Time in Japanese

Time in Japanese is 時間, said jikan, for an amount of time, and 時, said toki, for a moment or the word “when.” 時 has ten strokes under the sun radical 日, and 間 has twelve under 門, the gate. On a clock, 時 is read ji: 三時 is three o’clock. In hiragana jikan is じかん, and toki is とき.

Time in Japanese

Three messages from one friend, on one evening, show you most of what you need.

今、時間ある？ (Ima jikan aru?) Got time right now? That is 時間 (jikan), time as something you have or lack, a stretch of it.

じゃあ、何時？ (Jaa, nanji?) Then what time? That is 時 read ji, the hour on the clock.

And later, over coffee: 子どもの時、ここに住んでた。(Kodomo no toki, koko ni sunde ta.) When I was a kid, I lived here. That is 時 read toki, a moment or a period in a life, and the plain word for “when.”

English uses “time” for all three. Japanese splits them, and the character 時 sits inside every one.

Jikan and Toki Meaning

Jikan (時間) means time measured as a length. In hiragana it is じかん, in katakana ジカン, and it is said “jee-kahn,” with the n held as its own short beat. It covers the time a trip takes, 時間がかかる (jikan ga kakaru), it takes time, and the time you can spare. It is also the unit: 一時間 (ichijikan) is one hour. And it names a set block, so 数学の時間 (suugaku no jikan) is maths class.

The word is younger in this sense than it looks. When Japan began translating Western books in the Meiji era, an English-Japanese dictionary of 1873 still gave 時間 as a translation of “space.” The philosophy glossary Tetsugaku Jii of 1881 settled the pair, 時間 for time and 空間 (kuukan) for space, and the split stuck.

Toki (時) is older and wider. It is time flowing past, as in 時が経つ (toki ga tatsu), time passes. It is a moment, a season, a chance: 時が来た (toki ga kita), the time has come. And after a verb or a noun it simply means when, as in 地震の時 (jishin no toki), in an earthquake. In that last use many writers spell it in hiragana, とき.

Ji is the third reading, and it belongs to the clock. 一時 (ichiji) is one o’clock, 何時 (nanji) is what time. Two more words sit nearby. 時刻 (jikoku) is a precise point in time, the word on a railway timetable, and タイム (taimu), the English loan, is a time in sport: a lap time, a time-out.

The Kanji for Time: 時間

• Character: 時
• On’yomi: ジ (ji)
• Kun’yomi: とき (toki)
• Stroke count: 10
• General meaning: time, hour, o’clock, occasion, season
• Radical: 日 (sun), Kangxi radical 72

And the second half of the word:

• Character: 間
• On’yomi: カン (kan), ケン (ken)
• Kun’yomi: あいだ (aida), ま (ma)
• Stroke count: 12
• General meaning: interval, space, between, a room
• Radical: 門 (gate), Kangxi radical 169

Both are taught in the second year of Japanese primary school. The Jōyō table also lists two special readings for 時: 時計 (tokei), a clock, and 時雨 (shigure), the cold passing showers of late autumn and early winter.

Japanese Symbol for Time

時 is a sun beside a temple, though the temple is not doing what it seems.

The left side is 日, the sun, and that is the meaning: time is what the sun measures. The right side is 寺 (tera), which on its own means a Buddhist temple. Here it is the sound element, the part that gives the character its reading ji. The classic Chinese character dictionary, the Shuowen Jiezi, defines 時 as “the four seasons,” so the character began as the turning of the year before it ever meant an hour.

間 is a gate with the sun showing through it. The older form put 月, the moon, inside the gate, and the picture is usually read as light slipping through a gap. That gap is the meaning: an interval, the space between things. On its own, read ma, it is the Japanese idea of the meaningful pause explained on ma.

So 時間 is, quite literally, the space between moments. That is a fair definition of a length of time.

How to Write 時間 in Japanese

Twenty-two strokes across the two characters, each written left to right.

