Learn how to tell time in German
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Intro |
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| Michael: How do you ask for the time in German? |
| Igor: And how do you tell the time? |
| Michael: At GermanPod101.com, we hear these questions often. In the following situation, Mark Lee asks Marvin Maas about time while waiting for a plane. He says, |
| "What time is it?” |
| Marvin Maas: Wie spät ist es? |
| Dialogue |
| Mark Lee: Wie spät ist es? |
| Marvin Maas: Es ist 14 Uhr 20. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Mark Lee: Wie spät ist es? |
| Michael: "What time is it?" |
| Marvin Maas: Es ist 14 Uhr 20. |
| Michael: "It's 2:20 PM." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Asking for the time is one of the most fundamental things in German. In this lesson, you’ll learn how to ask for the time and answer questions about it. |
| Igor: But, before this, we need to discuss some basics. |
| Michael: That’s right. You need to know that people in Germany use the twelve-hour- and twenty-four hour-clock systems interchangeably. There is no special rule for which system to use, and, even though German has words for AM, |
| Igor: Vormittags, |
| Michael: literally meaning “before noon,” and for PM, |
| Igor: Nachmittags, |
| Michael: literally meaning “after noon,” you will barely hear people adding those words if they talk about time in German. People mostly recognize the actual time from the context of the statement. So it’s logical that, if you say, |
| Igor: Wir treffen uns heute um 3, |
| Michael: meaning “We’ll meet at 3,” people won’t assume that you will wait at the agreed meeting point in the middle of the night. But yet, if you’re not sure, you can always help clarify things by using the twenty-four hour-clock system and ask, |
| Igor: Meinst du 15 Uhr? |
| Michael: meaning “Do you mean 15 o’clock?” |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Now, with this being said, let’s take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Mark asks "What time is it?" |
| Igor: Wie spät ist es? |
| Michael: meaning “What time is it?” Well, if you look at the German question, you won’t find the German word for “time,” which is, |
| Igor: Zeit. |
| Michael: This is because German literally asks “How late is it?” |
| This is the most basic and most common way to ask about the time. You could modify it, to make it more polite, by adding “Excuse me” in front of the questions, |
| Igor: Entschuldigung, wie spät ist es? |
| Michael: meaning “Excuse me, how late is it?” Another very common variation of this question is |
| Igor: Wie viel Uhr ist es? |
| Michael: literally meaning “What hour is it?” Although instead, Germans use “what,” or |
| Igor: Was |
| Michael: and the phrase “how many,” |
| Igor: Wie viel. |
| Michael: There is also one more question, which isn’t that common, but it’s good to be aware of its existence. This is |
| Igor: Welche Uhrzeit haben wir gerade? |
| Michael: meaning “What time do we have right now?” |
| Notice that here we also use the word |
| Igor: Uhrzeit, |
| Michael: which is translated the same way as |
| Igor: Zeit |
| Michael: to “time.” But there is one significant difference between them. While |
| Igor: Zeit |
| Michael: describes time in general, |
| Igor: Uhrzeit |
| Michael: describes time in hours. |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let’s take a look at our second sentence. |
| Do you remember how Mark Lee says "It's 2:20 PM." |
| Igor: Es ist 14 Uhr 20. |
| Michael: literally meaning “It is 14 o’clock 20.” In German, the answer to the question about time is very similar to English. It’s basically just “it is” or “it’s” |
| Igor: Es ist |
| Michael: with the time added at the end, |
| Igor: 14 Uhr 20. |
| Michael: There is only one major difference. While you say “o’clock’” at the end of the sentence in English, in German, you say |
| Igor: Uhr |
| Michael: directly after the hour, and you put the minutes at the end. |
| Also, usually the minutes are given as natural numbers between 1 and 59. But, just like in English, you have set phrases for different periods of time. Let’s start with the easiest one which is the same as in English, “quarter” or |
| Igor: Viertel. |
| Michael: It works the same way as English with phrases like “quarter past,” |
| Igor: Viertel nach |
| Michael: or “quarter to,” |
| Igor: Viertel vor, |
| Michael: literally meaning “a quarter before,” marking fifteen minutes after or before a full hour. So, for instance, “quarter past eight” is |
