How to say the time in English

What's the time right now? Can you answer this question quickly, without making a mistake? Watch and learn how to talk about time in English. Understand the two ways to express 1:15, 1:30, or 1:45. Make appointments or talk about schedules confidently and clearly. Answer this common question without stress or confusion, starting right now! Test yourself with the quiz at https://www.engvid.com/speaking-english-how-to-express-time/

TRANSCRIPT

Hi. I'm Rebecca from www.engvid.com. In this lesson, we're going to learn how to tell time in English. Okay? So, for example, if someone tells you: "I'll meet you at ten to ten", what does that mean? What is "ten to ten"? We're going to find out. Okay? Let's go.

All right, so here's the clock that I've drawn. Excuse my drawing, but what time does it say? Okay. So, let's examine the clock. So, this is called the hour hand - it shows the hour; and this is called the minute hand. Okay? The shorter hand is the hour hand, and the longer hand is the minute hand. All right.

And right now the hour hand is pointed to 2, and this is pointed to 12, so that means it is 2 o'clock. All right? So, as we go around, it would be 1 o'clock, 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, 4 o'clock, 5 o'clock, 6 o'clock, 7 o'clock, 8 o'clock, 9 o'clock, 10 o'clock, 11 o'clock, and 12 o'clock. Now, if you just say: "12 o'clock"... If you don't know what it's like outside - is it dark? Is it 12 o'clock at night? Is it 12 o'clock in the afternoon? So, sometimes when it's 12, we just say: "Twelve noon" or "Midnight". Okay? If it's night, we say: "Midnight". But we'll get to that.

Now, there are many things you need to know in order to be able to say the time or express time correctly. All right? So, let's go through what they are. So, as I said, first of all, if it's a complete hour, on the hour, then just say the hour-the number-plus "o'clock". All right? That's the expression. 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock. Right?

Now, then let's start going by five-minute intervals around the clock and see what happens. So, here we would say: "Two oh five". Say it after me: "Two oh five". Good. The next one: "Two ten". Okay? That would be here. "Two ten". Then here: "Two fifteen, two twenty, twenty-five, two thirty, two thirty-five, two forty, two forty-five, two fifty, two fifty-five". Okay? So, we're going by five-minute intervals right now. And it could be something in between; it could be "two twelve", or it could be "two twenty-three", but usually people round off to those... These numbers, here. Okay?

So, one way that you can tell the time, and I think it's the easiest, as long as you know these basic numbers up to 59, but certainly the numbers by five, is just to say that: -"Two oh five." -"What's the time?" -"It's two fifteen. It's two fifty. It's two forty." Okay? "Two forty-five", and so on. That's the easy way, and you can say that, but you might hear people using another expression or a few other expressions as well, so let me explain those to you.

So, as I said, this you can call: "Two fifteen" or: "Quarter past two". So, why are we saying that? Because in this method what we're doing is we're dividing the clock into quarters. Okay? Like this and like this. So, when it's 2:15, it's a quarter past two or a quarter after two - after two o'clock, but we don't have to say: "after two o'clock", we can just say at that point: "It's a quarter past two. It's a quarter after two." Okay?

Then, when it comes to 2:30, we could say: "It's two thirty", or we could say: "It's half", right? Half from the 12 to the 6: "It's half past two"; that's how we express that. And at 2:45, we can also say: "It's a quarter to three. Quarter to". Now, anything after the 6... You see this other arrow, here? From here to the 12, we have to say something "to". "Quarter to twelve. Quarter to three." Okay? It would be quarter to three if it was 2:45. All right? Or: "Twenty-five minutes to three". You could say that, but those you'll probably just hear people saying: "Two thirty-five, two forty", and so on. But on these quarter and half, people do use these other expressions. Okay? So, again: "Quarter past two. Half past two. Quarter to three." Okay?

Now, remember when I said: "Ten to ten"? So that was 10 minutes to 10... 10 minutes to 10 o'clock. All right? 10 minutes before 10 o'clock. So, when people say: "Ten to ten" - 10 minutes to 10. It's not used very often, but sometimes people just use it in short. Okay? All right.

Let's look at a couple of other things you might see when talking about the time. So, when we're going from 12 midnight to about 11:59 in the afternoon, that period of time is referred to as "am - ante meridiem", but don't worry about what it stands for; people just say "am" and "pm". Ante meridiem and post meridiem. Don't worry about those. […]