What Time Is It?
지금 몇 시예요 [Chigeum myeot shiyeyo?]
Asking and Telling Time and How Many
“Excuse me, do you have the time?”
What a useful question this is, especially if you’re like me and don’t typically wear a watch. We should probably learn how to ask for this information before the book comes to an end, wouldn’t you agree?
So, to ask “what” time it is, you need a word for “what,” don’t you? We’ve looked at this issue a little bit already…waaaaaaay back in chapter 11. There was the basic form of the word, 무엇, and then its contracted spoken form, 뭐. Remember? Of course you do.
In this case, though, we need a modifier version of “what,” because it’s going to be interacting with the word “time.” Usually, when you want to use 무엇 as a modifier, you’ll say 무슨 [museun]. And the word for “time” is 시간 [shigan]. Following this, it would be logical to construct the question as 무슨 시간이 에요 Unfortunately, it would also be wrong.
That’s because, when the noun you’re modifying is related to numbers, you need to use a different form of “what”: 몇. And instead of literally saying “time” in this question as we do in English, Koreans insert 시 [shi], which as we learned in chapter 23 is the counting unit for “hour,” or “o’clock.” So, are you finally ready to see the end result? I’d say so. Let’s ask the time in Korean:
지금 몇 시 예요' [Chigeum myeot shiyeyo?] What time is it now?
Okay, great! And now, after that long explanation, I have some good news about the kinds of answers you’ll get to this question. Think about how many ways there are of saying the time 3:45 in English: “three forty-five,” “forty-five past three,” “quarter till four,”… Look at all those structures and prepositions. Learning these correctly is a big challenge for non-native speakers.
Lucky for you, though, telling time in Korean is much simpler. First, there are no separate words for “o’clock” or “quarter.” You use 시 for the first and the number 15 for the next. Second, each number you say will be followed by either 시 (“hour”), 분 (“minute”), or 조 (“second”), so there won’t be any confusion. Third, the time is always given in order from longest to shortest—in other words, hour-minute-second. You can forget about expressions such as “ten till two” and “half past three.” And fourth…well this part isn’t actually that simple, but it’s not hard either. You have to use pure-Korean numbers with 지, but Sino-Korean numbers for 분 and 조.
Now you know the basics, so let’s practice. It’s six o’clock. Quick—what do you say?
여섯 시예요. [Yeoseot shiyeyo.]
Very good! Oh, but wait…how does the listener know if it’s a.m. or p.m.? Well, they could just stick their head out the window, for one thing. ^;^ But, if you’re someone who’s obsessed with identifying the time exactly, just add 오저 (“a.m.”), 오후 (“p.m.”), 아침 (“in the morning”), 저녁 (“in the evening”), or 밤 (“at night”) before the time, depending on what meaning you want. So,
오후 여섯 시예요. [Ohu yeoseot shiyeyo.] It’s six o’clock p.m.
아침 여섯 시예요. [Achim yeoseot shiyeyo.] It’s six o’clock in the morning.
저녁 여섯 시예요. [Cheonyeok yeoseot shiyeyo.] It’s six o’clock in the evening.
Hmm…that took a few minutes to explain. Now it’s ten past six, so how would you say this? Hey, I told you, banish the thought of “past” from your mind. All you have to say is “six ten”:
여섯 시 십 분이에요. [Yeoseot shi ship punieyo.]
And remember, this is the only tricky part: don’t say 둥 시 십 분이에요, or 여섯 시 열 분이에요. It’s pure Korean for 시, Sino-Korean for 분.
Okay, pop quiz: it’s 10:15 at night.
밤 열 시 십오 분이에요. [Pam yeol shi shibo punieyo.]
As I said, there’s no word for “quarter” in Korean. 십오 (15) is all you need.
Half, to
Okay, so maybe I’ve simplified the idea of telling time just a bit. It’s true that there’s no word for “quarter,” but there does happen to be one for “half,” and it’s 분 [pan]. In fact, it’s pretty commonly used in place of 30. Only, when you say it, you don’t need to attach 분. So it’s 삼십 분 or 반. Oops, how the time is flying! It’s already 7:30:
but not 일곱 시 반 분.
And finally, there’s an expression for “to,” as in “five to eleven.” However, you still follow the order of hour-minute when you say this, and you use a word not for “to,” but for “before”: 전 [cheon]. So, how do you say five to eleven?
열한 시 오 분 전이에요. [Yeolhan shi o pun cheonieyo.] It’s five to eleven.
Great! That’s all you need to know about telling time. Naturally, you should be able to give me all these times in Korean:
3:10 p.m.
