Spanish time expressions are among the most important for anyone who is starting to study the language and hoping to ultimately achieve fluency in Spanish. Understanding how to express the time correctly is essential for organising yourself, so that you make it on time to your meetings, appointments, activities or events, whether professional or personal.
In this guide on how to tell time in Spanish, we’ll make sure you get to grips with the variety of different Spanish time expressions. After you read through this post and once you learn how to tell time in Spanish, you’ll be well on your way to making it on time to your next meet-up!
The basics of telling time in Spanish
The first thing you need to know when telling time in Spanish is how to say the numbers, which is usually one of the first things you’ll be taught in your online Spanish courses or in your in-person Spanish courses if you decide to go to Spain to learn Spanish in Madrid. Then, after mastering your numbers, from one to twelve, you can learn how to tell time in Spanish.
In Spanish, the main o’clock expressions will take the form of “Es la…” (literally “It is”) for one o’clock and “Son las…” (literally “They are”) for all plural hours. Here is the full list:
- Es la una = It’s one o’clock
- Son las dos = It’s two o’clock
- Son las tres = It’s three o’clock
- Son las cuatro = It’s four o’clock
- Son las cinco = It’s five o’clock
- Son las seis = It’s six o’clock
- Son las siete = It’s seven o’clock
- Son las ocho = It’s eight o’clock
- Son las nueve = It’s nine o’clock
- Son las diez = It’s ten o’clock
- Son las once = It’s eleven o’clock
- Son las doce = It’s twelve o’clock
As for the number of minutes past the hour or to the next hour, you use the word “and” or “y” for the former and you subtract using “minus” or “menos” for the latter. Here you have a list of examples:
- Son las tres y cuarto = It’s quarter past three
- Son las tres y media = It’s half past three
- Son las cuatro menos diez = It’s ten minutes to four
Finally, when it comes to indicating which part of the day you’re referring to, you’ll want to use one of these three time periods:
- … de la mañana = … in the morning
- … de la tarde= … in the afternoon/evening
- … de la noche = … at night
How to write times in Spanish
As for writing the time in Spanish, you’ll find that the 24-hour clock is usually preferred to the 12-hour clock. It can be written in two main ways. The first is the regular way of telling time in Spanish or any language, which would be something like 10:30 or 18:00.
Then, you may also see the time written in Spanish with something like 15h or 15h30. Here, the h stands for how many hours you are talking about. This is quite a common and informal way to tell time in Spanish.
Other important time expressions in Spanish
Now that you know how to say the time in Spanish, let’s take a look at some related vocabulary. Here, we’ll outline a few other Spanish time expressions, which aren’t related to specific times but which can be useful when discussing timings.
- Hoy = Today
- Mañana = Tomorrow
- Pasado mañana = The day after tomorrow
- Ayer = Yesterday
- Anteayer = The day before yesterday
- Mediodía = Midday
- Medianoche = Midnight
- Madrugada = Early in the morning