This is a lesson on how to tell time (tiempo) in Spanish. This is one of the few asspects of Spanish I know the most about. So here we go.

Telling time in Spanish is a bit different then english. In english you would say 'It is one o'clock in the morning', while in Spanish you would say:

es la una de de la mañana

But before we get to such things as that you must learn how to ask 'What time is it?' in Spanish. It is a simple phrase that goes like this:

¿Qué hora es? or if you are literal: ¿Cuándo es?

But we'll use the first one. (The second one means, literally when is it?. Now that you can ask the time it's time you learn to answer if asked or understand the answer that is said.  Now there are a few rules to this. When you want to say 'One o'clock' you would put:

La una

Now if you want to answer with anything more than one, say 2 hasta 12. You would say something like this:

Son las dos/tres/cuatro/cinco/seis/seite/ocho/nueve/diez/once

Now to say 'It is 3:15'. You could say 'Son las tres quince' But people usually say instead:

Son las tres y cuarto (not 'cuatro' which is 4)

That means 'It's three and a quarter' (a quarter of 1 hour are 15 minutes. Maths.)

When you wish to say something is quarter-past or __:15 you would instead put the number followed by 'y cuarto'. It goes the same with the one o'clock rule as well. It would just look like La una y cuarto. The same rule applies with the time that would say __:30. So if you wanted to say 11:30 you would say:

Son las once y media

With the exception that the '30' isn't cuarto it's 'media', in english, a half. Half an hour are 30 minutes. Maths again.

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Now then there is a special rule for any time after the half-past mark. You would have to put the time from the next number 'menos' the time it is. A little confusing? Not really here's an example:

You wish to say 9:45 so you would instead say: Son las diez menos cuarto. (It's 10 minus one quarter)

Or a harder one: 5:35: Son las seis menos vientecinco(25).

So you take the next hours time (if 9 go to 10) and menos the amount to reach the time (if 45 menos cuarto {15}). Cuarto also stands for the 15 mark or quarter past. You don't need the half-past marker here. For a time say if it was __:34 you would menos vienteseis (26) in order to tell the correct time. It is very important you can count in Spanish to tell time.

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Now there is one more special rule to go along with all this. And that is telling the time if it's noon or midnight. Instead of saying Son las doce you would just say:

Es medianoche (midnight) or Es mediodía (noon).

For this you won't need what I'm about to teach you next, which is about what time of day the amt. of time comes in. You would just say it as is and your done.

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Now that you've learned all that it's time you learned to tell which time of day (día) and night (noche) that the time takes place in. This is a simple concept. You will use the endings mañana, tarde, and noche these endings stand for different times in the day.

mañana- manaña usually stands for 'tomorrow' but in this case it stands for 'morning'. Use this ending from one in the morning to noon.

tarde- this stands for 'afternoon' and as it says it's the time after noon until 6 o'clock.

noche- this stands for 'night' and seeing as it's night you will be using it as your last set of time. Use this ending from 6 o'clock to midnight.

Those are the three endings you will use to end the time zone you are in. Mañana is the one with the largest range in time but seeing as most are sleeping through that time (not me) you usually only use it at the office or school around 7 hasta noon. Anyways, now when you are placing these after what you say you always say de la ___. Ignore masculine and feminine rules here. The definate article is always la. Even for one o'clock (because it's la hora).

Now if you wished to say the time and it's in the morning it would go like this:

It's 9:45 am. You would say: Son las diez menos un cuarto de la mañana.

Same thing only in the afternoon:

It's 3:30 in the afternoon. You would say: Son las tres y media de la tarde.

Once again but at night:

It's 8:35 pm. You would say: Son las nueve menos vientecinco de la noche.

If it's noon or midnight just stick to rule above as I've told you. The same rule applies to 1 o'clock, only you'd say:

Es la una de la manaña/tarde

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Vocabulario

day- día
night- noche
afternoon- tarde
morning- mañana
time- tiempo
clock- reloj
noon- mediodía
midnight- medianoche

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-Spanish Classroom