Expressing time in Spanish

[music playing] Bienvenidos a nuestra lección welcome to our lesson. Ya podemos usar verbos en el presente en español we can already use verbs in the present in Spanish. Y ahora es hora de hablar más and now it's time to speak more. And what will we talk about? El tiempo time. Today, right now, at whatever o'clock it is, we're going to talk about how to express time in Spanish. What time is it? What's the date today? Days of the week, months of the year, holidays, seasons. But in order to say what time it is; what the date is; what the days of the week are, we first need to decide whether to use ser or estar to express the verb to be. In earlier lessons we've discussed when to use ser and when to use estar, but we never talked about time. So you need to know that the verb ser is always used to talk about time. So let's start with a quick review of the conjugation of ser in the present tense. For the third person singular, let's use the hour repitan: la hora. For third person plural, let's use the days repitan: los días. OK, I'll give you the subject; you give me the form of ser in the present tense: yo, soy; tú, eres; la hora, es; nosotros, somos; vosotros, sois; los días, son. When talking about the time of day, the date, and other time expressions, we only use the third person form of ser, so we'll be using just es and son. Let's start with the question, What time is it? In Spanish we say, literally: What hour is it? We've already seen that the word for what is qué, and the way to say the hour in Spanish is la hora. We're remembering to use ser when talking about time. So, What time is it is ¿Qué hora es? Repitan: ¿Qué hora es? Most often in fact, any time between 2:00 and 12:00, when you're expressing hours our answer will be in the plural since we're talking about more than one hour. So the answer to ¿Qué hora es? is usually son las followed by the hour and then by the minute. Repitan: Son las. You need to get used to saying this because son las is almost always the first thing you say when telling the time. Let's practice. If it's 3:00, how do you respond when I ask ¿Qué hora es? Son las tres. Repitan: Son las tres. How do you say: It's 9:00? Son las nueve. What do you say if it's 11:00? Son las once. How about if it's 2:00? Son las dos. Now, of course, sometimes it's 5 minutes after a certain hour or 10 minutes before the hour. In those cases, we'll need to express minutes as well as the hour. Imagine a clock with an hour and a minute hand. If the minute hand is on the right side of the clock, we use y which means and to talk about how many minutes after the hour is. We'll start with son las, then say the hour, then y, and then the minutes. This is important, so I'll say it again you always express the hour first, then the minutes. So if it's 20 minutes after 9:00, for example, we say: Son las nueve y veinte. This means it's nine and twenty. Notice, we don't say the word minutos or minutes, but it's implied. Repitan: Son las nueve y veinte. How would you say: It's 7 minutes after 4:00? Son las cuatro y siete. How about: It's 6:22? Son las seis y veintidós. Now, if the minute hand is on the left side of the clock, instead of using y to say how many minutes to add after the hour, we use menos which means less or minus to say how many minutes before the hour it is. For example, how would you say: It's 10 minutes before 5:00? Son las cinco menos diez. Literally, that means: It is 5:00, less 10 minutes. Repitan: Son las cinco menos diez. How about: It's 25 minutes to 8:00? Son las ocho menos veinticinco. Now let's talk about a few vocabulary words that are useful when telling time. The expression en punto repitan: en punto means exactly or on the dot. So to say it's exactly 8:00, you would say: Son las ocho en punto. How would you say: It's 10:15? Son las diez y quince. You could also say it's a quarter past 10:00 using the noun cuarto, which means quarter. So to say it's a quarter after 10:00, you would say: Son las diez y cuarto. Repitan: Son las diez y cuarto. If it's 2:30, I could say: Son las dos y treinta. Or, I could use the adjective for half, which is media note that this is a feminine singular form because it's describing hora. So, to say it's half past 2:00, I would say: Son las dos y media. Use these two new words cuarto and media to tell the time in these situations. Say: It's a quarter after 6:00 Son las seis y cuarto. Say: It's half past 12:00 Son las doce y media. Say: It's a quarter to 8:00 Son las ocho menos cuarto. And, instead of saying it that way if you'd rather say: Son las siete y cuarenta y cinco it's 7:45 that's fine, too. I've explained that the answer to the question ¿Qué hora es? almost always uses the plural verb form son in the expression son las followed by the time. There are, however, three cases where the singular verb form es is needed. Can you guess when we might need to use the singular form of the verb? Well, if it's 1:00, we say: Es la una. Repitan: Es la una. If it's 1:15, we still keep the singular verb form and say: