To start, we'll review our numbers:

一、二、三、四、五、六、七、八、九、十、十一、十二
いち、に、さん、し、ご、ろく、しち、はち、きゅう、じゅう、じゅういち、じゅうに
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

十二、十一、十、九、八、七、六、五、四、三、二、一
じゅうに、じゅういち、じゅう、きゅう、はち、なな、ろく、ご、よん、さん、に、いち
12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1

一つ、二つ、三つ、四つ、五つ、六つ、七つ、八つ、九つ
ひとつ、ふたつ、みっつ、よっつ、いつつ、むっつ、ななつ、やっつ、ここのつ
1 (thing), 2 (things), 3 (things), 4 (things), 5 (things), 6 (things), 7 (things), 8 (things), 9 (things)

OK. Lesson time...

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If you've been following our travel lessons diligently, you can now say excuse me to get someone's attention and ask them which train you're supposed to board.

But are you prepared for the following situation?

Since you love to get off the beaten path, you now find yourself in the mysterious Iya Valley in the heart of Shikoku. (I've never been, but I really want to go. You can distract yourself from studying by looking at pages like this oneor this one.)

Like a fool, you've let your phone die, so you have no idea what time the next bus (or train) is coming.

You're standing around waiting for what feels like forever before finally working up the courage to ask a Japanese person sitting nearby, "When is the next bus?"

How, my friend, would we say that in Japanese?

Pretend to think about the answer while you scroll down.

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Answer:

次のバスはいつですか？
つぎ　の　バス　は　いつ　です　か？
When is the next bus?
Literally: “next + の + bus + は + when + です + か?”

Word-by-word, that's:

次（つぎ // next）
の（[possessive particle]）
バス（bus）
は（[topic-marking particle]）
いつ（when）
です（[copula (i.e. ~ "to be")]）
か（[question-ending particle]）
？

If you want to stress about all of those particles, your life is not going to be very fun.

These past lessons may help:
- [NDL #321] - Basics: は, No は, & ですか
- [NDL #398] - Basics: Intro to の
- [NDL #405] - Basics: Intro to の, Part II

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What if you want to know when the next train is, not the next bus?

This one is really complicated: "bus" → "train."

So:

次の電車はいつですか？
つぎ　の　でんしゃ　は　いつ　です　か？
When is the next train?
Literally: “next + の + train + は + when + です + か?”

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いつ means "when," so you'll certainly want to memorize it.

We might as well learn how to say "what time," too:

何時（なんじ // what time）

In isolation, the kanji 何 is pronounced なに. This means "what."

For example, if you're sitting at a restaurant with your Japanese friend, and you want to know what they're going to order, you can ask:

何食べる？
なに　たべる？
What are you gonna eat?
Literally: “what + eat?”

Japanese can be pretty simple sometimes, yeah?

What's not so simple is that 何 often attaches to other kanji, parts of speech, etc., causing it to be pronounced as なん instead of なに. You'll see this 482,000 times throughout your studies, so I wouldn't worry about determining "rules" for this. You'll just learn it naturally, little by little.

Anyway, we have 何, "what," combine with 時, "time," to give us "what time." (Similar to なに for 何, the character 時 is pronounced とき in isolation. When attached to other words, it will often be pronounced じ.)

So, knowing that 何時 (なんじ) means "what time," how do you think we would say "What time is the next bus?"

First, here's the sentence we saw earlier:

次のバスはいつですか？
つぎ　の　バス　は　いつ　です　か？
When is the next bus?
Literally: “next + の + bus + は + when + です + か?”

And here is a whopping hint:

次のバスは＿＿＿ですか？
つぎ　の　バス　は　＿＿＿　です　か？
＿＿＿ is the next bus?
Literally: “next + の + bus + は + ＿＿＿ + です + か?”

Put on your thinking pants, yo (they give a higher thinking stat bonus than thinking caps).

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Answer:

次のバスは何時ですか？
つぎ　の　バス　は　なんじ　です　か？
What time is the next bus?
Literally: “next + の + train + は + what time + です + か?”

Wow. And now for "train:"

次の電車は何時ですか？
つぎ　の　でんしゃ　は　なんじ　です　か？
What time is the next train?
Literally: “next + の + train + は + what time + です + か?”

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Being able to ask the above questions is cool and all, but that's not very useful if you don't understand the answer.

Here are two sample answers:

一時三分です。
いちじ　さんぷん　です。
It’s at 1:03.
Literally: “one o’clock + three minutes + です.”

十分後です。
じゅっぷん　ご　です。
It’s in 10 minutes.
Literally: “ten minutes + -later / -after + です.”

That's right. Dreaded numbers have come back to haunt us again. Curse them!

A nightmarish preview of things to come:

一時（いちじ // one o'clock）
二時（にじ // two o'clock）
三時（さんじ // three o'clock）
四時（よじ // four o'clock）
五時（ごじ // five o'clock）
六時（ろくじ // six o'clock）
七時（しちじ // seven o'clock）
八時（はちじ // eight o'clock）
九時（くじ // nine o'clock）
十時（じゅうじ // ten o'clock）
十一時（じゅういちじ // eleven o'clock）
十二時（じゅうにじ // twelve o'clock）

一分（いっぷん // one minute）
二分（にふん // two minutes）
三分（さんぷん // three minutes）
四分（よんぷん // four minutes）
五分（ごふん // five minutes）
六分（ろっぷん // six minutes）
七分（ななふん // seven minutes）
八分（はっぷん // eight minutes）
九分（きゅうふん // nine minutes）
十分（じゅっぷん // ten minutes）

十一分（じゅういっぷん // eleven minutes）
十二分（じゅうにふん // twelve minutes）
十三分（じゅうさんぷん // thirteen minutes）
十四分（じゅうよんぷん // fourteen minutes）
十五分（じゅうごふん // fifteen minutes）

二十分（にじゅっぷん // twenty minutes）
三十分（さんじゅっぷん // thirty minutes）
四十分（よんじゅっぷん // forty minutes）
五十分（ごじゅっぷん // fifty minutes）

五十六分（ごじゅうろっぷん // fifty-six minutes）
五十七分（ごじゅうななふん // fifty-seven minutes）
五十八分（ごじゅうはっぷん // fifty-eight minutes）
五十九分（ごじゅうきゅうふん // fifty-nine minutes）

一時半（いちじはん // half past one）
二時半（にじはん // half past two）
三時半（さんじはん // half past three）

I know what you're thinking:

Or maybe you're just thinking that's an awful lot of numbers to be memorizing.

That's why I like to look at numbers in short bursts. Doing them all at once makes me depressed.

In any case, we'll look a bit more at train and bus times in the next travel lesson.

Yeah, sorry...