Hours and telling the time

Hey there, how are you today?

Can you tell the time in English? Are you a punctual person? Are you a patient person? Are you an organized person? Do you usually arrive early, late or on time? Let's talk about telling the time!

First of all, to talk about time, you must know the numbers! Once you know numbers, time gets easier.

When you talk about time, there are two possible systems to use to count hours. You can use the 24-hour system or the 12-hour system. That means you can count the hours in cycles of 24 hours or in double cycles of 12 hours. Which one do you use normally in your language/country?

For the 24-hour system, there is no mystery, each hour is one. For the 12-hour system, we must add AM or PM, so that it is clear if we are talking about the morning, the afternoon or the evening/night.

AM and PM come from Latin, "Ante Meridiem" and "Post Meridiem", meaning "before midday" and "after midday". So AM is from 00h until 11h59 and PM is from 12h until 23h59.

Examples for 12 x 24:

13 o'clock is 1 o'clock PM.

16 o'clock is 4 o'clock PM.

3 o'clock is 3 o'clock AM.

5 o'clock is 5 o'clock AM.

Of course the context makes a big difference and sometimes it is just obvious which time you're talking about if you use a 12-hour system to talk about the time.

When you talk about exact hours, you may say "o'clock", "sharp", AM, PM or even not add anything depending on the context. It is always to add "it is/it's" before informing the time or adding "at" before informing the time of something.

Examples:

It is 1 o'clock now.

I wake up at 7AM.

She always goes to be at 1AM.

The lesson is at 4.

We start work at 6PM.

It's 11AM now, you have to wake up!

He finishes at 6 sharp.

The protest starts at 2PM. You must come!

When adding minutes, there are some different options to talk about the time. The first option is reading the time just as it shows, saying the hours and the minutes. Another way, is counting the minutes that have already passed since the last hour or the minutes left for the next hour. We must also learn some new vocabulary for that!

Half: 1/2, basically, 30 minutes.

Quarter: 1/4, basically 15 minutes.

Past: Indicating the minutes after a certain hour.

To: Indicating the minutes to complete the next hour.

Examples:

2:10 - It is two ten./It's ten past 2.

6:15 - It's six fifteen./It's fifteen past six./It's a quarter past six.

12:30 - It's twelve thirty./It's thirty past twelve./It's half past twelve.

8:07 - It's eight seven./It's eight oh seven./It's seven past eight.

18:40 - It's eighteen forty./It's six forty./It's twenty to seven./ It's twenty to nineteen.

11:50 - It's eleven fifty./ It's ten to twelve./It's ten to midday./It's ten to midnight.

20:23 - It's twenty twenty-three./It's eight twenty three./It's twenty-three past eight./It's twenty-three past twenty.

Whether you see the time on a clock (on the wall) or on a watch (on your wrist), there are always different ways to talk about time. Take what you find easier and practice it! I hope it is easier to talk about time now! If you wanna practice with me, you can schedule a lesson!