Lesson 4: Daily Routines and Time Expressions

Make a plan someone can follow

You can already introduce yourself, count things, and order food. Now give those actions a day, time, and place. By the end, you should be able to describe a simple routine and arrange a meeting without confusing “to the café” with “at the café,” or 3:00 with 3:30.

Start with a message you might actually send:

목요일 오후 세 시쯤 카페에서 만나요?
Shall we meet at the café around three on Thursday afternoon?

Build it in pieces: 목요일 Thursday → 오후 세 시쯤 around 3 PM → 카페에서 at the café → 만나요? shall we meet? You will learn each piece, then change the plan yourself. Hangul is the main reading system here; the earlier lessons' pronunciation support remains useful.

1. Put the right numbers on the clock

For the ordinary 12-hour clock pattern practiced here, use native Korean numbers before 시 and Sino-Korean numbers before 분. These are two number systems, both written in Hangul.

The counter forms from lesson 2 return: 하나 → 한, 둘 → 두, 셋 → 세, 넷 → 네. Eleven and twelve end in 한 and 두 too. You may encounter Sino-Korean hours in other settings, including 24-hour readings; this lesson asks you to practice the ordinary 12-hour pattern.

Minutes use 일, 이, 삼, 사, 오, 육, 칠, 팔, 구, 십. Build larger values with tens:

4:20 = 네 시 이십 분. Choose the hour from the native table; build twenty as 이십; then attach each unit. At an exact hour, just say 네 시. For half past, 반 replaces 삼십 분: 아홉 시 반 and 아홉 시 삼십 분 both mean 9:30. Neither is a wrong way to say that time.

Keep a clock reading separate from a duration: 세 시 is three o'clock; 세 시간 is three hours. Thirty minutes is 삼십 분, and 한 시간 반 is one and a half hours, or 90 minutes. The unit tells the listener what kind of number you mean.

A bare clock time does not say AM or PM. 오전 marks AM; 오후 marks PM and also means afternoon in everyday descriptions. Thus 오후 세 시 is 3 PM, and 오후 열 시 is 10 PM. For the exact midday point, 정오 means noon; 자정 means midnight. Use these words when a bare “twelve” could confuse the plan.

Try it before reading on: give 2:30 and 4:45 using Hangul. One answer for each is 두 시 반 and 네 시 사십오 분. You could also use 두 시 삼십 분 for the first.

2. Give your day a few useful anchors

점심 is not a precise clock reading. A person's lunchtime need not be 12:00. To say “I eat lunch at noon,” use 정오에 점심을 먹어요 or 낮 열두 시에 점심을 먹어요. 낮 means daytime here. Likewise, the boundaries of morning, evening, and night depend on context; they are not a fixed national timetable.

하루 gives a day as a unit; 매일 says something happens every day. For example, 매일 한 시간 공부해요 means “I study for one hour every day.” Do not substitute 하루 for 매일 mechanically; expressions such as 하루에 한 번, once a day, use their own pattern.

3. Turn dictionary words into things you say

A dictionary lists 먹다, but the polite conversational sentence form practiced here is 먹어요. Do not just add 요 to the dictionary word or to every bare stem. You need the appropriate ending, often -아/어요; 하다 becomes 해요. Learn these high-use pairs first:

Some forms contract: 보아요 → 봐요, 오- + -아요 → 와요, 마시어요 → 마셔요. 보아요 is also a valid full form. These contractions do not mean that every verb with a different-looking polite form is an irregular verb. The final 요 marks politeness in these forms; it does not itself create a question.

This lesson practices 해요체, the conversational polite style seen in 먹어요 and 가요. Formal polite forms such as 먹습니다 and 갑니다 are also valid in ordinary life; they are a different style, not “incorrect normal Korean.” A dictionary headword ending 다 is not the conversational polite form requested in these exercises.

Make two useful contrasts:

빵을 먹어요. 커피를 마셔요. — I eat bread. I drink coffee.
빵을 먹고 커피를 마셔요. — I eat bread and drink coffee.

