nan ji desu ka

[jkid]

As far as I know nan ji desu ka means

what is the time?

To me, asking a stranger in this way seems a little "rude" for lack of a better word. What would be a politer way of asking this question?

thanks all!

[Belton]

Maybe you could preface it with sumimasen ga... (excuse me but...) Tone and body language would help too. You're a foreigner after all....

I never learned an alternative phrase like "Excuse me do you have the time".
I wonder if Japanese have exchanges like this.


I always wonder why language learners don't have watches.

[jkid]

I see your point about the watch but of course my question is just for knowleadge. I hope to always have a watch while in Japan.

It would be interesting to find out if there was a natural translation for "do you have the time". I guess we'll have to wait and see.

thanks for the reply.

[LBRapid]

yes, i think すみませんが、今何時でしょうか。(sumimasen ga, nanji deshou ka.) would be fine.


That is pretty much exactly what Beltonさん said.

I use www.jisho.org/sentences/ to look stuff like that up when I don't know.

[Jason]

I don't know of any politer ways to ask. At least not without venturing into keigo.

[jkid]

Thanks for the replies and resources all.

[Brody]

As long as you have the です　at the end, it's polite (mostly). Even if there is a "more polite" way to ask, I think that any fluent speaker would figure out that you were a learner and were making an honest effort to be polite. So if your only worry is about being polite, then no worries. If your asking out of curiosity, I'll try to keep in mind to listen for it.

[jkid]

Thanks. I am just curious to see if there is a Japanese equivalent of

Excuse me do you have the time?

but at least now I know nan ji desu ka is not considered rude. I'll just use that for practice until I learn otherwise.

[Brody]

I did a search on alc for "do you have the time?" and they all came up 何時ですか。
so I'd say you're pretty safe to use it with strangers. Like others have said, just had すみません before it if you want to make it more polite.

[mikem]

The thing is always remember is that politeness is speaker and listener relative. To someone younger than you, even if they are a complete stranger, you could get away with a lot.

Here's the way I ask my friends:

今何時？ (rising on the ji)

Since we're friends it's not rude. Also, had I met you long enough to get your name I might feel that form was appropriate. After all asking the time isn't a huge favor. I'd probably have to reconsider my approach if I wanted to borrow some money.

Here's the most polite way I can think of outside of circumstances where you might need keigo. (Once again giving the time isn't a huge favor so going more polite might seem pretty extreme to people.)

すみません。あの、今何時でしょうか。

Pretty much all of the extra wording in there are softeners. It goes something like:
すみません　- Excuse me!
あの - Well, (I don't want to bother you but ...)
今何時 - What is the time now?
でしょうか - softer form of desu ka. this makes it sound more like, "what time do you have?" rather than, "what is the exact atomic time at this very instant?"

Also, if you are anywhere but Tokyo that probably sounds really girly too. (No one in Tokyo seems to worry too much about sounding girly except the old men.)

If I were you I would stick with 何時ですか。 for now. If your Japanese sounds too natural you'll probably get blasted with an answer you can't understand.

One more thing about this phrase that I'm surprised no one mentioned! It is not limited to just finding out the time. If you see people that look interesting to talk to just ask them the time. Often the conversation won't just stop after you've gotten your answer.

[jkid]

Thank you for the explanation - and the warning, I'd hate to sound girly

Arigato gozaimasu!

[gambit_2001nz]

Yeah, I've almost given up on sounding manly anymore.....all the japanese I learn is kind of girly because most of my students and friends I learn from are girls.......

Anybody else have this problem? Even on TV or anything that you are exposed to.....alot of it is from the female population. I guess maybe the Japanese guys just don't talk as much?

[Brody]

I've seen a lot more ambiguity lately. For instance, I was taught that it was girly to end questions in の but more and more I'm hearing lots of men end it that way and reading it too. I think one of the only really obviously girly things is ending sentences with わ. I think you'll always be corrected if you say that as a man. Otherwise, I think other aspects are much more debatable.

But I too have given up on trying to be manly in attempts to just communicate at all. If I can get out a comprehensible sentence, I'm happy with that. That's hard enough!

[Jason]

There are some areas where わ is considered a neutral sentence ender. It's not too uncommon for some older men also.

の may be ambigious in informal speech, but at the end of polite speech (何ですの？) it's EXTREMELY girly and also has a "high-class" kinda ring to it.

何？男にとって、男らしい喋り方しかねえんだぞおおお！

。。。

なんちゃって。普通に喋ればいいだろう？ま、私なら男らしい喋り方をかなり気に入ったな。

[Brody]

Yes, I did overlook those vital aspects.

Sorry!

Where is it that men use わ? Kyushu?

And as for の, I meant in the informal type of speech. Yeah, it probably would be girlish if you ended polite sentences with の.

Also, now that I think about it, how about dropping だ in informal speech? It seems that's a pretty definite distinction between male and female speech, being that women don't use it at the end after nouns and な-adj.'s.