Telling The Time

Stage 2 Stage 3 Stage 4

A very important part of any day is knowing the time. Asking someone for the time is very simple – What time is it, please? Or – Could you tell me the time, please?

But being able to say what the time is or understanding what the answer was is very important and often a little more difficult. So, let’s have a look at how to tell the time in English.

When we are talking about a particular hour, we can use “o’clock” to say it is exactly that hour. For example, 1300 is one o’clock, or 1700 is five o’clock.

Any time on the clock between one minute and 30 minutes, we say it is PAST the hour. For example, 1312 is twelve past one. Or 0923 is 23 minutes past nine.

Any time on the clock between 31 minutes and 59 minutes, we say it is TO the hour. For example, 1443 is seventeen minutes to three. This is sometimes a little difficult to understand. This is saying that there are 17 minutes before it is three o’clock.

Another example: 1037 is twenty-three minutes to eleven. This means that there are 23 minutes before it is eleven o’clock.

When the time has the numbers 5, 10, 20 and 25 we don´t say «minutes». For example – 0810 is ten past eight. Or 1840 is twenty to seven.

When the time is at thirty minutes, we use the word HALF, and we say it is half past the hour. For example, 0630 is half past six. Or 1530 is half past three.

When the time is at fifteen or forty-five minutes, we say it is A QUARTER PAST or A QUARTER TO. For example, 0415 is a quarter past four. Or 1745 is a quarter to six.

There are other ways of telling the time, but this is a very simple and easy way of doing it.

Don’t forget, you can practise telling the time more in Callan Method Stages 2 and 3!

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Jordi Soler

Profesor в Callan School

Jordi se licenció en Periodismo y ha escrito artículos periodísticos sobre varias temas políticos y sociales, así como en el campo de la Comunicación Corporativa.
También ha trabajado en el campo de la traducción. Tiene tanto el ELE (Certificadoen Enseñanza de Español como Lengua Extranjera) como el CELTA (Certificado en Enseñanza del Idioma Inglés para Adultos). Jordi comenzó a trabajar como profesor de español e inglés para Callan en 2018.

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