Today’s sentence is as follows.
1. Ima [Hour] ji [minutes] fun desu.
example; Ima Yo-ji Juu-yom pun desu. (Now, the time is Four fourteen.)
Recently I showed that a Japanese sentence can be simplified as below;
2. [Subject] [Predicate].
But this is too simple. Let’s take a look at with different concept about Japanese sentences. A Japanese sentence consists of several segments as below;
[meaningful word][functional word] + [m.w.][f.w.] + [m.w.][f.w.]+ …
For example; Watashi (I) and Daigakusei (university student) are meaningful words.
And a particle “wa” and sentence ending “desu” are functional words.
You get the sentence below;
3. Watashi wa Daigakusei desu. (I am a university student.)
This sentence 3 has the structure of [m.w.][f.w.] + [m.w.][f.w.]
If you carefully look at the sentence 1, you will find that the meaningful word “Ima (now)” is not followed by a functional word. Using the particle of topic marker “wa”, you may want to say;
4. Ima wa Yo-ji Juu-yom pun desu. (Now is the time of Four fourteen.)
This sentence 4 is okay. These is no error on grammar. However, today’s sentence is;
5. Ima Yo-ji Juu-yom pun desu. (Now, the time is Four fourteen.)
How do we think about the missing “wa”? It is possible to think that the topic marker “wa” is omitted. But I like to think that the word “Ima (now)” in sentence 5 is an adverbial. If a word is an adverb, some of them don’t need any particle behind.
The reason why I say like this is that if you are a beginner as Japanese learner, you need to try NOT to omit a particle in Japanese sentences.
In addition, you need to know how to read time to say what time it is now. Let’s learn how to read times tomorrow. For today, just practice and remember the following conversation;
A : Ima Nan ji desuka. (What time is it now?)
B : Ima Ku ji Juu-kyuu fun desu. (Now it is Nine Nineteen.)
<この投稿は“スリーエーネットワーク、みんなの日本語 初級I 第2版, 第4課A1”の内容を参照しています>
Agony or Fun?! Second Language Learning 