Crazy Hotcakes: The Time / La Hora

Asking the time / Preguntando la hora:

Telling the time

To tell someone what the time is, we can say "The time is..." or, more usually, "It's...". Here is a typical dialogue:

Question:	What's the time, please?
Answer:	It's three o'clock.

The chart below shows you two different ways to tell someone what the time is.

	more formal mas formal	less formal menos formal
	It's... / son las...	It's... / son las...
3.00	three o'clock / tres en punto	three
3.02	just gone three o'clock / 3 pasadas	three oh two
3.03	three minutes past three / 3:03	three oh three
3.05	five past three / 3:05	three oh five
3.09	nine minutes past three / 3:09	three oh nine
3.10	ten past three / 3:10	three ten
3.15	a quarter past three / 3:15	three fifteen
3.20	twenty past three / 3:20	three twenty
3.21	twenty-one minutes past three / 3:21	three twenty-one
3.25	twenty-five past three / 3:25	three twenty-five
3.30	half past three / 3:30	three thirty
3.35	twenty-five to four / 3:35	three thirty-five
3.40	twenty to four / 3:40	three forty
3.45	a quarter to four / 3:45	three forty-five
3.50	ten to four / 3:50	three fifty
3.55	five to four / 3:55	three fifty-five
3.57	three minutes to four / 3:57	three fifty-seven
3.58	nearly four o'clock / 3:59 (casi las 4)	three fifty-eight
4.00	four o'clock / 4:00	four