How to tell and say time in Spanish.

Before you can learn time, one must know the Spanish numbers from one-twelve.

Uno - One
Dos - Two
Tres - Three
Cuatro - Four
Cinco - Five
Seis - Six
Seite - Seven
Ocho - Eight
Nueve - Nine
Diez - Ten
Once - Eleven
Doce - Twelve

With these numbers, you will be able to learn how to tell time.

For numbers two - twelve, you can begin the phrase "It's .....o'clock" with Son las.
Ex. = Son las cinco. (It's five o'clock.)


This rule, however, cannot be used for uno. The phrase for uno is Es la.
Ex. = Es la una. (It's one o'clock)
*WHEN TELLING TIME, UNO TURNS TO UNA!!!

For telling the number of minutes, it would be nice to know the numbers one - sixty.
Now, for the minutes, you can add these numbers, with y separating your hour and your minutes:
Ex. = Son las diez y veinte. (It's ten-twenty.)
Ex. = Es la una y diez. (It's one-ten.)

But there are also shorter ways to say the amount of minutes. They are:

cuatro = ... :15
medía = ... :30
menos cuatro = ... :45

It should be noted that for menos cuatro, you must add an hour so it'll make sense. If you are trying to say that it's 7:45, instead of saying son las siete menos cuatro, you would say son las ocho menos cuatro. This is because menos cuatro means minus a quarter. You need to minus a quarter of an hour in order to get your correct time.

To give the time of the day, there are three ways. At the end of your phrase, you can say...

de la manaña = in the morning
de la tarde = in the afternoon
de la noche = in the evening/at night

You can add these to any of your time phrases.

Es la una y medía de la tarde. (It's one-thrity in the afternoon.)
Son las tres menos veinte de la manaña (It's two-forty in the morning.)
Son las ocho y veinticinco de la noche. (It's two-twenty five in the evening.)

In order say when you are going to have something, you can say Á las.

For example, if your meeting was going to start at 10 AM, and a co-worker were to ask you when the meeting started, you can tell this co-worker...

Á las diez de la manaña. (At ten o'clock in the morning.)

If you are planning to say that something was going to be at one o'clock, you should say, Á la una.


Ex. = Á la una de la tarde. (At one o'clock in the afternoon.)


In life, one will need to be able how to tell, say, and give time. One will need to be able to know what time it is, how to tell someone what time something will start, and how to tell someone when something will start.