What time is it?

Why this spelling

This romanisation is not the spelling copied letter by letter. It is built from the National Institute of Korean Language’s Revised Romanization, which writes what the word sounds like once the sounds next to each other have changed it.

When you would say it

The answer comes back with the hour in native numbers, so listen for 시 and catch the word right in front of it.

Saying a time out loud

The hour takes the native set, the minutes take the Sino set, and the two sit side by side in one short sentence. Say the hour with 시 and the minutes with 분, in that order, and you’ve said the time. This is the sentence where most visitors hear themselves switch sets for the first time.

From the same chapter

Two Number Systems

Card number 16 of the book

The guidebook prints these as numbered cards, so you can hold up a number instead of trying to pronounce it. The Korean edition comes with it and has the same numbers in the same places.

See the guidebook