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My boss is a native Japanese speaker.

In English, when I have a question or an issue to bring up, I can ask "Do you
have a minute?" to see if it is an appropriate time to interrupt them. In
Japanese, when I tried the literal translation `一分【いっぷん】がありますか？` I was told I
sounded like an Instant Ramen commercial.

I've heard another Japanese student use `ちょっといいですか？` but they were also told
that's not real Japanese.

I know the word 暇【ひま】but this doesn't seem like an appropriate context to use
it, since my boss isn't free, I'm just interrupting him.

How do I politely ask him for his time?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-12T19:56:21.163
995
2011-09-23T02:36:26.977
2011-09-23T02:36:26.977
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question
politeness translation business-japanese
How do I politely ask my boss for a moment of his time?
ちょっといいですか is a casual expression. Depending on the relation between you and
your boss, you may not want to use the phrase to your boss.

One of the formal and polite expressions is お時間をいただいてもよろしいですか
(おじかんをいただいてもよろしいですか). If you want to state an estimate of the length (say five
minutes), you can say something like 五分ほどお時間をいただいてもよろしいですか.

お時間をいただく literally means to be given someone’s time, and is a polite
expression which means either to disturb/interrupt (e.g. for discussions) or
to make someone wait (e.g. until the speaker finishes some work). Therefore
the phrase お時間をいただいてもよろしいですか can be used both when the speaker wants to
interrupt the listener and when the speaker wants the listener to wait for
something.

一分がありますか does not make sense (I assume that your boss was joking). In Japanese
一分 (いっぷん) means the length of one minute and does not mean “a short period,”
unlike the English expressions “a minute” and “one minute.”
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-06-12T20:25:17.630
996
2011-06-13T22:14:43.190
2011-06-13T22:14:43.190
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answer