Telling the time in Spanish is quite simple and straightforward, you won’t have any difficulty telling the time, so let’s go for it!
What time is it in Spanish: ¿Qué hora es?
If you are in Madrid and you want to know what time it is, you have to ask in the following way
What time is it?
¿Qué hora es?
The person you have asked for the time will respond in two possible ways
Es la + the time
Son las + the time
The difference between the two options is that we use “es la” when we say one o’clock, for the rest of the options we will say “son las”. We are going to show all the possible options in the following table
It is one o’clock
Es launa en punto
It is two o’clock
Son lasdos en punto
It is three o’clock
Son lastres en punto
It is four o’clock
Son lascuatro en punto
It is five o’clock
Son lascinco en punto
It is six o’clock
Son lasseis en punto
It is seven o’clock
Son lassiete en punto
It is eight o’clock
Son lasocho en punto
It is nine o’clock
Son lasnueve en punto
It is ten o’clock
Son lasdiez en punto
It is eleven o’clock
Son lasonce en punto
It is twelve o’clock
Son lasdoce en punto
To express a number of minutes
We already know how to tell the hour, now we are going to add minutes and we simply have to add the number we need to the formula you saw before. Remember that in a previous lesson we learned how to say the numbers from 1 to 100 in Spanish, so it will be a piece of cake for you.
Son las / Es la + hour + minutes
It is twenty-five past one o’clock
Es launa y veinticinco
It is five past four o’clock
Son lascuatro y cinco
It is twelve past four o’clock
Son lascuatro y doce
Quarter past and half past in Spanish
Although in Spanish we can say “sonlasocho y treinta“ or “son lassiete y quince“, the most common is to eliminate the numbers for those minutes and use the words “media“ and “cuarto“.
It is a quarter past one
Es launa y cuarto
It’s half past twelve.
Son lasdoce y media
It is quarter past seven
Son lassiete y cuarto
When we mean a number of minutes less than the hour, we use the word “menos”.
It is quarter to one.
Es launa menos cuarto
It is five minutes to three.
Son lastres menos cinco
It is five minutes to two
Son lasdos menos cinco
Specify the part of the day
To specify the part of the day, what we do is to add one of three possible expressions after the time and we can specify whether we are talking about the morning, afternoon or evening.
De la mañana (Morning).
De la tarde (Afternoon, roughly until dark).
De la noche (After dark).
It is twenty-five pasts one in the morning.
Es launa y veinticinco de la mañana
It is twenty past four at night
Son lascuatro y veinte de la noche
It is half past four in the afternoon
Son lascuatro y media de la tarde
Noon and midnight in Spanish
Instead of saying “it is twelve o’clock at night”, we say “it is midnight”. Also, instead of saying “it is twelve o’clock noon”, we say “it is noon”.
It is noon
Es mediodía
It is midnight.
Esmedianoche
Final considerations
We have seen that learning how to tell the time is not very complicated, it is quite similar to the English way of telling the time, so now you are able to tell the time at any time of the day.
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