| Jump ▲ |
 |
Grammar Notes 6A (11-18) |  |
Click on "Jump" on the left to HIDE the grammar menu. |
||
ごろ and ぐらい are suffixes to indicate approximation of time (about or approximately). ごろ is limited to approximating clock time (NOT duration of time). In contrast, ぐらい is used for approximating length of time.
FYI: In casual conversation, ぐらい may be used as general approximation for everything including clock time expressions (３じぐらい rather than the officially correct ３じごろ). However, this will be marked incorrect in formal tests like JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test). |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Click on the words (あさ, ひる, ゆうがた, よる, ごぜん, ごご) in the picture and listen to the pronunciation.
あさ or morning is from dawn till noon. あさの９じ means 9 o'clock in the morning. ひる or daytime is from noon to right before dusk. ひるの１２じ means 12 noon. (FYI: 12 p.m. in English is ごご０じ in Japanese. Never say ごご１２じ by translating 12 p.m. directly.) ゆうがた or late afternoon roughly refers to the time when the sun is setting. ゆうがたの５じ means 5 o'clock towards evening.
よる or evening starts after dark. よるの１２じ means 12 midnight. (FYI: 12 a.m. in English is ごぜん０じ in Japanese. Never say ごぜん１２じ by translating 12 a.m. directly.)
To say 3:00 a.m., you say ごぜんさんじ, not さんじごぜん. The same word order rule applies to ごご (p.m.). To say 7 o'clock in the morning, you say あさ(の)７じ, not ７じあさ. Except for ごぜん and ごご, the particle の is required.
The あります verb we learned earlier can be used to state the time of organized activities (often involving one person) such as classes, meetings, part-time jobs, etc. A1 below asks WHAT organized activities does the listener have at a given time by using the TimeにXがあります pattern.
To respond to a Yes-No question, one can answer by simply saying ええ、あります or いいえ、ありません as shown in B1 and B2 below. (FYI: You cannot use ええ、そうです or いいえ、そうじゃありません here. The latter ones are used only in response to noun sentence questions.)
If you need to qualify your negative answers, the particle は normally replaces が as shown in (B3) below. If what's negated is not the subject as shown in (B4) below, the particle は is added. (This は is called the "contrastive は.")
Instead of the person, organized activities can become the topic of the sentence. The verb sentence can be rephrased as a shorter noun sentence by replacing the にあります with です. Make sure you drop the particle に when you use Timeです expressions.
The following examples show other possible topics besides organized activities. Note that the second half of the sentence is no longer limited to just Timeにあります.
Two nouns まえ and あと can express the notion of before and after respectively as shown below. The particle に is NOT required if です follows まえ or あと.
Two particles から (from) and まで (to/till) can be used to discuss the time something starts and the time it ends. Both ～です and ～あります can be used to discuss the schedule of this kind. (The particle に is not needed for the verb あります if you use から and まで.)
The date of the month is referred to by the 月 and 日 counters. The first through tenth of the month are exceptions as noted below by the yellow flag (
Examples:
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
). In addition, fourteenth (14th), twentieth (20th) and twenty-fourth (24th) are exceptional.