Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 2

27 www.operationworld.org Grammar Notes 6-2-1 Counting Hours You saw the classifier ~ ji for telling time in Lesson 2, as in ichi-ji ‘one o’clock’ and ichi-ji han ‘1:30’. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to COUNT time, i.e., how to describe length of time. The first classifier of this type is –jikan for counting hours,. It attaches to the Chinese numerals. Ichi-jikan means one hour and ichi-jikan han means one and a half hours. The question word for ‘how many hours’ is nan-jikan, while the question word for ‘what time’ is nan-ji . Also note that jikan alone means time in general. 時間 じ か ん がありません。 Jikan ga arimasen. There is no time. 時間 じ か ん がかかります。 Jikan ga kakarimasu . It takes time. ちょっと、お時間 じ か ん 、いいですか。 Chotto, ojikan ii desu ka. Do you have some time (Can I talk to you?)? 6-2-2 Approximation: ~ ぐらい、〜ほど、約 やく 〜 ~ gurai, ~hodo and yaku all mean ‘about’ and indicate an approximate quantity. ~ gurai and ~ hodo follow the quantity expression while yaku~ precedes it: : 一時間 いちじかん ぐらいあります。 Ichi-jikan gurai arimasu. We have about an hour. 一時間 いちじかん ほどあります。 Ichi-jikan hodo arimasu. We have about an hour. 約一時間 やくいちじかん あります。 Yaku ichi-jikan arimasu. We have about an hour.