Hey man, you got the time? Telling Time in the Spanish World

What time is it? Easily a very common question, especially if you're late meeting some of your surf buddies down in San Felipe.

Start with the question, "¿Qué hora es?" ("What time is it?"). Notice the conjugation of ser in the third person here. There are a couple of ways to answer this(obviously!). Separate the possibilities into two categories:

1)If the HOUR is 1, then the beginning of the answer should be "Es la una...."

2)All other times, start with "Son las...."

Now that you have that down, what is the hour? Let's see an example. Suppose it's one o'clock exactly. You say:

Es la una.

All other hours, just add the number, like so:

Son las cinco. It's five o'clock.

If you have to add minutes, then we use the preposition "y" followed by the number of the minutes. So,

Son las dos y veintidós. It's 2:22.
Es la una y doce. It's 1:12.

All quarter-pasts and half-hour time designations are commonly denoted as follows, respectively:

Es la una y cuarto. It's 1:15.
Son las once y media. It's 11:30.

Now, be prepared to be blown away, wholeheartedly. Once we get past the half-hour, we now revert to the NEXT higher hour, and MINUS the minutes.

Es la una menos veinte. It's 12:40.
Son las ocho menos cuarto. It's 7:45.

I remember a Cuban guy I was talking to, and I asked him what the time was. The time happened to be 12:50. He responded with the abridged response:

"Menos diez."

A word about AM/PM: instead of using these terms, Spanish-speakers use de la mañana, de la tarde, and de la noche to emphasize the time. To make it easier on you gringos, just convert the aforementioned terms to "in the morning", "in the afternoon", and "in the evening", respectively. Although, keep in mind that "la tarde" means a little more than "afternoon", especially in Jolly Olde Spain. "La tarde" actually continues until the evening meal, which can last until 8 or 9PM (darn tapas).

If you're thoroughly confused by the weird Spanish time-telling syntax, try explaining to someone learning English what the heck the term "o'clock" means!!

Sigue estudiando,

Professor Joel