Hola! And Welcome to
Your Daily Pinch of Spanish. Today we'll take a look at the clock, and learn how
to say the hours and different times of day. This is the first lesson on the
subject of time.
First of all, the word
for clock in Spanish:
Reloj (Reh-lohh) - clock; watch
Now, I'll teach you
how to say the different parts of day and night. As always, I've provided a
pronunciation guide in parenthesis. For more on how to pronounce Spanish,
click here. (*Sorry, this link isn't working for the time being, while I rebuild my blog here.)
La mañana (lah mah-ñah-nah) The morning
El mediodía (ehl-meh-dee-oh-dee-ah) Midday; noon
La tarde (lah tar-deh) The afternoon
La noche (lah-noh-cheh) The night
La medianoche (lah meh-dee-ah-noh-cheh) Midnight
La
madrugada (lah mah-droo-gah-dah) Dawn; sunrise
Next, to tell the
time, here's how you say it: La (hour) de (time of day).
For every hour you
have to say 'las' before, with the exception of one (1) in the clock, midday,
and midnight; for these, it's 'la', since they're singular. 'Las' is the plural
form of 'la'.
Let's take a good look
on how to say it for every time of day, so that you can understand better:
To understand this
part of the lesson, you should know how to say the numbers in Spanish. If you
haven't read the lessons on numbers, I have five lessons for you
here: Lesson 1, Lesson 2, Lesson 3, Lesson 4,
and Lesson 5 (*Update: Sorry, my links are not working for now
To say the hours
of morning, simply add 'de la mañana' to the
hour. The little word 'de' indicates possession, therefore, this translates to
'of the morning'.
Las
ocho de la mañana - eight in the morning
Las
seis de la mañana - six in the morning
To say 'It's ___ in
the morning', include the word 'Son':
Son
las siete de la mañana - It's seven in the morning.
For one (1) in the
morning it's a little different, since one is singular:
Es
la una de la mañana - It's one in the morning.
The word 'es' is the
singular form of 'Son', which is plural. They are forms of the verb 'ser',
the verb 'to be'.
For midday, simply say 'el mediodía:
You can also say it
like this:
Es mediodía -
(It's midday) (Midday also uses 'es', since it's a singular word)
Es el mediodía -
It's (the) midday
Son las doce del día -
It's midday (literally: It's twelve in the day) (In this case you use 'son'
because you're adding the number twelve)
As you can see, for
this hour, instead of 'de' you say 'del'; the meaning it's the same; 'del' is a
variation of 'de', a contraction of 'de el' and it's used instead of saying 'de
el', which is incorrect.
For the afternoon, simply add 'de la tarde':
La
una de la tarde - one in the afternoon
Es
la una de la tarde - It's one in the afternoon
Las
dos de la tarde - two in the afternoon
Son
las dos de la tarde - It's two in the afternoon
Las
cinco de la tarde - Five in the afternoon
Son
las cinco de la tarde - It's five in the afternoon
For
the night, just add 'de la
noche':
Las
nueve de la noche - Nine in the night
Son
las nueve de la noche - It's nine in the night
Las
diez de la noche - Ten in the night
Son
las diez de la noche - It's ten in the night
For midnight, it's just like midday. Simply say 'La medianoche', or one
of the following:
Es medianoche - It's
midnight
Es la medianoche -
It's (the) midnight
Son las doce de la
noche - It's twelve in the night
Finally, la madrugada.
It's a way to refer to the hours after midnight until dawn. Basically the hours from one in the morning until four in the
morning. Sometimes I've heard it up until six in the morning. To use it, simply
add 'de la madrugada', to the hour:
La
una de la madrugada - One on the morning
Las
tres de la madrugada - Three in the morning
Son
las cuatro de la madrugada - it's four in the morning
You can use both
madrugada and mañana for these hours.
Of course, there is
more to say regarding the hours, but this is it for today! There's already a
lot of information here, and my goal with this Blog is too keep things simple.
I will make a follow up lesson, where I'll teach you how to ask for the time, and
some other details about the time in Spanish.
I hope you found this
lesson useful and easy to understand. If you have any doubt, don't hesitate in
contacting me on my Twitter page or my Facebook page. You can also ask me in the comments, if you like.
Until next time!
