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5 - Telling the time

To tell the time in french, you follow military time, and you would say something like "1 hour, 30 minutes" to say 1:30 AM, and "13 hours, 30 minutes" to say 1:30 PM:

  • Il est sept heures = it's 7 oclock
  • Il est treize heures = it's 1:00 PM

adding and subtracting numbers​

here is some necessary info before learning this trick

  • To say a "quarter" (15 min) in french, it's le quart.
  • To say a "half" (30 min) in french, it's le demie.
  • To add minutes, you use et which means "and"
  • To subtract minutes, you use moins which means "minus"

The basic formula of adding minutes and quarters is so, noting that you omit the definite article and just say the number of quart, except in the case of moins.

et + (quart/demie/number)

moins + (le quart/le demie/number)

info

Spanish Comparison: Et quart ≈ y cuarto, et demie ≈ y media, moins le quart ≈ menos cuarto. French uses moins for minutes before the hour, like Spanish menos.

Now we can get into some examples:

  • Il est onze heures moins dix → It's 10:50, or 11:00 minus 10.
  • Il est douze heures et quart → It's 12:15, or 12 plus a quarter.
  • Il est cinq heures moins le quart → It's 4:45, or 5:00 minus a quarter.
  • Il est neuf heures et demie → It's 9:30

specific amount of minutes​

To add a specific amount of minutes without going through the "minus a quarter" or "3 quarters" bullshit, you can simply append the minutes onto the end of "heures" like so:

  • Il est sept heures trente-cinq = It's 7:35

AM and PM​

If you don't want to follow military time, you can say AM and PM with the french equivalents of "in the morning", "in the afternoon" and "in the night":

  • du matin (in the morning, de la mañana)
  • de l'après-midi (in the afternoon, de la tarde)
  • du soir (in the evening, de la noche)

Here are some examples:

  • Il est dix heures du matin → It's 10'oclock in the morning
  • Il est quattre heures de l'après-midi → It's 4'oclock in the afternoon.
  • Il est dix heures du soir → It's 10'oclock in the evening

Colloquial emphasis​

To say the equivalents of "'oclock sharp" or "around oclock", you have these words in french:

  • pile: when used with time, it is the equivalent of "sharp".
    • Il est sept heures pile = It's 7 o'clock sharp
  • ver: when used with time, it is the equivalent of "around".
    • Il est vers sept heures = It's around 7 o'clock
  • environ: when used with time, it is the equivalent of "about".
    • Il est environ sept heures = It's about 7 o'clock

Asking the time​

To ask, the time, you can say, "Quelle heure est-il ?"

Practice Quiz​

Test your knowledge of telling time in French with this interactive quiz!

More practice​

stage 1: targeted practice

Now it's time for the self-guided practice where you write sentences down to consolidate your memory. For each time question, write down at least two different ways to say it in french.

  1. What are two different ways to say "It's 4:00 PM in the afternoon" in french?
  2. How would you say "It's 3:15 in the morning" in French?
  3. How would you say "It's 10:30 in the morning" in French?
  4. How would you say "It's 11:45 in the evening" in French?
  5. How would you say "It's 12:00 PM" in French?
  6. How would you say "It's 1:00 AM" in French?
  7. How would you say "It's 2:30 PM" in French?
  8. How would you say "It's 3:45 PM" in French?
  9. How would you say "It's 4:00 AM" in French?
  10. How would you say "It's 5:15 in the afternoon" in French?

stage 2: free form writing

Challenge: Write a paragraph of a conversation where someone asks another person what time it is.