5:30 a.m.
12:45
8:55
Possible answers:
3:10 p.m.: 오후 세 시십 분
5:30 a.m.: 오전 다섯 시 삼십 분 or 오전 다섯 시 반
12:45: 열두 시 사십오 분
8:55: 여덟 시 오십오 분 or 아홉 시오 분전
Now you are the master of the clock!
몇, 얼마나
I realize it’s late, but before we go I want to show you another use for the modifier 몇. It’s good for asking other things besides the time, such as “how many” of something there are. To do this, you insert 몇 between a noun and its counting unit. Hey, this is the perfect opportunity to show off what you studied in chapter 23, right?
어 제 책 몇 권 었 어 요 [Eoje chaek myeot kweon sasseoyo?] How many books did you buy yesterday?
서과몇개먹었어요 [Sagwa myeot kae meogeosseoyo?] How many apples did you eat?
서울에서 부산까지 KTX (케이티엑스) 로 몇 시간 걸려요 [Seoureseo pusankkaji KTX(keitiekseu)ro myeot shigan keolryeoyo?] How many hours is it from Seoul to Busan by KTX?
If you run into a situation where for some reason you can’t remember which counting unit to use, don’t despair. Instead, you can substitute the word 얼마나. This should look familiar, right? In the last chapter, we learned the noun 얼마, which is used for asking the price of something. 얼마나 is an adverb form of 얼마, and you can whip it out when asking the number of something. So, if in our previous sentence you somehow couldn’t remember that 시간 was the counting unit for “hour,” you could say this instead:
서울에서 부산까지 KTX (케이티엑스) 로 얼마나 걸려요 How long is it from Seoul to Busan by KTX?
KTX is the Korea Train Express, which opened in 2004. Before the KTX, the fastest train available was called 새마을 [saemaeul], and it took around four and a half hours to travel from Seoul to Busan. So what about the KTX?
세시간 정도걸려요. [Se shigan cheongdo keolryeoyo.] It takes about three hours.
Notice how you still use the pure-Korean numbers with 시간, just like you did with 시. And if you wanted to tack on minutes to this time, you’d need to express them with the Sino-Korean system.
Wow, three hours, huh? So if you brought your portable DVD player on the train and started watching Gone with the Wind as it pulled out of Seoul, you’d arrive in Busan before catching the famous closing line of Scarlett O’Hara: “Tomorrow is another day.”
Korean Style: A two-year-old newborn!? Only in Korea!
One thing foreigners are always taken aback by when they first arrive in Korea is how often they hear this question:
나이가 어떻게 되세요 [Naiga eotteoke toeseyo?] How old are you?
Even people you’ve just met will ask you this, but remember that in Korean society this isn’t rude at all. Koreans consider age to be another part of basic personal information along with your name, hometown, astrological sign, etc. Instead of being offended, take their interest in your age as an expression of friendship.
But answering the question could be more complicated than you think. A typical response might go something like this:
우리나라 나이로는 열 살이고 만으로는 아홉 살이에요. [Urinara naironeun yeol sarigo maneuroneun ahop sarieyo.] I’m ten in Korean age and nine in Western age.
Huh? Korean age and Western age? What’s the difference? How can a person have any other age than the one that counts years from the day they were born? Well, in Korea, we begin to calculate a person’s age while they’re still inside their mother’s womb. Then, the day after a Korean is born, he or she is automatically promoted to 1 year old!
After that, we all add on a year at the beginning of each new year, not on our particular birthdays. So obviously, a person’s Korean age is always going to be at least a year more than their Western age. But sometimes, it’s nearly two years more! For example, if a baby is born on December 31, it will magically turn 2 years old on January 1—one year for being born, and one for the passing of the new year! Strange, huh?
Another common way of answering the age question is to say something like this:
저는 빠른 79 예요. [Cheoneun ppareun chilguyeyo.] I was born in early ’79.
Hmm…why would someone need to emphasize that they were born early in the year? Well, this distinction is made because of Korea’s school system. In Korea, the school year begins in March, and any child who has turned 7 (in Western age) by this time is eligible to enter the system. So, someone born on February 28 can begin school this year, while her friend who was born on March 2 has to stay home and play with his mother for another year, because in Western years he’s still 6, not 7. Even though according to Korean age both children are 8, these school system rules separate them into different grades.
This is why when Koreans tell you how old they are, they might add the word 빠른 in front of the year they were born. 빠른 means they were born in January or February of that year, signifying that they’re a grade ahead of everyone else who was born in the same year.
Wow, and you thought age was a relatively simple subject. Not in Korea!