Lesson 14 · なんじですか — the working day and the clock
The working day, and the clock
Lesson 6 taught you to ask なんじ when the course had no way to answer. Today it gets the answer — and the first six verbs, which arrive already finished.
Two thirds of this page is a day you can already describe. The other third is one counter — the minutes — which does something the hours pointedly do not.
About the verbs on this page
Six verbs arrive today, each with a Roman numeral beside it. The numerals are not taught here and neither is what they are for. Learn each word with its ます already attached, as one fixed shape — the way chapter 11 handled きました and chapter 13 handled みせて.
A group number's only use is building a verb's other forms, and this course does not build them yet. That is a deliberate boundary, not an oversight, and one of the numerals on the sheet is wrong — see section 1.
1.Six verbs, one ending
Every verb on this sheet ends in ます, and that ending is doing one job: it makes the verb polite. It says nothing about who is doing it or how many of them there are — Japanese verbs do not carry person or number at all, which is one fewer thing than either language you already have.
| Japanese | Kanji | English | Arabic |
|---|---|---|---|
| おきます | 起きます | get up, wake up | يَسْتَيْقِظُ |
| ねます | 寝ます | sleep, go to bed | يَنَامُ |
| はたらきます | 働きます | work | يَعْمَلُ |
| やすみます | 休みます | take a rest, take a day off | يَسْتَرِيحُ |
| べんきょうします | 勉強します | study | يَدْرُسُ |
| おわります | 終わります | finish | يَنْتَهِي |
Trick 1 · You have been answering one of these since day one
Lesson 1 taught おわりましたか — have you finished? — as a classroom phrase, a noise the teacher makes. It is おわります, and now you can see the word inside it.
The same is true of やすみます: take the ます off and you have やすみ, a day off, which is a card on this very sheet. That is the commonest way this language builds a noun from a verb, and the chapter hands you both halves on one page.
One numeral on the sheet is wrong
おきます is marked I. It is II — 起きる is an ichidan verb, which is exactly what group II means, and the sheet's own next line marks ねます II for the identical reason.
Nothing on this page depends on it, because nothing here builds a second form. It is worth knowing only because a group number has one use, so the wrong one would spoil everything built from it later. Five of the six markers are right.
2.The clock, biggest unit first
Japanese states a time from the largest unit to the smallest and never breaks the order. English does not: it puts the minutes first when they are near the hour, counts them backwards, and leaves the half of the day until last.
English — smallest unit first, day-half last
quarter to eight · in the morning
two units, in the reverse order, plus a subtraction
日本語 — biggest unit first, no exceptions
ごぜん · しちじ · よんじゅうごふん
half of day, then hour, then minutes — always in that order
| Japanese | Reads as | English |
|---|---|---|
| いま なんじですか。 | now / what-hour / is it? | What time is it now? |
| ごぜん くじです。 | before-noon / nine-hour | It's nine in the morning. |
| ごご さんじはんです。 | after-noon / three-hour-half | It's half past three. |
Trick 2 · Three languages agree, for once
午前 is 午 noon + 前 before. 午後 is the same 午 + 後 after.
Arabic builds it identically — قَبْلَ الظُّهْرِ and بَعْدَ الظُّهْرِ, from the same ظُهْر this chapter teaches you for ひる. And English's own a.m. and p.m. are Latin for before and after midday.
Three languages, one construction — the first time in this course they have all agreed. Chapter 13 found the opposite with まん, where Arabic sided with English against Japanese. Both are worth noticing: the Arabic parallel is sometimes a gift and sometimes a trap, and which one it is has to be checked each time.
3.The hours are free; the minutes are not
〜じ is the most obliging counter in the course. Twelve hours, twelve regular readings, not a single sound change. 〜ふん spends the budget instead.
| Hour 〜じ | Minute 〜ふん | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | いちじ | いっぷん |
| 2 | にじ | にふん |
| 3 | さんじ | さんぷん |
| 4 | よじ | よんぷん |
| 5 | ごじ | ごふん |
| 6 | ろくじ | ろっぷん |
| 7 | しちじ | ななふん |
| 8 | はちじ | はっぷん |
| 9 | くじ | きゅうふん |
| 10 | じゅうじ | じゅっぷん |
Trick 3 · The same two rules as chapter 13, with the other mark
Chapter 13 reduced 〜階 and the hundreds to two rules. They are the same two rules here:
- 1, 6, 8 and 10 double the consonant — いっぷん, ろっぷん, はっぷん, じゅっぷん. Lesson 9's small っ doing its silent-beat job again.
- 3 and 4 change the mark without doubling — さんぷん, よんぷん.
- 2, 5, 7 and 9 leave it alone — にふん, ごふん, ななふん, きゅうふん.
What has changed is which mark. Chapter 13's numbers took a tenten and voiced what followed — さんびゃく, さんぜん, さんがい. Here the same positions take a maru instead: ふ becomes ぷ, not ぶ. Lesson 5 taught those two marks as spelling; this is the second chapter running in which they turn out to be sound rules.
