What time is it? French hour and minute

Context

Keeping track of time is NOT my strongest suit, unfortunately, and my students (my wife, too) will be very happy to confirm it…(the poor kids always have to remind me that time is up and that they need to be on their way to another class). Perhaps somebody should teach me once again how to read the time on my watch. Hehe, I wouldn’t mind Especially if we do this in French… This could be a lot of fun! So let’s start! (Note: if you haven’t studied the numbers in French, I strongly encourage you to do so before continuing. This web page is a very good way to start. http://www.languageguide.org/im/num/fr/ . A little later on, I will design my own lesson about numbers in French.

Goals

In this lesson, we will do the following:

→ ask what time it is in French and give the correct answer
→ learn time-related expressions such as le matin (the morning)/ l’après-midi (the afternoon)…

Chapter 2 –> Lesson 3

Level of difficulty: Easy

1. Asking “what time is it?” ? Quelle heure est-il?

2. Answering “It is…(time goes here)” ? Il est…

3. For twelve o’clock noon, use midi; for twelve o’clock midnight, use minuit.

4. If you want to express the fractions of the hour, use the following patterns:
→ Minutes after the hour (up to 30) are indicated following the hour. For example:
Il est onze heures dix-huit. It’s 11:18
Il est huit heures dix. It’s 8:10

→ The half hour is expressed by et demi(e).
Il est dix heures et demie. It’s 10:30
Il est midi et demi. It’s 12:30
If you are wondering why demi(e) is written sometimes with (e) at the end, and sometimes not, it simply because of the gender of the words heure(s) and midi. Heure(s) is feminine, so its half is also feminine (demie). But midi is masculine, so its half will also be masculine (demi).

→ Minutes after the hour is expressed with moins.
Il est neuf heures moins dix. It’s 8:50.
Il est deux heures moins vingt-cinq. It’s 1:35.
(Note: As you can see from the two examples above, moins means minus.

→ The quarter hour is expressed with quart.
Il est une heure et quart. (It’s a quarter after one) [1:15]
Il est midi moins le quart. (It’s a quarter to twelve) [11:45]

5. For A.M. and P.M., you should use du matin, de l’après-midi, and du soir.
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Important: Note that you are not always required to use du matin, de l’après-midi, or du soir when the context makes it obvious that you are referring to the morning, the afternoon or the evening.

6. The 24-hour system is used in various situations: For examples, on the radio, on TV, at the train station or the airport. The numbers one through twelve are used to express the morning hours, while the numbers thirteen through twenty-four are used for the afternoon and the evening.

Il est 16 h 20. = Il est quatre heures vingt (de l’après-midi)
Il est 24 h. = Il est minuit.
Il est 15 h 30 = Il est trois heures et demie (de l’après-midi)

An image is worth a thousand words…so here are a few visual examples to illustrate what I’ve been saying so far.

Le matin

Complete this exercise after studying the clocks below

Quelle heure est-il? (What time is it?)
Il est neuf heures.	Il est neuf heures dix.
Il est neuf heures et quart.	Il est neuf heures et demie.
Il est dix heures moins vingt.	Il est dix heures moins le quart.

L’après-midi

Quelle heure est-il? (What time is it?)
Il est midi.	Il est midi cinq.
Il est midi et demi.	Il est une heure.
Il est deux heures moins le quart.	Il est quatre heures vingt-cinq.