quarter, so you cannot shortcut 15 or 45. For those you still say the full minute number, juugofun and yonjuugofun. Han is a special case just for the thirty-minute mark, but since half past is such a common time, it earns its place as one of the first things to learn.

For a whole hour with nothing after it, you simply say the hour plus です. Three o'clock exactly is 3時です (sanji desu). You do not need a word for "o'clock" beyond 時 itself. If you want to stress that it is exactly on the hour with no minutes, you can add ちょうど (choudo), meaning "exactly," which we cover next. But on its own, 時 plus です is a complete and natural way to give a round hour.

Exactly, just past, and around

Real conversations about time are rarely precise to the minute, so a few softening and sharpening words make you sound far more natural. The three most useful are ちょうど (choudo) for "exactly," ごろ (goro) for "around," and 過ぎ (sugi) for "just past."

ちょうど (choudo) means "exactly" or "just," and it goes in front of the time. ちょうど3時です (choudo sanji desu) is "it is exactly three o'clock." Use it when you want to stress that a time is precise, for example confirming that a meeting starts right on the hour.

ごろ (goro) means "around" or "about," and it attaches to the end of a time, only for approximate points in time. 3時ごろ (sanji goro) is "around three o'clock." You use it for plans that are not exact: 3時ごろ会いましょう (sanji goro aimashou), "let's meet around three." Note that goro is for a point in time. For an approximate amount of time, Japanese uses a different word, くらい (kurai), but for telling the clock time, goro is what you want.

過ぎ (sugi) means "past" or "just after." 3時過ぎ (sanji sugi) is "just past three." You can also combine it: 3時5分過ぎ (sanji gofun sugi) is "five past three," though in practice people usually just say the exact minutes. Sugi is handy when you want to say something happened a little after an hour without pinning down the exact minute.

There is also 前 (mae), meaning "before" or "to," used the way English says "ten to nine." 9時10分前 (kuji juppun mae) is "ten to nine." In everyday Japanese, though, people far more often just state the real time, 8時50分 (hachiji gojuppun), so treat mae as something to recognize when you hear it rather than your first choice for producing.

Morning and afternoon: 午前 and 午後

Japanese commonly uses a twelve-hour clock in speech, so to make a time unambiguous you mark it as morning or afternoon. AM is 午前 (gozen) and PM is 午後 (gogo), and, importantly, they go in front of the time, not after it like English. So 7 AM is 午前7時 (gozen shichiji) and 3 PM is 午後3時 (gogo sanji). Nine thirty in the evening is 午後9時半 (gogo kuji han).

You do not always need them. When the time of day is obvious from context, people drop gozen and gogo and just say the hour. If a friend asks when you woke up and you say 7時 (shichiji), everyone understands it was morning. But when it genuinely could be either, especially when arranging a meeting or a call, adding gozen or gogo removes any doubt. It is a small habit that prevents the very real mistake of showing up twelve hours off.

Noon and midnight have their own words worth knowing. Noon is 正午 (shougo), and midnight is 真夜中 (mayonaka). You can also say 12時 (juuniji) for either and let context sort it out, but shougo and mayonaka are precise and common. If someone says お昼 (ohiru), that is the middle of the day, lunchtime, which overlaps with noon in everyday use.

Alongside the twelve-hour clock, the 24-hour clock is standard in writing for train schedules, TV listings, and official notices. On a timetable you will see 19時 (juukuji) for 7 PM, or 22時30分 (nijuuniji sanjuppun) for 10:30 PM. The hour word 時 stays the same, you just count the hours past twelve. It is worth being able to read both, because you will meet the 24-hour form the moment you look at a station board, even though you will mostly speak in the 12-hour form.

Asking someone the time

The core question is short and you should memorize it whole: 今何時ですか (ima nanji desu ka), "what time is it now?" Breaking it down, 今 (ima) is "now," 何時 (nanji) is "what hour," です (desu) is the polite "is," and か (ka) turns the sentence into a question. The heart of it is 何時 (nanji), literally "what hour," which is how you ask for the time in essentially every situation.

To be polite when you stop a stranger, lead with すみません (sumimasen), which means "excuse me." The full, natural version is すみません、今何時ですか (sumimasen, ima nanji desu ka), "excuse me, what time is it now?" That single sentence will get you the time from anyone, and it doubles as a friendly way to open almost any request, since sumimasen is the all-purpose "excuse me" of Japanese.