Your sheet writes なんぶん. It is なんぷん.
A tenten where there should be a maru — and the sheet disagrees with itself two rows earlier, where it prints the counter as 〜ふん（〜ぷん）. Lesson 6 already gave you the card with the right mark.
This is not a near-miss. なにぶん — the same characters 何分 with the voiced reading — is a real and common word meaning anyway, at any rate. The mark is the whole difference between asking how many minutes and saying "in any case".
4.From nine until five
Two particles, and they travel together. から you already have — chapter 11 buried it inside 〜から きました, I came from. Here it stands on its own, and まで is new: the seventh particle in the course.
くじから ごじまで はたらきます。
| Japanese | English |
|---|---|
| くじから ごじまで はたらきます。 | I work from nine until five. |
| ひるやすみは なんじから なんじまでですか。 | When is the lunch break, from and to? |
| あさと ばん べんきょうします。 | I study morning and evening. |
Trick 4 · Both particles come after what they mark
English and Arabic put from and مِنْ in front of the thing; Japanese puts them behind it. That is true of every particle you have met — は, の, で, を — so it is not a fact about から so much as a fact about the language.
と is narrower than it looks. It joins nouns only — never two sentences, which is half of what English and and Arabic وَ do.
5.The walk
Five scenes, forty-six words, each one in exactly one of them. The route is just a day in order — which is the first time in this course the chapter has supplied its own shape rather than needing one invented.
The walk needs JavaScript. Every word in it is on the cards below.
6.Forty-six words
Eleven of these already have a card elsewhere in the course. That is the point rather than an accident: なんじ and なんぷん have been sitting in lesson 6 since the week the course had no numbers, and this is the chapter that finally answers them.
The word cards need JavaScript. Every word on them appears in the walk above.
Drill them for meaning
The drill needs JavaScript. Every word it asks about is in the list above.
7.Making the call
The back half of the sheet is not a category — it is a single scene. You ring directory assistance, which in Japan is 104, and ask for a number. Seven set phrases carry the whole exchange.
-
1.The number you're asking about, please.
Japaneseおといあわせの ばんごうを おねがいします。
otoiawase no bangō o onegai shimasu
Arabicاَلرَّقَمُ الْمَطْلُوبُ، مِنْ فَضْلِكَ.
ar-raqamu l-maṭlūbu, min faḍlika
-
2.Certainly. — The operator, never you.
Japaneseかしこまりました。
kashikomarimashita
Arabicحَاضِر، بِكُلِّ سُرُورٍ.
ḥāḍir, bi-kulli surūrin
-
3.Er — let me see.
Japaneseえーと、
ēto
Arabicأُمْم، دَعْنِي أُفَكِّرُ.
umm, daʿnī ufakkiru
-
4.That's tough, isn't it. — Said to someone, not about a thing.
Japaneseたいへんですね。
taihen desu ne
Arabicهٰذَا مُتْعِبٌ، أَلَيْسَ كَذٰلِكَ؟
hādhā mutʿibun, alaysa kadhālika?
-
5.Thank you very much. — Past tense, for a thing now finished.
Japaneseどうも ありがとう ございました。
dōmo arigatō gozaimashita
Arabicشُكْرًا جَزِيلًا.
shukran jazīlan
Trick 5 · ございました is chapter 13's word, one tense along
You met でございます last chapter as the register shop staff use toward customers. ございました is the same word in the past, and it is why ありがとう ございました is not interchangeable with ありがとう ございます.
The past one closes a completed thing — the call is over, the meal is eaten, the help has been given. The present one thanks for something still going on. Getting this backwards is the commonest small error learners make with the phrase, and it is audible.
そちら is doing a second job here
Chapter 13 taught it as that way — the polite そこ — and its card said then that it also means you in letters and on the phone. This chapter's sheet glosses it your place, and both are true of one word.
The mechanism is the one chapter 13 already explained: pointing at a direction instead of at a person is the politeness. On a telephone the direction simply happens to be wherever the other person is sitting.
8.Sources
- Minna no Nihongo I, 3A Corporation — 第4課, which this sheet reproduces. Read the book's own 会話 for this lesson if you read one thing: the telephone call in section 7 is an extract, and the full dialogue is where the phrases make sense together. Reading 1 on this site covers lessons 1 to 3 in the same way.
- Jisho.org, over JMdict/EDICT (CC BY-SA 4.0) — every reading, gloss and commonness tag here, checked 2026-08-13. It is what settled that 起きる is an ichidan verb and therefore group II, that 何分 has two common readings, and that 何曜日 and 何番 have no dictionary entry of their own.
- Japanese counter words for the 〜分 table in section 3 — and the same page carried chapter 13's 〜階, which is how the two chapters' sound rules turned out to be one rule.
- Lesson 10 for the seven weekday words this sheet deliberately leaves out, and lesson 6 for なんじ, なんぷん and なんようび, which have been waiting for this chapter.
- One day, every word — the course-wide walk, which is the same day this chapter names the hours of.