How do you express time duration when mixing time units?

Question

When you want to express a passage of time mixing time units like days, hours, and minutes is it best to use for example 間 once at the end to show duration, or should words showing duration be used for every step, or maybe a mix of both? Should you use と to separate some of the units?

What is the best way to express this?

1 year, 3 months, 22 days, 19 hours, 25 minutes, 14 seconds

１年間３ヶ月２２日間１９時間２５分間１４秒間

１年３ヶ月２２日１９時２５分１４秒間

１年３月２２日１９時２５分１４秒間

(The last one feels weird because ３月 is March in my head)

I know from this question and answer that year, month, and minute (and I assume second) is not counted with 間. Would that make this correct?

１年３ヶ月２２日１９時間２５分１４秒

Or this?

１年３ヶ月２２日間１９時間２５分１４秒

Answer 1

"1年3ヶ月22日19時間25分14秒" works fine in scientific/technological contexts. In real conversations or mails, people usually add some と, typically after 1年, 22日 and/or 25分. と is sometimes mandatory because 1日1時間 usually means "an hour per day".

As you already understand, [3月]{さんがつ} only means March and 19時 only means 19 o'clock. Using more than one 間 will make the phrase a bit clumsy.

Here are some more realistic examples:

• 2日と5時間
• 3時間(と)15分
• 1年と150日間 / 1年間と150日
• 1分間と5秒 / 1分と5秒間
• 1日と5分間 (this と is mandatory)