The connector -고 joins the actions: 먹다 → 먹고. Bread needs 먹다, while coffee takes 마시다. 빵하고 커피를 마셔요 would make both bread and coffee objects of “drink,” which is not the intended breakfast.

You already know 하고 between nouns, as in 커피하고 차, coffee and tea. With a companion it can mean with: 친구하고 카페에 가요, I go to the café with a friend. Both uses follow a noun; the whole sentence tells you whether the noun is part of a list or a companion.

4. Choose the particle by its job

에 can mark time or location; 에서 can mark an activity's location or a starting place. Read the verb too. For these examples, 학교에 가요 gives the destination; 학교에서 공부해요 gives the setting of the studying. Korean also has other movement expressions, such as 학교로 가요, so a drill that asks you to choose 에 or 에서 is practicing that particular contrast.

A useful neutral order is day/time → place → object → predicate:

월요일에 도서관에서 한국어를 공부해요.
On Monday, I study Korean at the library.

The predicate ends this ordinary sentence, but time and place phrases can move with emphasis. Understood subjects such as 저는 can be omitted. Spoken Korean also often omits particles when the meaning stays clear.

Use 아침에, 월요일에, 세 시에. In the simple time expressions here, say 오늘, 내일, 어제, and 매일 directly, without adding 에: 내일 만나요, see you tomorrow. Time-marking 에 is also often omitted, as in 월요일 만나요. Practice the explicit pattern without assuming every omission is a grammatical error.

For an approximate time, add 쯤: 세 시쯤 or 세 시쯤에, around three. For a span, use 부터 … 까지: 아침부터 저녁까지, from morning until evening. These add different information: approximation, starting point, and ending point.

5. Pick a day and arrange the meeting

These cues refer to meanings associated with the first syllables; 수요일 means Wednesday, not a general phrase you can use for water. 평일 means weekdays, normally Monday through Friday; 주말 means weekend. A person's actual workdays can differ.

민지: 주말에 보통 뭐 해요? — What do you usually do on weekends?
준호: 토요일에는 집에서 쉬어요. 일요일 오후에는 친구를 만나요. — On Saturdays I rest at home. On Sunday afternoons I meet friends.
민지: 이번 일요일에 몇 시에 만나요? — What time are we meeting this Sunday?
준호: 오후 세 시 반에 카페에서 만나요. — Let's meet at the café at 3:30 PM.

뭐 해요? asks what someone does; 언제 asks when; 몇 시에 specifically asks the clock time. 어디에서 만나요? asks the meeting place. 이번 means this/current, as in 이번 일요일, this Sunday. In 토요일에는, 는 adds a topic or contrast after 에.

Now change one detail: “around three” is 세 시쯤, whereas “three thirty” is 세 시 반. Those are different meeting arrangements.

6. Read a whole day, then tell your own

This is Junho's fictional weekday, not a claim about everyone's routine:

The 9 AM–5 PM window spans eight hours; that does not tell us whether it contains a lunch break. The TV interval spans two hours. A span is different from “at 9:05,” 아홉 시 오 분에.

For a busy day, 오늘 정말 바빠요 means “I'm really busy today” when the speaker is describing their own schedule. For a quiet one, try 오늘 집에서 쉬어요, “I'm resting at home today.” Context decides whose schedule you are discussing.

Your turn: write three sentences about your day: when you get up, where you do an activity, and when you go to bed. Then send a meeting proposal with a day, an AM/PM time, and a place. Check the unit after each number, the job of each location particle, and the polite predicate. A listener should be able to put your plan on a calendar.

If you read an opening-hours sign such as 월요일부터 토요일까지, 오전 아홉 시부터 오후 여섯 시까지, it states Monday through Saturday, 9 AM–6 PM. Read the whole sign for holidays or exceptions. One example sign does not establish a rule about all Korean businesses.