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- "四時四分です。"
"四時四分です。"
Translation:It's 4:04.
19 Comments
Can someone explain why it's pronounced "yoji yonpun desu" as opposed to "yonji yonfun desu"? Is there a pattern to know when to change pronounciation?
2, 5, 7, 9 uses the fun pronunciation while the others take pun. As far as I understand, there really isn't too much around it other than commiting it to memory... there could be a rule that I just didn't know of though...
Now that I look at it, the question is also about yonpun vs yonfun.
Regarding yoji, I searched around, and here's what I've found. One of the ways to pronounce the kanji is よ (yo):
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/四#Etymology_1 https://jisho.org/word/四-1
Also,
Correct, four can be pronounced as 'yon', 'yo' or shi. But when used for hours it is always 'yoji'. Nine o'clock is also 'kuji' instead of 'kyuji'.
The right pronunciation is "yonpun" but in daily life people say "yonfun" as well so you could say they are interchangeable.
Is it just me, or everybody replies about "yonpun", but the question is about "yoji"?
Now that you mention it... I didn't realize, it kind of sounds like よじ(YOJI) instead of よんじ（YONJI）
I think, there's a rule for it. For example, hana = a flower, but h-sound changes to b-sound in "ikebana", or the word Japan can sound either Nihon or Nippon
I wrote "It is 4:04 o'clock" but it said it was wrong. Is o'clock not included when there are minutes?
English is my third language, but I believe you can say "o'clock" only when you're talking about full hour. So, you can say "It's four o'clock" when it's exactly 4:00 or when you have 4:04, then you say "It's four oh four".
Correct, many native English speakers make this mistake, however "o'clock" technically refers to the hour itself.
No one would say it these days, but what we're really saying in English is that "Now is the fourth hour of the clock."
Yes. O'clock is not used when there are minutes involved. You can have five o'clock or 5:00, but not five forty five o'clock or 5:45. You would read this as only five forty five, so the o'clock isn't necessary. Hope this helps.
I am a native English speaker from NZ, living in Australia. We commonly say how many minutes 'past' the hour until you reach the half hour. Then it is common to say how many minutes 'to' the hour for times after the half hour. E.g. 4:15 we'd say "quarter past four", 4:30 we'd say "half past four", and 4:45 we would say "quarter to five".
I think ん will "harden" syllables following it, so the softer ふん sounds like ぷん. But, I don't know the rule on what changes the pronunciation or why, because 一分 is pronounced いっぷん instead of いちふん.
Okay im so confused. How do you know when to shorten the pronounciation of yon? Yon vs. Yo. There doesnt seem to be a pattern to it!