To ask at what time something happens, you use 何時に (nanji ni), with the particle に (ni) marking the point in time. 何時に始まりますか (nanji ni hajimarimasu ka) is "what time does it start?" 何時に会いましょうか (nanji ni aimashou ka) is "what time shall we meet?" The に is the key: it is the "at" of "at what time," and you will need it constantly once you move from just reading the clock to scheduling things.

A few more question forms you will use:

• 何時から (nanji kara) means "from what time." 何時から開いていますか (nanji kara aite imasu ka), "from what time are you open?"
• 何時まで (nanji made) means "until what time." 何時までですか (nanji made desu ka), "until what time is it?"
• 何分 (nanpun) means "how many minutes" or "what minute," useful when you have the hour but want the exact minutes.

Telling the time: worked examples

Now put the pieces together. Here is a run of complete, natural sentences that answer 今何時ですか. Read each one out loud, matching the Japanese to the romaji, and notice how the hour always comes first, then the minutes, then です.

Look closely at the irregular readings doing their work in real sentences. In 4時です (yoji desu) the four is yo, not yon. In 9時50分です (kuji gojuppun desu) the nine in the hour is ku, but if it appeared in the minutes it would be kyuu. In 8時45分です (hachiji yonjuugofun desu) the minutes end in gofun with the plain fun sound because it follows five. Every one of these is just the rules from the sections above, now assembled.

Here are the same ideas inside fuller sentences, the kind you would actually say in conversation:

• 今3時半です。 (ima sanji han desu) "It is half past three now."
• ちょうど12時です。 (choudo juuniji desu) "It is exactly twelve o'clock."
• もう10時ですよ。 (mou juuji desu yo) "It is already ten o'clock." The よ (yo) adds a gentle "you know."
• まだ6時です。 (mada rokuji desu) "It is only six o'clock." まだ (mada) means "still" or "only."
• 午後2時15分です。 (gogo niji juugofun desu) "It is 2:15 PM."

If you want more everyday sentence patterns beyond the clock, our roundup of common Japanese words and phrases pairs well with this, since time expressions slot straight into requests, plans, and small talk.

Saying at what time something happens

Telling the current time is useful, but most of the time you talk about time in Japanese, you are scheduling: I get up at seven, the store opens at nine, the movie starts at eight. For that you need the particle に (ni), which marks the time at which something happens. It goes right after the time, before the verb.

The pattern is [time] に [verb]. A few examples:

• 7時に起きます。 (shichiji ni okimasu) "I get up at seven o'clock."
• 8時に朝ごはんを食べます。 (hachiji ni asagohan wo tabemasu) "I eat breakfast at eight."
• 9時に始まります。 (kuji ni hajimarimasu) "It starts at nine."
• 11時半に寝ます。 (juuichiji han ni nemasu) "I go to bed at half past eleven."

One clarification on that に: you use it with specific clock times, days, and dates, but not with relative words like "today," "tomorrow," or "now." So you say 7時に (shichiji ni) with ni, but 今 (ima), "now," takes no ni. A common beginner slip is to bolt ni onto everything time-related, so remember that ni marks a fixed point on the calendar or clock, not a vague "when."

To give a range, use から (kara) for "from" and まで (made) for "until." The classic working hours line is 9時から5時まで働きます (kuji kara goji made hatarakimasu), "I work from nine to five." A shop sign might read 10時から20時まで (juuji kara nijuuji made), "from 10:00 to 20:00," mixing the range words with the 24-hour clock. Kara and made are enormously useful far beyond time, but the clock is where most learners meet them first.

Parts of the day and useful phrases

Time words work better when you can situate them in the day, so here are the common parts of the day and a set of ready phrases. These are the words that let you say "in the morning" or "tonight" alongside a specific hour.

And a handful of phrases that come up all the time when you talk about the hour of the day:

• 朝7時に起きます。 (asa shichiji ni okimasu) "I get up at seven in the morning."
• 夜11時に寝ます。 (yoru juuichiji ni nemasu) "I go to bed at eleven at night."
• 今何時か分かりますか。 (ima nanji ka wakarimasu ka) "Do you know what time it is now?" A softer, very polite way to ask.
• 時間がありません。 (jikan ga arimasen) "I don't have time." 時間 (jikan) is the general word for time.
• 遅れてすみません。 (okurete sumimasen) "Sorry I'm late." Useful the moment your time-telling fails you.
• 間に合いますか。 (ma ni aimasu ka) "Will we make it in time?"

