🇺🇸 Translation
🌹Let’s meet at one o’clock in the afternoon🌹
📙 Lesson point
How to say “one o’clock in the afternoon” in Korean
Hello, everyone! Here, we’re going to learn about expressions related to time. First, we’ll learn how to say the time and then we’ll look at some expressions to show which time of day you want to tell.
After reading today’s post, you’ll be able to say the time specifically and you’ll also be able to understand expressions regarding time. Moreover, we’ll look into the actual expression that Jisoo of BLACKPINK used for her Instagram post. Let’s begin!
How to say what time it is in Korean
First, let’s learn how to say the time. To tell the time, we can use words like ‘시’(hour), ‘분'(minute), and ‘초'(second).
Again, ‘시’ means ‘hour,’ ‘분’ means ‘minute,’ and ‘초’ means ‘second.’ Therefore, to say the exact time of the day, you can say “(number)시 (number)분 (number)초.”
Now, let’s look at how to fill n the (number) part of the expression. There are two number systems in Korean.
The first is the Sino-Korean number system, and it goes ‘1-일 2-이 3-삼 4-사 5-오…’ This system is used for counting money, reading numbers, or addressing minutes and seconds of time. This number system sounds more rigid, objective, and formal.
The second is the Native-Korean number system. This system is primarily used to counting the number of things or addressing hours of time. It goes like ‘1-하나 2-둘 3-셋 4-넷 5-다섯…’
| numbers | Sino-Korean | Native-Korean |
| 1 | 일 | 하나 (한) |
| 2 | 이 | 둘 (두) |
| 3 | 삼 | 셋 (세) |
| 4 | 사 | 넷 (네) |
| 5 | 오 | 다섯 |
| 6 | 육 | 여섯 |
| 7 | 칠 | 일곱 |
| 8 | 팔 | 여덟 |
| 9 | 구 | 아홉 |
| 10 | 십 | 열 |
| 11 | 십일 | 열하나 (열한) |
| 12 | 십이 | 열둘 (열두) |
Now, this is the tricky part; to tell what time it is, we use the native-Korean numbers for 시(hours), but we use the Sino-Korean numbers for 분(minutes) and 초(seconds). Also, some native-Korean numbers take slightly different forms when they’re used like adjectives.
1-한 시, 2-두 시, 3-세 시, 4-네 시, 5-다섯 시, 6-여섯 시,7-일곱 시, 8-여덟 시, 9-아홉 시, 10-열 시, 11-열한 시, 12-열두 시
Let’s look at some examples.
5:45 - 다섯 시 + 사십오 분 (Native number 5 + Sino-Korean 45) 3:30 - 세 시 + 삼십 분 (Native number 3 + Sino-Korean 45) 10:12 - 열 시 + 십이 분 (Native number 10 + Sino-Korean 12) 12:05 - 열두 시 + 오 분 (Native number 12 + Sino-Korean 5)
Is there a way to say the time more specifically?
Now, let’s move a step further. Let’s learn some expressions that you can use to clearly tell which time of day you want to express.
새벽: deep in the night, dawn (12am - 6am) 아침: morning (6am - 11am) 낮: daytime (11am - 6pm) 저녁: evening (6pm - 8pm) 밤: night (8pm - 12am) 오전 (before-noon): (00:00 - 12:00, including dawn, morning, and early day) 오후 (after-noon): (12:00 - 24:00, including most days, evenings, and nights)
Now, let’s look at some examples to see how these expressions are used.
새벽 세 시: 3 am 아침 일곱 시: 7 am 낮 한 시: 1 pm 저녁 여덟 시: 8 pm 밤 열한 시: 11 pm 오전 아홉 시: 9am 오후 한 시 사십 분: 1:40 pm
Jisoo says: “낮 1시에 만나요”
To conclude, let’s look at Jisoo’s Instagram post. As we learned in this post, ‘낮 1시’ indicates 1 pm in the daytime. Therefore, Jisoo is saying, “Let’s meet at one o’clock in the afternoon.” As she posted pictures of her solo album, ‘Flower,’ she seems to be saying that her solo album will be released on one o’clock in the afternoon!