Still on expressing time, in English we creatively express the time by using phrases like it’s 15 minutes past the hour of 10 in the morning or it’s 45 minutes before 11 in the morning. In Korean there is also some other ways of expressing time similar to that. 12:40am can be expressed:
- 아침 열두 시 사십 분 (achim yeoldu shi saship pun) the usual way but the other way is to say;
- 오후 한 시 일십 전 (ohu han shi ilship cheon) which is actually 20 minutes before 1 o’clock in the afternoon literally this is 12:40am. This is how to say it in Korean similar to the italcized numeral expression above.
We also usually hear stressed on time expression such as at exactly 1:30. Thi is expressed as 정각(에) cheonggak(e) in Korea as such 한 시 삼십 정각에 (han shi samship cheonggake) is ‘at exactly 1:30’.
For the purpose of telling time 시 (shi) pertains to hour or o’clock but this cannot stand alone as mentioned in my previous post on markers. For hours pertaining to duration or time in general, 시간 (shican) is used.
It Started with Hangul 