時 takes ten. Write 日 first in four: the left vertical, the stroke that crosses the top and turns down the right side, the middle horizontal, the bottom horizontal. Then 寺 in six. Its top part, 土, takes a horizontal, a vertical and a second horizontal. Then 寸: the long horizontal, the vertical with a hook to the left at its foot, and the small dot last.

間 takes twelve. The gate 門 comes first, left half then right half, four strokes each. On the left: the vertical, the short stroke across the top that turns down, then two small horizontals inside. On the right: a short vertical, the long stroke that crosses the top and drops down the right side with a hook, then two small horizontals. Then 日 inside the gate, four strokes, last of all.

Keep 日 in 時 narrow. If it spreads, 寺 has no room, and the dot of 寸 ends up jammed against the hook.

How to Say Time in Japanese

Jikan is “jee-kahn,” three beats in Japanese, ji-ka-n, with no stress. Toki is two short beats, “toh-kee.” Ji is one beat, “jee.”

The clock hours have three irregular ones worth learning early. Four o’clock is 四時 (yoji), not yonji. Seven is 七時 (shichiji), and nine is 九時 (kuji), not kyuuji.

Real sentences:

• 今、何時ですか。(Ima nanji desu ka.) What time is it now?
• 時間がありません。(Jikan ga arimasen.) I don’t have time.
• 駅まで一時間かかります。(Eki made ichijikan kakarimasu.) It takes an hour to the station.
• 時間どおりに始めましょう。(Jikan doori ni hajimemashou.) Let’s start on time.
• 子どもの時、京都に住んでいました。(Kodomo no toki, Kyouto ni sunde imashita.) When I was a child, I lived in Kyoto.

Watch the third sentence. 一時 (ichiji) is one o’clock, and 一時間 (ichijikan) is one hour. One extra character turns a point on the clock into a length of time.

Words and Compounds With 時

時代 is the word in 江戸時代 (Edo jidai), the Edo period, and in 時代劇 (jidaigeki), period drama full of swords and topknots. Japan names whole eras the way it names hours, and our Japanese era converter turns any year into its era name.

時々 shows the repetition mark 々, which doubles the character before it. Two times make “sometimes.” And 時計 is a word whose reading you simply have to learn: neither ji nor toki, but tokei.

Time in Japanese Culture

Japan has a Time Day. 時の記念日 (Toki no Kinenbi) falls on June 10, and it was set in 1920 by a society promoting a more modern, punctual daily life. The date comes from the Nihon Shoki, the chronicle of 720, which records that in 671, under Emperor Tenji, a water clock was placed on a new tower and began to strike the hours with bells and drums. That day in the old calendar falls on June 10 in ours. Ōmi Jingū, the shrine to Emperor Tenji at Ōtsu, holds a water-clock festival every year on that date.

The old hours were not our hours. The court day was divided into twelve, each named after an animal of the zodiac, and the hours were announced by drum: nine beats at midnight, the hour of the rat, then eight, seven, six, five and four. Noon, the hour of the horse, started again at nine. In the Edo period, ordinary life ran on unequal hours instead, six from dawn, called 明け六つ (ake mutsu), to dusk, called 暮れ六つ (kure mutsu), and six through the night. A summer hour of daylight was longer than a winter one.

You can still hear that system every day. Noon is 正午 (shougo), the exact middle of the hour of the horse 午, and a.m. and p.m. are 午前 (gozen) and 午後 (gogo), before and after the horse. The Japanese zodiac that names the years once named the hours too, and the snake of snake in Japanese had the late morning.

Japan switched to twenty-four equal hours in 1873, together with the solar calendar. Standard time followed from 1888, set on the 135th meridian east, the line that runs through Akashi.

As a Tattoo

時 alone reads as time or hour, clearly enough, but a Japanese reader may hear it as “o’clock” first, a number waiting to be added. 時間 on skin reads like a word from a schedule: hours, the time it takes. Neither is wrong. Both are flat.

