Am I doing something wrong or is google translate wrong? I am just starting to learn Japanese. じ かん is time. なん is what. So the sentence. じかんわなんですか。 Should literally translate to "Time What is?" B

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Troy

Am I doing something wrong or is google translate wrong? I am just starting to learn Japanese. じかん　is time. なん　is what. So the sentence. じかんわなんですか。　Should literally translate to "Time What is?" But should mean "What is the time?" Is this correct? If so Why is google translate telling me it means "Is it the same time." I have found this for a lot of words where when i type it into Japanese to english translation the meaning of a word changes when I add it into the full sentence and I don't quite understand. Am I making a mistake?

Mar 13, 2019 8:26 AM

Answers · 6

何時ですか is how you ask what time is it. Nan ji, what time, desu ka is it ? Nani 何 is what and ji 時 is time.

March 13, 2019

Hello, In English, we say " what time" so we are using two words to say "what time". But in Japanese, we say "何時（なんじ）" which is one word. So when we say " what time", we don't separate "what" and "time". Don't trust google translate so much. I recommend you to use "jisho" instead or use both! https://jisho.org/ We don't use "わ” as you used じかんわなんですか。we use は instead.　じかんはなんですか。 As David said, It's better to write in Kanji and translate it to English and Google translate gives you much better answers.

March 14, 2019

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