Telling the Time

For hundreds, maybe thousands of years we’ve all been obsessed by time. It’s part of our everyday lives. If we don’t know the time we might not be in time or even on time. We could miss our busses and trains, we might be late for appointments, late for work and most importantly, not catch our favourite television programmes.

You can see the time on your watch, if you don’t have a watch there are clocks on walls and on many buildings. If you aren’t near any of those then the chances are your mobile phone can tell you the time. But what if you don’t have any of these, your watch has stopped and your phone is set to a different time zone? How do you ask a stranger for the time?

Asking for the Time

The common question forms we use to ask for the time right now are: ·

• What time is it?
• What is the time?
• Have you got the time?

The common question forms we use to ask at what time a specific event will happen are:
What time...? or When...? ·

• What time does the flight to New York leave? ·
• When does the bus arrive from London? ·
• When does the concert begin?

Giving the Time

There are two common ways of telling the time.

1) Say the hour first and then the minutes. (Hour + Minutes) ·

• 6:25 - six twenty-five
• 8:05 - eight O-five
• 9:11 - nine eleven
• 2:34 - two thirty-four

2) Say the minutes first and then the hour. (Minutes + PAST/TO + Hour)

For minutes 1-30 we use PAST after the minutes.

• 11:20 - twenty past eleven
• 4:18 - eighteen past four

For minutes 31-59 we use TO after the minutes. ·

• 2:35 - twenty-five to three
• 8:51 - nine to nine
• 2:59 - one to three

When it is 15 minutes past the hour we normally say: a quarter past ·

• 7:15 - a quarter past seven

When it is 15 minutes before the hour we normally say: a quarter to

• 12:45 - a quarter to one

When it is 30 minutes past the hour we normally say: half past

• 3:30 - half past three (but we can also say three-thirty)

3) We use o'clock when there are NO minutes.

• 10:00 - ten o'clock
• 5:00 - five o'clock
• 1:00 - one o'clock

Sometimes it is written as 9 o'clock (the number + o'clock)

For 12:00 there are four expressions in English.

• twelve o'clock
• midday = noon
• midnight

4) We use It is or It's to respond to the questions that ask for the time right now.

• It is half past five (5:30).
• It's ten to twelve (11:50)

5) We use the structure AT + time when giving the time of a specific event.

• The bus arrives at midday (12:00).
• The flight leaves at a quarter to two (1:45).
• The concert begins at ten o'clock. (10:00)

We can also use subject pronouns in these responses.

• It arrives at midday (12:00).
• It leaves at a quarter to two (1:45).
• It begins at ten o'clock. (10:00) 6)

We use a.m. (am) for the morning and p.m. (pm) for the afternoon and night

• 3am = Three o'clock in the morning
• 3pm = Three o'clock in the afternoon.