時間
じかん
jikan
= time; an amount of time; hour
時間 (jikan) means time — both the concept of time itself and a specific duration or amount of time. It’s one of the most frequently used nouns in Japanese, appearing in daily conversation, scheduling, and countless fixed expressions. Japan’s cultural relationship with time — where punctuality is a near-absolute social norm — makes 時間 a word with real weight in everyday interactions.
Jikan (時間) means: 1) Time as a concept: 時間がない (jikan ga nai — there’s no time / I have no time), 時間を守る (jikan wo mamoru — to keep time, to be punctual). 2) A duration or span of time: 1時間 (ichi-jikan — one hour), 2時間 (ni-jikan — two hours). 3) A scheduled time: 時間通り (jikan-doori — on time, as scheduled). Related: 時刻 (jikoku — a specific point in time, e.g., departure time), 時期 (jiki — timing, period), 時 (toki — time, moment, occasion).
時間 (jikan) vs. 時刻 (jikoku): jikan is duration or time in general; jikoku is a specific point in time. 「電車の出発時刻は9時です」(The departure time is 9 o’clock) uses jikoku. 「2時間かかります」(It takes 2 hours) uses jikan. Japanese has very specific vocabulary for time precision — 時間厳守 (jikan genshu — strict adherence to scheduled time) reflects Japan’s famous punctuality culture. Being even 1 minute late is considered rude in many Japanese contexts.
時間 combines 時 (toki/ji — time, hour, o’clock) + 間 (ma/kan — interval, space, between). Together: the space/interval of time = duration. 時 itself combines 日 (sun/day) + 寺 (temple) — a temple’s sun-tracking function was time-keeping in pre-clock Japan. 間 is a powerful standalone word meaning the meaningful interval or pause (as in the untranslatable concept of 間, ma).
Everyday use
すみません、少し時間をいただけますか？相談したいことがあって。
Sumimasen, sukoshi jikan wo itadakemasu ka? Soudan shitai koto ga atte.
Excuse me, could I have a few minutes of your time? There’s something I’d like to discuss.
Casual / Social Media
時間があるときに読もうと思ってる本が積みあがってる 時間よ来い
Jikan ga aru toki ni yomou to omotte ru hon ga tsumiagattte ru Jikan yo koi
Books I’m planning to read when I have time are piling up. Time, please come
Formal / Cultural context
日本の鉄道における「時間厳守」文化は世界的に知られており、JR東日本の平均遅延時間は年間で1分未満とされる。この高精度な定時性は高度な運行管理システム・乗務員教育・インフラ整備の複合的産物であり、日本社会における時間規範（約束の時間を守ることを道徳的義務とする規範）の制度的表れとして機能している。
Nihon no tetsudou ni okeru ‘jikan genshu’ bunka wa sekaiteki ni shirarete ori, JR Higashi-Nihon no heikin chien-jikan wa nenkann de ichi-fun miman to sareru. Kono kouseido na teijia-sei wa koudona unou kanri shisutemu joumuin kyouiku infura seibi no fukugou-teki sanbutsu de ari, Nihon shakai ni okeru jikan kihan (yakusoku no jikan wo mamoru koto wo doutoku-teki gimu to suru kihan) no seido-teki arawere toshite kinou shite iru.
Japan’s railroad ‘punctuality’ culture is known worldwide, with JR East’s average delay time under one minute annually. This high-precision on-time performance is a compound product of advanced operations management systems, crew training, and infrastructure maintenance, functioning as an institutional expression of Japan’s social time norms (norms treating keeping scheduled times as a moral obligation).
Japan’s relationship with time is one of its most internationally remarked cultural traits. Japanese trains are routinely cited as among the world’s most punctual — JR East has issued formal public apologies for trains departing 20 seconds early. This punctuality norm extends across social life: arriving 5 minutes early (rather than on time) is considered courteous; arriving late, even by a few minutes, requires genuine apology and often a formal phrase like 「お待たせしました」(o-matase shimashita — I’ve kept you waiting, I’m sorry for the wait).
The kanji 間 in 時間 is itself worth attention: 間 (ma or kan) refers to meaningful intervals or spaces between things. As a standalone concept in Japanese aesthetics (間, ma — pause, space, interval), it describes the silence between musical notes, the empty space in a painting, the pause in a tea ceremony movement. The fact that ‘time’ (時間) contains the character for ‘meaningful interval’ suggests something about how Japanese conceptualizes duration: not merely the quantity of time passed, but the quality of the space between moments.
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