| Igor: Viertel nach acht. |
| Michael: Then, there is something that might bring some confusion among English speakers. While in English we say “It’s half past ten,” counting the time that passed from the last hour, Germans would count how much time remains until the next hour. So “half past ten” is in German, |
| Igor: Halb elf, |
| Michael: literally meaning “half eleven.” And now the full sentence, |
| Igor: Es ist halb elf. |
| Michael: While using this, however, you would stick to the twelve-hour clock system, since |
| Igor: Es ist Halb siebzehn Uhr, |
| Michael: literally means “It’s half 17 o’clock." This doesn’t sound good in German. Instead, you would say |
| Igor: Es ist halb fünf. |
| Michael: literally “It’s half five.” And there is one more thing that you will hear sooner or later, if you talk with German people. Often, Germans, instead of specifying the exact time, would just say that it’s “shortly before” |
| Igor: kurz vor |
| Michael: and “shortly after” |
| Igor: kurz nach, |
| Michael: a specific hour. So, let’s say that just a few minutes passed after 1 PM. In German, you would say, |
| Igor: Es ist kurz nach eins, |
| Michael: literally “It’s shortly after 1 PM.” |
| [Summary] |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned three different questions to ask for the time, and also how to answer in many different ways. |
| Now, let’s look at some examples to memorize what we learned. Our first example is |
| Igor: Wie spät ist es? |
| Es ist 18 Uhr 34. |
| Michael: meaning “What time is it? It’s 6:34 PM.” |
| Igor: Wieviel Uhr ist es? |
| Es ist viertel nach sieben. |
| Michael: meaning “What time is it? It’s a quarter past seven.” |
| Igor: Welche Uhrzeit haben wir gerade? |
| Es ist halb drei. |
| Michael: meaning “What time is it? It’s half past two.” |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Do you remember our example from the beginning of the lesson? |
| Igor: Wir treffen uns um 3. |
| Michael: “We’ll meet at 3.” In this example, when giving time, we used the preposition “at,” or |
| Igor: um. |
| Michael: This is because we talk about an exact time something takes place instead of asking for the time right now, such as “It’s 2 PM.” So, remember, if something happens at a specific time, we will always use the preposition “at.” Let’s have a look at some examples, |
| Igor: Ihr Paket wird um 12 Uhr zugestellt, |
| Michael: meaning “Your parcel will be delivered at 12 PM” or |
| Igor: Mein Zahnarzttermin ist um 18 Uhr, |
| Michael: which means “My dentist appointment takes place at 6 PM” or, one more, |
| Igor: Ich bin gestern um 10 ins Bett gegangen, |
| Michael: meaning “I went to bed at 10 PM.” |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: There is one more thing before we go, something that causes a lot of misunderstandings even among native speakers! |
| Igor: That's true. I missed so many appointments because of this. |
| Michael: So don't worry if you won't get it straight away! |
| You learned the phrase |
| Igor: viertel nach zwölf und Viertel vor zwölf |
| Michael: before meaning "quarter past twelve and quarter to twelve." Now, in some parts of Germany, people tend to drop the |
| Igor: nach |
| Michael: meaning "past," and |
| Igor: vor |
| Michael: meaning "to," transforming the phrases to |
| Igor: viertel zwölf und drei viertel zwölf |
| Michael: literally meaning "quarter twelve and three quarters twelve." |
| Most Germans would misunderstand this and assume that |
| Igor: Viertel zwölf |
| Michael: means "a quarter to twelve," while |
| Igor: drei viertel zwölf |
| Michael: would mean "three quarters to twelve." But, in this case, the system resembles the way you know from English for half hours, counting the time until the next hour. So |
| Igor: viertel zwölf |
| Michael: or “quarter twelve” means literally that only a quarter of twelve passed, therefore its 11:15 AM. |
| Following this trope, |
| Igor: drei viertel zwölf |
| Michael: or "three quarters twelve" means that three quarters, or 45 minutes, passed since eleven o'clock, so we count it as 11:45 PM. |
| If you ever hear someone saying those phrases, and you are not sure what time the person means, you can just ask |
| Igor: Zwölf Uhr fünfzehn? |
| Michael: meaning "Twelve o'clock fifteen?" It's not a shame to ask. |
| Igor: We do it in Germany all the time. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We’re here to answer them! |
| Igor: Tschüsschen! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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