Notice 時間 (jikan) versus 時 (ji). 時 is the hour marker you attach to a number, while 時間 is the general noun "time" or "hours" as a duration. They share the same first kanji, but they do different jobs, and mixing them up is a common early confusion. When you mean a point on the clock, you want 時; when you mean time in general or a length of time, you want 時間.

Full time reference table

Here is a single table you can come back to, pulling the hours and the key minute values together. Between these two ranges you can build almost any time you need by combining an hour with a minute value.

To read any time, pick the hour from the left, pick the minutes from the right, and say them in that order with です on the end. For example, 8:40 is 8時40分です (hachiji yonjuppun desu). For 6:30 you can shortcut to 6時半です (rokuji han desu). For a round hour like 11:00, just say 11時です (juuichiji desu) and skip the minutes entirely.

Common mistakes to avoid

A few predictable errors trip up nearly every learner. Knowing them in advance saves you months of quietly saying the wrong thing.

1. Saying yonji or kyuuji. Four o'clock is yoji and nine o'clock is kuji, full stop. Your brain will want to reach for the regular yon and kyuu, so these two need extra drilling until the irregular forms feel natural.
2. Using fun where you need pun. The sound change is not decoration, it is how natives say it. Ippun, sanpun, roppun, happun, and juppun all take the pun sound with a doubled or clipped consonant. Say them wrong and you will still be understood, but they are easy to get right with practice.
3. Putting gozen and gogo after the time. They go in front: 午前7時 (gozen shichiji), not the other way around. English trains you to say "7 AM," but Japanese flips the order.
4. Forgetting the particle に. To say "at seven," you need 7時に (shichiji ni). Dropping the ni is a classic beginner slip that makes scheduling sentences sound off.
5. Adding に to "now." The flip side of the last point: 今 (ima) takes no ni. Ni marks fixed clock times and dates, not relative words like now, today, or tomorrow.
6. Confusing 時 and 時間. 時 (ji) is the hour marker; 時間 (jikan) is the general noun for time or a duration. They look related but do different jobs.

Every one of these is a small thing, and every one of them smooths out fast once you are saying times out loud regularly instead of only reading them. That last part, saying them out loud, is what separates learners who can tell the time on paper from learners who can actually answer when a stranger asks. If you want the bigger picture of building a Japanese study routine around habits like this, our guide on how to learn Japanese lays out where daily drills like time practice fit, and our honest look at how long it takes to learn Japanese sets realistic expectations for the road.

How SPAIKING helps you say the time

Everything above is readable in an afternoon, but reading a time is not the same as producing it when someone asks. The gap between recognizing 9時半です on a page and saying "kuji han desu" cleanly, at speed, in reply to a real question, is exactly the gap that keeps so many learners understanding a language they cannot yet speak. Closing it takes one thing: saying the times out loud, in conversation, over and over, until the irregular readings come without a pause.

That is what SPAIKING is built for. It gives you an AI speaking partner that talks back in Japanese, so you can practice the whole loop of this guide out loud on demand. Have it ask you 今何時ですか and answer with the real time. Tell it your daily schedule, 7時に起きます, 9時から5時まで働きます, and let it catch when you slip and say yonji instead of yoji, or drop the particle に. Because it corrects your pronunciation and mistakes in the moment, you find out which readings you actually have and which ones still trip you up, which is the truth your own ear tends to hide from you.

The parts that make it fit a habit like time practice:

• It is always available. You can run through the hours and minutes out loud any time, without needing a patient human to quiz you.
• It corrects you in real time. When you say happun as hachifun or forget your に, it flags it, so you stop reinforcing the wrong version.
• It puts time in real sentences. Instead of drilling isolated readings, you use them inside actual conversation about your day, which is how they stick.
• It is judgment-free. You can fumble yoji ten times and just keep going, which is what finally gets the irregular readings to feel automatic.

Pair the tables in this guide with a few minutes of talking out loud each day and telling time stops being a thing you look up and becomes a thing you just say. You can start on the pricing page and turn these readings into real spoken Japanese. And if you want to keep them in memory between sessions, the spacing method in our guide to spaced repetition is a natural fit for drilling the irregular hours and minute sounds.