Idiomatic time expressions in your languages

[Querneus]

I'm making a thing that uses idiomatic time expressions, but even if I weren't, I kind of have an interest in idiomatic time expressions across languages. By "idiomatic" I mean something that isn't quite just adding hour number + minute number (e.g. English "six twenty", Spanish "las seis y veinte"), but is an expression you don't quite expect or predict (e.g. English "twenty past six").

To make this easier, you don't need to describe how to say things like "a.m.", "p.m.", "in the (wee hours of the) morning", "in the evening", etc., unless you have time. But I am interested if your languages have any expressions such as "o'clock" or "a quarter past six" or "a quarter to nine". Please tell me if those "idiomatic" expressions are used often as well, as you generally don't find this in websites teaching you how to tell the time. In Canadian English, for one, "(a) quarter past H" and "(a) quarter to H" are rarely used.

You can simply link to an article or video teaching how to tell the time if you agree with it, but tell me how often these idiomatic expressions are used or any other relevant comments I should know about the article. I might ask you questions about things not covered in the article or video.

Please include how to say "noon" and "midnight" as well.

Non-standard dialects are welcome too.

[Querneus]

As an example, I'll describe the systems of English and Spanish.

English

Time is generally expressed extremely simply: except for H:00 and H:0M, you can just put the two numbers together!

4:10 (it's) four ten
4:30 (it's) four thirty
4:55 (it's) four fifty-five

H:00 is expressed as "(it's) H o'clock", and H:0M is "(it's) H o' M".

1:00 (it's) one o'clock
1:05 (it's) one o' five

You can survive with just this. In fact, in North American English at least, this is what most people use. There's special expressions for H:15, H:30 and H:45, but they're not used much in these dialects at least.

9:15 (it's) (a) quarter past nine
9:30 (it's) half past nine
9:45 (it's) (a) quarter to ten

Similar expressions exist for other times depending if they're H:01-H:29 or if they're multiples of five within H:35-H:55, but they aren't used much either.

8:09 (it's) nine past eight
8:35 (it's) twenty-five to nine
8:55 (it's) five to nine

12:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. are special.

12:00 a.m. (it's) midnight
12:00 p.m. (it's) noon

Spanish

Time can be expressed by joining the two numbers in an expression: (verb) (feminine article) H y M. Note the verb and article agree in number with the hour.

1:05 (es) la una y cinco
1:10 (es) la una y diez
1:35 (es) la una y treinta y cinco
1:50 (es) la una y cincuenta y cinco

2:05 (son) las dos y cinco
2:10 (son) las dos y diez
2:35 (son) las dos y treinta y cinco
2:50 (son) las dos y cincuenta

H:00 is expressed simply without the minutes, or with en punto. Note that in English, "o'clock" is practically mandatory.

3:00 (son) las tres (en punto)

H:15 and H:30 have particular expressions.

4:15 (son) las cuatro y cuarto
4:30 (son) las cuatro y media

There seems to be a split, basically between Spain and Latin America, on the expression for H:45. Note that ser 'to be' agrees with the next number/noun.

Latin America: 4:45 (es) un cuarto para las cinco
Spain: 4:45 (son) las cinco menos cuarto

An expression similar to that of H:45 is used for multiples of five within H:35 and H:55.

Latin America:
5:35 (son) veinticinco para las seis
5:55 (son) cinco para las seis

Spain:
5:35 (son) las seis menos veinticinco
5:55 (son) las seis menos cinco

Noon and midnight don't take the article, unless you include the number 12.

12:00 a.m. (es) medianoche ~ (son) las doce de la medianoche
12:00 p.m. (es) mediodía ~ (son) las doce del mediodía

How often are these actually used? I only really know about the dialect of El Salvador, where I grew up. There, the H:15, H:30 and the Latin American H:45 expressions are very commonly used, to the point that using the general formula, la(s) H y quince/treinta/cuarenta y cinco, is uncommon.

As something non-standard, in El Salvador, for 1:MM, we never say es but rather son. E.g. 1:05 son la una y cinco, 1:30 son la una y media. The question for asking for the time also uses son: ¿Qué horas son? In contrast, Standard Spanish has ¿Qué hora es?

[Doitsujin]

BTW, in standard German, there are two different German expressions for xx:15 and xx:45.

Depending on the region (or country), you might encounter:

8:15 Viertel nach acht (= a quarter past eight) or viertel neun (=a quarter of nine)
8:45 Viertel vor neun (= a quarter before nine) or drei viertel neun (=three quarters of nine)

If you speak German, you can read more about these regional differences in Bastian Sick's blog post "Von Viertel nach acht bis viertel neun."

[Iversen]

"det tager syv lange og syv brede" (literally 'it takes seven long and seven wide') means 'it takes a long time' in Danish. The expression must eventually have come from the biblical tale about the seven fat and seven lean years in Ancient Egypt, but as you can see the adjectives have been replaced with others in the expression.

As for the hours it is normal to count to twelve, but OK to use all 24 hours if you want to be more pedantic - and I like to be pedantic. With full hours we say "klokken" before the number - both with the 12 and the 24 hour system - but when the time is indicated in a more precise way we can mostly omit it, even in expressions like "henad (klokken) fire" ('towards four o'clock'). And contrary to the poor Anglophones we have a word for 24 hours: "et døgn".

We can say "femten minutter i" or "femten minutter over", but normally go for "kvart i" eller kvart over" (15 minutes before or after the hour - and if the hour is selfevident we don't have to specify it). "Halv to" is of course 13:30. And if we really mean it when we say some time indication (like "klokken to" for 'two o'clock'), then we say "klokken fjorten dut" - and then you won't be "i kridthuset" ('in the chalk house') if you arrive at 14:02.

