La Hora: The Time

​Let’s learn about time! When on the topic of time, you will need to know how to say the numbers 1-60. When you wish to say a number higher than 30, you will need to know this special formula: the tens place of the number + y + the ones place number. For example, if you are trying to say 35…

                        Treinta + y + cinco = treinta y cinco

            Now, here is a chart with the numbers on it:

 

Source: http://www.donquijote.org/spanishlanguage/numbers/numbers1.asp

​Another important aspect of time is knowing how to ask for the time. There are multiple ways to ask for it. Here they are:

The next thing that you need to know is how to tell what time it is. There are multiple steps to this, so just try to memorize them as soon as you can!

            First, if the time is exactly on the hour, you can say “Son las _____.” In the blank goes the number of the hour. The only exception to the rule is when it is one o’clock. When it is that time, instead of the prefix being “son las”, it is “es la”.

            The next thing that you need to know is specifics that you can say if it is a certain time. These are some specifics that you will need to know:

Like it was said earlier, time is a confusing thing. I will now show you how to say the time in specific parts of the hour.

1.     On the hour, like I said earlier, you simply say “Son las ____” If you want to get fancy, you can tag an “es punto” on at the end, which basically translates to “on the dot”. For example, “It is 9:00” would be “Son las nueve (en punto)”

2.     Before half-past, you can simply say the hour and then the number of minutes. For example, “It is 4:19” would be “Son las cuatro y nueve.”

3.     At quarter after, like I said earlier, you say “y cuarto” (CUIDADO [Be careful]: It is very easy to mix up cuaTRO (four) and cuaRTO (:15)) For example, if I want to say “It is 8:15,” then I would say “Son las ocho y cuarto.”

4.     At half past, like I said earlier, you say “y media.” For example, if I wanted to say “It is 11:30,” I would say “Son las once y media.”

5.     After half past is where it gets tricky. You can either stick with the original way with the hour and then “y” and then the number of minutes, but you could also do it another way. The most important word to know in this method is “menos” which means “minus”. If I wanted to say “It is 3:47”, I would say “Son las cuatro menos trece.” Do you see what I did? This literally translates to “It is four minus thirteen.” To show both methods of saying it, I will now give an example. To say “It is 6:50”, you could either say 1) “Son las seis y cincuenta.” 2) “Son las siete menos diez.”

6.     At quarter of, like I said earlier, you can say two things. The most common one is to say “menos cuarto”. Again, “menos” means minus and “cuarto” means quarter past. Therefore, that would be __:45. The other way to say quarter of is simply saying the hour and then “cuarenta y cinco”, which is 45. For example, if I wanted to say 7:45, I could either say 1) “Son las ocho menos cuarto.” 2) Son las siete y cuarenta y cinco.” The most common way, however, is the first one.

            Wow that was a lot of information! Keep practicing until you get it! Good luck!

In this video, Emmanuel is doing his homework at home, and his mom (Leah) tells him to go to bed (“Voy a dormir”) and he asks what time it is, and she tells him that it’s midnight. He then goes to bed.