English has become one of the most widely spoken languages in the world along with Spanish, French, Portuguese, and Mandarin. Because of this, nowadays for almost any job we must have basic knowledge of English to be able to work without causing problems.
As an example, we can imagine that we are in a meeting in the office and one of the guests is a Canadian businessman, obviously we would have to know how to speak English to be able to communicate with him, because although French is also a very widespread language in Canada, it is more subject is likely to speak English.
Now imagine that you are making a long distance call to an English-speaking client, also, for the client’s convenience and for a better service, it is necessary that you communicate in their language. Imagine that someone who speaks English asks you what time it is, if you don’t know basic English you may not be able to tell him the time.
To avoid this kind of situation, we will teach you how to write the hours in English easily. You can learn to write the hours in English in a single day and without spending a lot of time, you just have to read this article to know how to write the hours in English.
What do you need to write the hours in English?
- Learn basic English
Instructions to write the hours in English
- Start by understanding the pronunciation. It is clear that the pronunciation of English is not the same as that of Spanish. In Spanish our phonetics are derived from Latin, while in English the phonetics are totally different, very similar to the phonetics of the German language. If you want to write the hours in English, you first need to understand how they sound and how to pronounce them, for this you can learn the basic pronunciation of the English alphabet. In English the letter “A”, for those of us who speak Spanish is pronounced “Ey”, the “B” is pronounced “Bi”, the “C” sounds like “Si”, and the “D” sounds like “Di”. You can look for an English course to better understand the pronunciation or watch a program in this language. Don’t forget the writing. English and Spanish writing is very different, it only goes without saying that in Spanish the “H” is silent, while in English the “H” can have a sound similar to that of the letter “G” or “J” or to the set of the “S” and the “H”, that is to say “Sh”. That is why if you want to write the hours in English, you must be guided by English writing. As an example we can put this sentence, suppose you and your friend are in an office, then your shift is about to end, because of this your friend asks you what time it is, don’t forget that all this is in English. So your friend will say: “Ten minutes to eleventh”, that is, “it’s ten fifty” or, “it’s ten minutes to eleven”.
- Remember the names of the numbers. It is necessary to know how the numbers and the pronunciation are if you want to know how to write the hours in English. We will begin by showing how to write some numbers that are the main ones that represent the hours of the clock, zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleventh, twelve. In Spanish these numbers are zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. When we talk about larger numbers like 20 or 30, they are written like this; ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, hundred. These numbers are twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred. Saying or writing the hours in English. We only use up to number 12 or depending on number 24.
- A learns to write the time in parts. When we say the hours in Spanish, it is customary to say when someone asks us what time it is, that we say the hour and the minutes that it takes or how many minutes are left to finish the hour, for example “It is three forty-five in the morning”, although It is also widely used to say how many minutes are left until the next hour begins, this is so, if you ask what time it is the person can answer assuming that it is 3:45 am “It is 15 for four in the morning”. This in English can be done like this, suppose you ask the same question to someone who speaks English, then you say “What time is it?”, which means “what time is it?”, assuming as you already know that it is 3 :45am, your friend will surely answer “It’s three forty five in the morning”, which means, it’s three forty five in the morning.
- Do not forget to write the full hour and present minutes. While in Spanish when an hour has a few advanced minutes that do not end in 5 or 0, we use, for example, phrases like “it’s eight minutes past 7 minutes”, in English it turns out a little differently, in that language phrases like “It’s seven minutes past eight”, putting the minutes before the hour, in Spanish the literal translation would be “it is seven minutes past eight”, but it can be interpreted as “it is seven minutes past eight”.
- Guide yourself with these basic examples: “Eleventh minutes past six” (six with 11 minutes), “Eight minutes past seventh” (feel with eight minutes), “It’s ten to eleven” (it’s ten to eleven), “It’s twenty to five” (it is twenty to five). In case of exact parts like half, quarter, and beginning of the hour, there are also ways to write the hours in English; “Six o’clock”, means “six o’clock”, “Quarter past seventh”, means “seven and a quarter ”, “Half past six”, means “Six thirty”, “Quarter to five”, means say “Quarter to five.”
- There are also other endings that are used depending on the day to write the hours in English during the day or in the evening. In the case of the day from 6:00 a.m. to 12:00 a.m., the ending “In the morning” is used, in the afternoon from 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., “In the afternoon” is used , from 6:00 p.m. pm to 12:00 pm is “In the evening” and from 12:00 to 6:00 is “At night”. Look at these examples; “ten past seventh in the morning” (7:10 in the morning), “Quarter to four at night” (3:45 in the morning), “Twenty to five in the afternoon” (4:40 pm), “Quarter to six in the evening” (6:45 p.m.).
Tips for writing the hours in English
- Visit our category of how to teach English to have more information about this language and its learning.
- Every time you look at the clock, think of the names of the hours in English to get used to writing and pronouncing them.