What time is it in Spanish

Cómo decir la hora en español ¿Qué hora es?

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 la una
en punto
It is two o’clock
Son las dos en punto
It is three o’clock
Son las tres en punto
It is four o’clock
Son las cuatro en punto
It is five o’clock
Son las cinco en punto
It is six o’clock
Son las seis en punto
It is seven o’clock
Son las siete en punto
It is eight o’clock
Son las ocho en punto
It is nine o’clock
Son las nueve en punto
It is ten o’clock
Son las diez en punto
It is eleven o’clock
Son las once en punto
It is twelve o’clock
Son las doce 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 la una
y veinticinco
It is five past four o’clock
Son las cuatro
y cinco
It is twelve past four o’clock
Son las cuatro
y doce

Quarter past and half past in Spanish

Although in Spanish we can say son las ocho y treinta or son las siete 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 la una
y cuarto
It’s half past twelve.
Son las doce
y media
It is quarter past seven
Son las siete
y cuarto

When we mean a number of minutes less than the hour, we use the word “menos”.

It is quarter to one.
Es la una
menos cuarto
It is five minutes to three.
Son las tres
menos cinco
It is five minutes to two
Son las dos
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 la una
y veinticinco de la
mañana
It is twenty past four at night
Son las cuatro
y veinte de la
noche
It is half past four in the afternoon
Son las cuatro
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.
Es medianoche

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.

See also  Spanish months in order
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