In English, the 12-hour time system is commonly used. Exist two main ways to answer to the question “What time is it?” ("What time is it?"). In this case, the answer, as a rule, begins with the phrase “ It’ s…” (= “ It is…") - "Now…".

1 way - hours + minutes

7:45 – It’ s seven forty– five.
4:11 – It‘ s four eleven.
6:05 – It’ s six O– five. (“0” is pronounced like the English letter “O”).

Method 2 - minutes + preposition PAST / TO + hours

Pretext PAST ("after")- use to denote 1-30 minutes, while saying the hour that has already come:

3:18 - It's eighteen (minutes) past three.
11:25 - It's twenty-five past eleven.

Pretext TO ("before")- use to denote 31-59 minutes, while saying the number of minutes remaining until the next hour:

7:56 - It's four (minutes) to eight.
9:59 - It's one to ten.
2:38 - It's twenty-two to three.

A quarter past- to When the clock is 15 or 45 minutes, it is customary to use the constructions “a quarter past” ("quarter after") or “ a quarter to” (“quarter before”) respectively:

5:15 - It's a quarter past five.
8:45 - It's a quarter to nine.

half past- when the clock is 30 minutes, we use the construction “ half past” (“half after”) and denote the hour that has already arrived:

9:30 – It’ s half past nine(but we can also say “ nine– thirty”).

O'clock- to When it is necessary to voice even time (without minutes), we use “ o’ clock", which translates as " on the clock»:

3:00 - It's three o'clock.
5:00 - It's five o'clock.

In addition, for clarification in English, abbreviations are often added to time “ a. m.” (from lat. “ ante meridiem" - "before noon"), “ p. m.” (from lat. “ post meridiem" - "afternoon") or expressions “ in the morning” (morning), “in the noon” (days), “in the evening” (evenings) etc. For example:

It’ s one a. m. - It's midnight now.
It’ s one p. m. - It's one o'clock now.
It's 5 o'clock in the morning.
It's 2 o'clock in the afternoon.

Time is something we face every day. For example, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing I look at is the clock.

How often during the day do you ask the question: "What time is it?". How many times do you answer? I think more than once.

Therefore, it is very important to be able and know how to correctly ask the time and say in English: “What time is it?”.

• What do am and pm mean in English time and how to understand them?

How to ask the time in English?

There are some basic phrases you can use to ask what time it is in English. The simplest and most common:

What time is it?
What time is it?

What time is it now?
What time is it?

What is the time?
What time?

It is worth noting that you can ask such questions to friends, family members, colleagues and other acquaintances. When you address strangers, do not forget about polite forms. "Excuse me..."(sorry) - this is how you should start your question and / or add at the end please(please).

Excuse me, what time is it?
Excuse me, what time is it?

What's the time, please?
Could you tell me what time it is, please?

Excuse me, what time is it now, please?
Excuse me, can you tell me what time it is now?

These were the most common options for how to ask the time in English, so you can safely use them in life. There are several more ways.

Could you tell me the time, please?
Could you tell me the time please?

Do you know what time it is now?
Do you know what time it is?

Could you tell me the right time, please?
Could you tell me the exact time please?

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How to say the time in English?

How do you say what time it is in English? Here you have to be careful. After all, English says time in a completely different way than in Russian.

The answer to the question about time is built like this:

What time is it?
It is two o'clock.
Two hours.

What time is it?
It is seven o'clock.
Seven o'clock.

What time is it?
It is four o'clock.
Four o'clock.

But how to understand what time of day is meant? For this we can use these words:

In the morning- in the morning;
In the afternoon- in the afternoon;
In the evening- in the evening;
At night- at night.

It is eight o'clock in the evening.
Eight o'clock in the evening.

It is three o'clock in the afternoon.
Three PM.

It is one o'clock at night.
The hour of the night.

To designate the time of day in English, the most commonly used designations are: AM and PM. I note that in official writing we use only these designations.

What do AM and PM mean in English time and how to understand them?

We are used to having 24 hours in a day. “It's 22:00 now,” we can answer in Russian, meaning that it's ten o'clock in the evening. The US, UK, and many other countries use the 12-hour time format. According to him, the day is divided into two halves of 12 hours: before noon (AM) and afternoon (PM).

This is not quite familiar to us, so most people have difficulties here. Now let's put everything on the shelves so that you can understand.

What does A stand forM?

AM(from Latin ante meridiem - until noon) - this interval starts at 12 o'clock at night (midnight) and ends at 12 o'clock in the afternoon (noon). That is, it lasts from 00:00 to 12:00.

