Could they be the equivalents of "a" and "hacia" in Spanish, respectively? In English those two would be "to" and "towards" but they aren't exactly equivalent, hacia is used much more often

How do you pronounce に and へ in this context? The audio is confusing me.

I'm not sure but I associated the particles with their (seemingly) equivalent markers in Korean:

に - location-marking particle, 에

へ - direction particle, ~(으)로

Wondering if someone knows whether these associations are correct!

Could に be similar to I go TO the office whereas へ is more like, I LEAVE FOR the office?

The second being more like an informal leaving. Youre heading there, but you may stop somewhere else or take a different route or whatever. You are strictly going there, but rather leaving to go there?

I do find the へ vs に quite confusing. In the sentence above both are used, and yet the translation is that at 9 I go 'to' and not 'towards' (in the direction of) the office.

Thanks for the explanation! But I'm wondering, are both particles required in this sentence? Would sentence with just one of them be correct?

And I've heard that: に - this is the one you wanna use when going to school or to work or to another country へ - this one is only for going in a direction for example going north きたへ or going south みなみへ, but, Japanese people misuse it all the time and say stuff like 学校へ行く even though it's technically incorrect

I just had a thought and wondered if it works, could anyone who actually knows the answer let me know?:

Could へ in this context be thought of almost like the word 'for' is used in english in certain contexts. Like "I leave for the office at 8". I feel like this gets the idea of direction across better than 'towards'. Does this work out?

おひおう! So why are they both used in this exsmple? Plus they had the '行き'. どもう

Why do we use to paricles for the same purpose, why do i have to say to and towards?

So helpful, thanks!

ありがとうございました!

I came here to say this. The "at" it's entirely superfluous.

九時 = 9 o'clock
ごろ = around
に = at

九時ごろ would have been fine in this sentence. The same as how "at" in English is optional in this sentence, the に particle in Japanese is optional here too. ごろ is already adverbial.

But since they did choose to say ごろ + に this time, it could be argued the translation should reflect this superfluous way of speaking by unnecessarily saying "at" + "around"? ^^

I think they're trying to emphasize the particles because they're so important and they need the learners to recognize their meanings, and uses. If they didn't attempt to mark them somehow it would be a disservice to anyone trying to learn the language through this program.

"I get home at nine" is modified by "around", so "i get home at around nine" is the more formal usage. Dropping the "at" is colloquially correct. I personally tend to use the phrase, "i get home right around nine," so it gets even worse haha!

From what i've read, yes. へ is always pronounced as え when used as a particle.

Particles are pronounced different many times because in there old alphabet they were pronounced that way and it didn't change with té rest of the language.

They're different words. 仕事 (しごと) means "work." Although you may work at the office, someone's work not be at the office. :)

に is a versatile particle that you'll have to get used to. It can be used to indicate many things, ranging from direction, and, in this case, time. へ as a particle is always read as "え" and is only used for direction.

Hi, a Japanese guy said the に here is to indicate the specific time. The へ is to mean 'to'. The へcan be replaced by another に、 where the second に would then mean 'to'.... Ok? :-)

Particle は could be added before the sentence, 私わ...

but Japanese often omitted the subject I (watashi) because in the real conversation, we know the context.

I'd wager it has to deal with trying to translate it over to English. While 会社 means company, it can used as a destination in Japanese. In English, you only hear phrases like "I'm headed to work/the office" and never "to the company".

For A.M., you use 午前 = ごぜん
For P.M., you use 午後 = ごご

In this sentance, a.m. is understood. It is not necessary to say it.

九時ごろ（くじごろ） means "around nine o'clock". (ごろ = "around, about")

There isn't a 'ko' anywhere in this sentence... It should sound like 'kuji goro ni kaisha e ikimas'

It is normal to include に after ごろ.

Unfortunately due to the way that Duo is programmed the listening exercises will only accept one single "best" answer. This works fine for other languages but causes problems for Japanese which uses multiple writing systems. The contributors currently have no way of fixing this problem or adding other options (only one answer is acceptable and changing the 'best' answer will change every instance of that sentence throughout the course). The staff is aware of this issue but there's no current timeframe for if/when it will be fixed.

For now using the word bank is the best option as it always provides the desired writing format. Alternatively you can hit "can't listen now" to skip it, or far less ideally, memorize what is and isn't acceptable for each individual question.

Some exercises where you type what you hear won't accept kanji. In this case it is 会社. I don't why it is like this, because it is right, but they probably just haven't fixed it yet. 会社 works fine on the translating exercises.

jonathanger, maybe because you put 9じ instead of くじ?

As you've seen, the Japanese do not use spaces. I've only been studying Japanese for 5 months, but topic markers (or particles) help identify parts of the sentence like the subject, time of day, direction of travel, relative location. It's my best understanding of the concept at the moment. I hope that helps!

There's no topic marker (は) in this sentence, but essentially it emphasizes the topic/theme/focus of the sentence. One way to think of them is to translate the sentence that uses them by starting "As for [X], ..." The topic is not necessarily the grammatical subject, but it can be.

There is, depending on the location of the speaker.

I use it sometimes.