Kunst079.JPG

[tarvos]

We also have a word for a 24-hour period in Dutch: een etmaal.

[Jaleel10]

Afrikaans

12:00 - Middag
00:00 - Middernag

Morning - oggend/oggendtyd
Early afternoon/morning - voormiddag
Evening - aand
Night - nag
Noon - namiddag
Dawn - skemertyd

Today - vandag
Tomorrow - Môre
Yesterday - gister
The day before yesterday - eergister
The day after tomorrow - oormôre
Weekend - naweek


06:00 - sesuur
17:00 - (namiddag) vyfuur - We usually don't indicate pm or am so you can leave namiddag out

15:15 - Kwart oor drie
14:45 - Kwart voor drie
14:30 - Half drie

07:55 - Vyf (minute) voor agt - With numbers with intervals of five you can exclude 'minute'
07:52 - Agt minute voor agt
07:12 - 12 minute oor sewe
07:20 - 20 (minute) oor sewe

early - vroeg
late(r) - laat / later

What time is it? - Hoe laat is dit?

in the morning - in die oggend
in the evening - in die aand
It's exactly... - dit is presies ...
about/around 8 - about / ongeveer agt (uur)
at 8 - om agt (uur)

Bonus:
A sarcastic joke
Hoe laat is dit? Tyd om vir jou 'n horlosie te kry. (What time is it? Time to get yourself a watch.)

Me typing all this remind me of when my grandpa used to teach me how to tell time and when to use voor and oor

[Elenia]

H:00 is expressed as "(it's) H o'clock", and H:0M is "(it's) H o' M".

1:00 (it's) one o'clock
1:05 (it's) one o' five

You can survive with just this. In fact, in North American English at least, this is what most people use. There's special expressions for H:15, H:30 and H:45, but they're not used much in these dialects at least.

9:15 (it's) (a) quarter past nine
9:30 (it's) half past nine
9:45 (it's) (a) quarter to ten

Similar expressions exist for other times depending if they're H:01-H:29 or if they're multiples of five within H:35-H:55, but they aren't used much either.

8:09 (it's) nine past eight
8:35 (it's) twenty-five to nine
8:55 (it's) five to nine

In British English*, it's perfectly normal to say 'It's one' for 01.00 or 'It's five'. Especially in response to a question about time.

'When does the party start?'
'At seven.'

Also, we can say 'It's five past' instead of 'five past one' or 'one o' five'. The same goes for 'half past', 'quarter to' and other related examples.

'It's quarter past and the teacher still isn't here. Can we go home?' (It's used mostly like this when it's assumed everyone else will have a rough idea of the time. If your class is meant to start at one, everyone there will understand you mean that it's now quarter past one. This one came up a lot when I was at university, where classes started on the hour. If a teacher was more than fifteen minutes late, it was safe to assume that the class had been cancelled and students could go home.)

You can even say 'half three' or 'three thirty'/'three fifteen'

'When I was a child, school started at nine and finished at half three (15.30).'
'Really? In our school, we started at nine fifteen (09.15). We finished at three thirty (15.30) too, though.'

*Or at least, London English

Swedish

Like with the other Germanic languages mentioned above, 13.30 would be rendered as 'half two'

18.30: 'Vad är klockan?'
'Halv sju'

This has led to confusion for me and my husband. Sometimes one of us will understand the time in the wrong language (he'll tell me halv sex [17.30] and I'll think half past six [18.30]) and sometimes one of us will say the time in the wrong language (he'll tell me half six [18.30] but mean halv sex [17.30]).

I have heard 'on the hour' rendered with 'prick' and 'noll noll (00)

'Middag börjar prick åtta (20.00)'
'Vi slutar arton noll noll (18.00)'

People tend to use the 24-hour clock slightly more, in my experience, but it's roughly equal.

A twenty-four hour period is 'ett dygn'.

People are as likely to use 'hur dags' to ask 'when' as they will 'när'. In fact, a lot of time expressions can be rendered with 'dags' in Swedish.

'Det är dags!'/'Dagen är inne!' (It's time!)
'läggdags'/'sängdags' (bed time)

'Vem skulle ringer så här dags?' (Who would call at this time?'

What we refer to with 'past' and 'to' become 'över' and 'i'.

'Vad är klockan?'
'(Klockan är) fem i (två)' (13.55)
'Hon är sju' (19.00)

'Nu är det dags att sluta. Det är kvart över fyra' (16.15)

Clocks are one of the few objects that can still be gendered, but it's pretty rare. They are female, and so can be referred to with 'hon'. Otherwise one would use 'den'. 'Det är' is a set phrase, and doesn't refer to the clock here.

Swedes, have I made a mistake/missed anything out?

[Adrianslont]

In Australian English I have noticed all sorts of time idioms on the radio and tv that people don’t use in their day to day speech. “At the top of the hour”, meaning exactly at x o’clock is one. I’ll go and put on the radio and collect some more.

[jeff_lindqvist]

'Nu är det dags att sluta. Det är kvart över fyra' (16.15)

Clocks are one of the few objects that can still be gendered, but it's pretty rare. They are female, and so can be referred to with 'hon'. Otherwise one would use 'den'. 'Det är' is a set phrase, and doesn't refer to the clock here.

Swedes, have I made a mistake/missed anything out?

I'd say "Den är" (den refers to klockan). Other than that, a very good summary of Swedish expressions.

[Querneus]

You mean cinco?

I do. Thank you.