“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” – William Penn
A lot of the focus of this practice will be on being able to tell time, though we’ll take a look at using time in context as well. Let’s start with minutes.
Exercise 1
Let’s start by getting out some pieces of paper to practice with. I want you to write on them 1-10, 20, 30, 40, 50, and 60. These are generally the numbers you’ll need the most. Go through them saying the correct “minute” in Japanese. Be careful of all the exceptions. Don’t hesitate to take a look at the previous page if you’re not sure. Best to learn it correctly now rather than developing bad habits!
Take a break about 10 minutes in to charge your memory then come back and see if you’ve improved. When you feel comfortable with all of these you can move on to exercise 2.
Exercise 2
Let’s practice with some sentences. Figure out why these all work and translate them if you can.
a １０時８分です。
It’s 10:08.
a 朝の７時１５分です。
It’s 7:15 in the morning.
a バスは８時半に来ます。
The bus comes at 8:30.
a 後３０分で行きます。
After 30 minutes I will go.
a ９時１０分の電車に乗ります。
I ride the 9:10 train.
a 映画は６時半に始まる。
The movie starts at 6:30.
a 私は７時１５分に起きた。
I woke up at 7:15.
Come up with some slight variations of the above sentences to help you to think outside the box.
Exercise 3
Working off Exercise 2 as well as the last couple chapters, it’s time for you to write a journal entry on Lang-8. This will be a simple one, though. Write about something you’re going to do today that occurs at a specific time. The “time” portion of this journal post will be short, so make sure you try to get a lot out of it. Make some mistakes in the time-section so you can learn something new.