This is how we tell the time using AM:

It's two AM.
Two o'clock at night. (2:00)

It's ten AM.
Ten in the morning. (10:00)

It's five AM.
Five am. (5:00)

Note that at the end of the sentence we already do not set o "clock. With AM and PM, you don't need to use it.

What does PM stand for?

PM(from the Latin post meridiem - after noon) - this interval begins at 12 o'clock in the afternoon (noon) and ends at 12 at night (midnight). That is, it lasts from 12:00 to 00:00.

This is how we tell the time using PM:

It's two PM
Two o'clock in the afternoon. (14:00)

It's ten PM
Ten p.m. (22:00)

It's five PM
Five pm. (17:00)

How to say minutes in English?

How to say time in English with minutes? After all, almost always we say both hours and minutes. Here are two ways:

1. We speak numbers.

This is the easiest and most understandable way. In this case, we call only 2 digits. The first digit stands for hours and the second for minutes.

It's eight twenty two.
Eight hours twenty-two minutes. (8:22)

It's one forty.
Hour forty. (13:40)

It's two sixteen.
Two hours sixteen minutes. (2:16)

2. We use the prepositions to and past.

In this case, we specify the hour and minutes. Since this method is more common, let's look at it in more detail.

past use

Past(after) is used to show how much minutes elapsed after any hour. For example, after 13:00, 19:00, 23:00, etc.

We use this preposition only when the minute the hand is in the right half of the clock, i.e. shows the minutes from 1 to 30.

Look at the examples and everything will become clear immediately. Pay attention to the translation!

It's thirty minutes past seven. (7:13)
thirteen minutes eighth.

It's twenty-five minutes past one. (1:25)
Twenty five minutes second.

It's ten minutes past nine. (9:10)
Ten minutes tenth.

How do we translate into Russian?

Russian logic is slightly different from English, and you should pay attention to this when translating. Let's look at an example.

Use to

To(before) is used to show how many minutes are left until some hour. For example, until 13:00, 19:00, 23:00, etc.

We use this preposition if the minute hand is in the left half, that is from 31 to 59 minutes.

For example, if we see 5:53 on the clock, then we say that there are 7 minutes left until 6 o'clock.

It's twelve to five . (4:48)
Twelve to five.

It's five minutes to nine . (8:55)
Five minutes to nine.

It's ten minutes to three. (2:50)
Ten minutes to three.

And this is how it is translated into Russian. Let's look at the Russian/English analogy.

How to say half of such and such an hour (30 minutes)?

In Russian we often say not Thirty minutes first, and floor first. We can say this in English using the word half (half). We can use this word only with the preposition past. By the way, pay attention to the translation! The British have a very simple logic - they just look at what the clock is showing now and call this particular hour.

It's half past five . (5:30)
Half past five. (literally: half after five.)

It's half past two . (2:30)
Half past two. (literally: half after two .)

It's half past six . (6:30)
Half past six. (literally: half after six .)

Why do we use past? Because “to”, that is, “before”, begins with 31 minutes, and 30 minutes enters the past zone. The British believe that 30 minutes is still closer to the hour that is coming. But from the 31st minute, everything changes ...

How to say a quarter of an hour (15 minutes)?

In English (as in Russian) we use the word quarter - quarter (15 minutes). Quarter we can use both with to, so with past.

If we're talking about the beginning of the hour(on the clock 15 minutes), then we use past. That is, we show that 15 minutes have passed since some hour.

It's quarter past three. (3:15)
Quarter past four. (literally: a quarter after three .)

It's quarter past seven. (7:15)
Quarter past seven. (literally: a quarter after seven .)

It's quarter past eleven . (11:15)
Quarter past twelve. (literally: a quarter after eleven .)

If we're talking about end of the hour(on the clock 45 minutes), then we use to .

In this case, we show that there are 15 minutes left until some hour. So 45 minutes have already passed.

It's quarter to three. (2:45)
A quarter to three. (literally: a quarter up to three.)

It's quarter to seven. (6:45)
Quarter to seven. (literally: a quarter up to seven.)

It's quarter to two. (1:45)
A quarter to two. (literally: a quarter up to two.)

What to do now? To easily call and say time, you need to develop a skill, that is, bring it to automatism. Now, when you see a clock, always think (or rather, pronounce it) how it will be in English. Start with the task below.

Reinforcement task

In the meantime, practice, translate into English:

What time is it now?

Excuse me, what time is it?

It is now 5 minutes past seven (It is now 5 minutes past 6).

It's 15 minutes past two.

It's now 10 minutes to eight in the morning.

It's now 20 minutes past five.

It's half past three now.

Write your answers in the comments, and after 3 days I will post the correct options, and you can check yourself.