深夜 – 4 Japanese Words for Midnight
Midnight is the time of night around 12:00 a.m. Or, exactly 12:00 or just sometimes late at night. Honestly, I am not exactly sure. Well, the same is true in Japanese. If you want to talk about midnight the safest bet is that you mean 12:00 a.m. but people everywhere mean something a little different.
Anyway, when talking about the night in Japanese there are several different words you could you. Specifically when talking about midnight though, here 4 Japanese words for midnight
INDEX
真夜中
真夜中 is probably the closest Japanese word to midnight. You could also use the shorter form 夜中 but that would be closer to the English phrase, in the middle of the night. 真 means true and is used with different words to mean the most or very center of something. So, 真夜中 has more of a feeling of being the very middle of the night, or deepest part of the night.
https://japaneseuniverse.com/2024/02/18/pac-man-in-japaneseconcepts-behind-development-to-global-icon/深夜
Another word for midnight is 深夜. This pretty much means the exact same thing as 真夜中. So, there is not much difference in the meaning between these two words. There is however, a difference in how they are used. 深夜 is a word that is often a prefix to other words. 真夜中 shows up by itself most of the time.
零時
The third way to say midnight is 零時 which is military time for 0:00. In Japan military time is often used and 零時 is a common way to talk about 12:00 am. Here, 零 is the Kanji for zero, but you can also write 零時 as 0時. It means the same thing, just 零時 looks cooler.
夜の12時
The last way to say midnight is 夜の12時. This is the most obvious and practical way to say midnight. It translates directly to 12 at night.
So now you know how to say midnight in Japanese. If you want to learn more Japanese I reviewed a dictionary of grammar series which I personally recommend and use myself.
2,110 Pages, No Word Wasted – A Dictionary of Japanese Grammar, Reviewed
I also have several other posts on various topics on Japanese Universe if you are interested.