If the idea you want is that time is precious, Japanese has a better phrase. 一期一会 (ichigo ichie), one time, one meeting, is the tea-room idea that every encounter happens only once, explained on ichigo ichie. For living in the moment, 今 (ima), now, is a single clean character.

Watch the look-alikes. 寺 sits inside a whole family of characters, and only the left side tells them apart. 侍 (samurai) has a person on the left, 持 (motsu, to hold) has a hand, 待 (matsu, to wait) has the step radical, 詩 (shi, poem) has words, and 時 has the sun. Make sure the artist copies 日.

On script: 時 and 間 are written as in traditional Chinese. Simplified Chinese writes 时间, with smaller components. If you want the Japanese form, copy 時間, not 时间.

Ten strokes in 時 hold up well at modest sizes. 間 is boxier and fills in sooner, so give it room.

Confirm with a native speaker before you ink. You can preview the characters in vertical and horizontal layouts with the Japanese Tattoo Generator, and read the wider background in our guide to japanese tattoo meanings.

Related Kanji

• Sun in Japanese
• Night in Japanese
• Moon in Japanese
• Snake in Japanese

For more characters about days, seasons and the sky, browse the kanji library.

Sources and Further Reading

• 常用漢字表 (Jōyō Kanji Table, 2010), Agency for Cultural Affairs the readings ジ and とき for 時 with the special readings 時計 and 時雨, and カン, ケン, あいだ and ま for 間
• 時 in KANJIDIC2, WWWJDIC, Electronic Dictionary Research and Development Group ten strokes, radical 72 and second-grade status
• 時, Digital Daijisen, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica and Jitsū (Kotobank) the meanings of toki, the drum-counted zodiac hours, Edo unequal hours, the 1873 switch, standard time from 1888, and 寺 as the sound element
• 時間, Digital Daijisen and Nihon Kokugo Daijiten (Kotobank) the meanings of jikan, and its Meiji history as a translation of "time," including the 1873 dictionary and the 1881 Tetsugaku Jii
• 時の記念日, Nihon Kokugo Daijiten, Nipponica and Mypedia (Kotobank) Time Day on June 10, set in 1920, the water clock of 671 in the Nihon Shoki, and the festival at Ōmi Jingū

FAQ

How do you say time in Japanese?

The usual word is jikan, written 時間, for an amount of time or the time you have: 時間がない, I have no time. For a moment or the word “when,” Japanese uses toki, 時. For clock hours the same character is read ji, so three o’clock is 三時 (sanji).

What is the difference between jikan and toki?

時間 (jikan) is time as a length you can measure, spend or lack: two hours, no time, class time. 時 (toki) is a point or a period: the moment something happens, a stage of life, and the grammar word “when,” as in 子どもの時, when I was a child.

What is the kanji for time?

The core kanji is 時, ten strokes, with the sun radical 日 on the left and 寺 as the sound element on the right. It is read toki alone and ji in compounds. The everyday word 時間 adds 間, twelve strokes, meaning an interval. Both are second-grade characters.

How do you ask “what time is it” in Japanese?

Say 今、何時ですか (ima nanji desu ka), literally now, what hour is it? Among friends, 今何時？ is enough. Answer with the hour and 時: 三時です, it is three o’clock. Remember the irregular hours: 四時 is yoji, 七時 is shichiji and 九時 is kuji.

Why do gozen and gogo mean a.m. and p.m.?

Because of the old zodiac hours. Noon fell in the hour of the horse, 午 (uma), so 午前 (gozen) means before the horse and 午後 (gogo) means after it. Noon itself is 正午 (shougo), the exact hour of the horse. The animal names left the clock in 1873, but the words stayed.

Is 時 the same character in Chinese?

Traditional Chinese writes 時 exactly as Japanese does. Simplified Chinese uses 时, a smaller form, and writes the word for time as 时间. The meaning is shared, and the Mandarin reading is shí. For a Japanese text or tattoo, use 時 and 時間.