8.8 Telling the time (2) 时间

Wie spät ist es jetzt in Portsmouth?

Es ist elf.

(Reload for the current time in German!)

 

 

Quarter past/to and half past

The constructions required to express minutes "past" and "to" the hour in German are very similar to the English. The equivalent of "past" is "nach" (= after) and "to" is translated by "vor" (= before). The German word for a "quarter" is "das Viertel".

 

Grammar 4: Quarter past/to and half-past

Es ist Viertel nach zehn

(It is a quarter past ten)

Es ist halb elf

(It is half past ten)

Es ist Viertel vor elf

(It is a quarter to eleven)

 

Expressing "half past" is thus much more tricky. The half hour is counted in German in relation to the following full hour, not the preceding hour as in English. Thus "halb elf" is half past ten and not - as you might expect from the English - half past eleven. Just think of it as being "half to eleven".

Minutes past the hour

 

As in English, you will also hear a fuller version using "die Minute (-n)", the German word for a minute. It is more common to use it when you a giving a number of minutes which is not a multiple of five:

 Es ist vierundzwanzig Minuten vor neun

(It is twenty-four minutes to nine)

 Es ist siebzehn Minuten nach fünf

(It is seventeen minutes past five)

 

Using prepositions

Make a note of the prepositions used in the following key German time phrases:

 

Grammar 6: Prepositions in time phrases

um halb acht

(at half past seven)

gegen halb acht

(at about half past seven)

von zehn (Uhr) bis zwölf (Uhr)

(from ten (o'clock) to twelve (o'clock))

zwischen drei (Uhr) und fünf (Uhr)

(between three (o'clock) and five (o'clock))