As others have noted, it depends on the location. In some English-speaking countries, this is common. I'm from the US, and in my area, I hear "at around" fairly often. "I get home at around 9." "I got to work at about 8." (About is used more often for past tense, I believe.) I'm not sure if it's grammatically correct, lol, but it is commonly used in some areas.

Maybe because an English sentence can have two of the same word? "I was at the office at 9." Japanese is a little more useful here, actually.

There are also differences in meaning that we don't see just by looking at the English equivalents. For me, に when used with 行きます implies that you went to a location with a purpose in mind, whereas へ simply marks your destination purely for the sake of direction. Examples:

えいがかんに行きます = I'm going to the movies (implied that you'll go to the theater and then see a film) えいがかんへ行きます = I am going to drive to the theater (no implication, you might be driving there just to pick up a friend, who knows, all you said was the location you're traveling to).

While かいしゃ literally means "company", it's often used to refer to the place of work as well.

I think since the kanji is pronounced "iki" and the he particle is pronounced "e", it kind of almalgamates when speaking into one "eiki" sound. Not sure though, just guessing!

It's i as in ikimasu.

The one who wrote this sentence is probably more used to formal English found in literature. "At around" is fairly common in certain locations as well.

I think they might be etymologically related, but two different words. Niko from nihongoshark dotcom uses ごろ frequently without extra explanation, but 頃 more rarely: the first time it was buried in a stream of keigo (...１時頃に...: I'm assuming, from context, that this is the "formal" way of saying 1 o'clock), and the second time he used 頃 he explained it as follows.

子どもの頃の話。 こども　の　ころ　の　はなし。 A story from my childhood. Literally: “child + の + time + の + story Note: 頃 means “at that approximate time,” and it usually used in a set phrase as 子どもの頃 like above to mean “when I was a child.”

Later he translates that character specifically as "in those days".

According to EDRDG, when it's used as a suffix to a time specification (to mean "around"), it's generally written in kana and pronounced ごろ.

In American English, at least, you can't say "go to office" without some sort of article (e.g. "a", "the", "my") before "office".

The Japanese sentence is not in the imperative/command form, so it can't be telling someone else to go to the office. However, you could use the sentence to describe someone other than just "I" (e.g. you/he/she/it/they/we) going to the office, since the subject is implied in the Japanese sentence.

"at nine o clock" is a specific time at which you plan to go. 九時に
This sentence has the word ごろ "around" in it though which means you aren't going there exactly at 9, but at some time close to 9. 九時ごろに

It still technically works, but if you said that to someone in Japan they would look at you weirdly. Typically a description or piece of information comes in the beginning. It's just like if we said "At around 9:00, I go to the office." vs "I go to the office at around 9:00." In Japanese it should normally be the first option when dealing with telling time.

Because it's a particle it's pronounced properly as 'e' instead of 'he' (think を which is often pronounced as 'o' instead of 'wo' as well) and very fast - just tacked onto the end of かいしゃ.

Check Swisidniak's answer to my comment below (会社 is not recognized you need to use かいしゃ).

JaredAult, yes, you are correct.

copy-pasting from my answer above:
九時ごろに - Around 9 o'clock "ku ji goro ni"

かいしゃへ - to the office/company "kaisha e"

行きます - go/will go "ikimasu" The kanji 行 is pronounced い in this sentence as part of the verb "go".

It is "kou" when used as a noun or combined with other kanji, so clicking on it individually in the lesson the audio may pronounce it that way since it does not recognize the context it is being used in. This is the reading it takes in 銀行 "ginkou" - "bank"

xeter, I think it was already explained above that it is not programed to accept the kanji, so only the hiragana is able to be accepted even if the kanji is correct. かいしゃ has to be used.

Kuji goro ni kaisha e(he) iki masu

Here the へ is the direction particle "e". It is used as "to/towards".
Often in situations if you're unsure if you should use this particle, it can be replaced with に, a more general location particle.
While に is used more for a set location/destination something is located at, へ emphasizes the actual movement towards a location

Not really a difference in meaning, just two ways to write it.

Well, just saying that you entered it correctly doesn't help anyone. You need to tell us exactly what you entered so that we can tell you either that you're wrong or the course is wrong.

Literally type what you just wrote in your post into Google and you'll find your answer is right at the very top of the search results...

i think the problem here is the understanding of the English word, not the Japanese. I really can't blame you, English is really tricky.

"around" is a modifier word, used for both time and place, and also as you mentioned, path of travel. "i go at 9" is modified to read "i go at around 9" to gain the meaning "near to, but not exactly, 9 o'clock". In the case of a place, "i am at the park" becomes "i am around (by) the park", which gains the meaning, again, of "near to, but not inside, the park". however, in the case of path of travel, "i go by the office on my way to the park" implies a path that could include stopping at the office, or could not. "i go around the office on my way to the park", however, definitely specifies that you do not stop at the office on your way to the park. Just to make things more complicated, however, if you are not specifying an endpoint to your path, ie simply "i go around the office and collect money", this case refers to making a round, or a patrol - that is, moving through a space for the purpose of collection, inspection, or distraction with a path that roughly covers or circumnavigates the entire space. I think this is the meaning you were thinking of.