Es la una y quince, or Es la una y cuarto. How would you say: It's 10 minutes before 1:00? Es la una menos diez. The other two times we use the singular verb form es is to say either it's noon, or it's midnight. Repitan: Es mediodía. That's the way to say noon, or midday mediodía. As a quick aside, you'll remember from when we learned to say buenos días as a greeting, that though the word día looks feminine because it ends with an a it's actually a masculine word el día. That's why noon is mediodía. We know that the night is la noche, so the word for midnight is medianoche. And the way to say it's midnight is: Es medianoche. So repeat these three expressions: Es la una. Es mediodía. Es medianoche. Those are the cases where you will use es; otherwise, the answer to ¿Qué hora es? begins with what? Son las. Bien. Here's one final quick point about telling time. Though the standard way to ask the time is ¿Qué hora es?, some Latin Americans use this question in the plural; so you might hear someone say: ¿Qué horas son? Now, we've been mostly using son las plus the hour to say it is a certain time. If, however, instead of saying it is a certain time, you want to say at a certain time, then son las becomes a las; and es la becomes a la. Let's practice this. We just learned in our last lesson that the verb terminar means to end. Say: The class ends at 3:30. La clase termina a las tres y treinta, or La clase termina a las tres y media. Say: We study at 10:00. Estudiamos a las diez. Say: I work at 4:00. Trabajo a las cuatro. There are just a few more expressions we need to learn about telling time. We've seen that the adverb mañana means tomorrow, as seen in the expression Hasta mañana. As a noun, la mañana means the morning; while the afternoon is la tarde, and the night is la noche. When telling time, to say in the morning, you say: de la mañana. To say in the afternoon, you say: de la tarde. And to say at night, you say: de la noche. Let's practice this. Say: We work at 9:00 in the morning. Trabajamos a las nueve de la mañana. Say: The lesson ends at quarter past 5:00 in the afternoon. La lección termina a las cinco y cuarto de la tarde. You could have said, La lección termina a la cinco y quince de la tarde. So when talking about a specific time, we use de de la mañana, de la noche, de la tarde. If, however, we do not mention an exact time, we use por rather than de. Here's an example: I study in the morning Estudio por la mañana. How would you say: They read in the afternoon? Leen por la tarde. How about José works at 10:00 at night? José trabaja a las diez de la noche. So with an exact time we use de, with no specific time mentioned, we use por. One final point: We know that to ask when, we say: cuándo. When talking about time, you could also ask someone at what time which would be: ¿a qué hora? So ask the following: At what time does the lesson end? ¿A qué hora termina la lección? Bien. Enough about the time of day, let's talk now about days of the week. In the Spanish-speaking world, the first day of the week is Monday, so we'll start with Monday repitan: lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo. Bien. Once more: lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo. Muy bien. OK, I'll give you the day in English, you give me the day in Spanish: Tuesday, martes. Thursday, jueves. Sunday, domingo. What about Wednesday? Miércoles. Okay, now let's learn some more vocabulary words that are useful when talking about days and dates. When learning about the years, we saw antes de cristo and después de cristo which mean B.C. and A.D. Antes de means before. Repitan: antes de. And después de means after. Repitan: después de. And the word cuál means what or which. The plural of cuál is cuáles. So here, once more, are the days of the week; say them with me: lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo. With those in mind, I want you to answer this question in Spanish: ¿Cuál es el día antes de domingo? Sábado es el día antes de domingo Saturday is the day before Sunday. You might also have said: El día antes de domingo es sábado. Now answer this question: ¿Cuál es el día después de martes? Miércoles es el día después de martes. Here's another useful word: la semana means the week. And the expression fin de semana means, literally, end of week or weekend. So answer this question: ¿Cuáles son los dos días del fin de semana? Sábado y domingo son los dos días del fin de semana Saturday and Sunday are the days of the weekend. Let's move on now to the date. To talk about the date, we first need to know the months of the year. Here they are, in order repitan: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre. So enero is January. All of the other months are cognates with the English months. How will you remember them? Practice. Here's an idea: When walking down the street, instead of whistling, singing or not saying anything, just practice saying days of the week or months of the year in Spanish. It may sound silly, but the more contact you have with Spanish listening, speaking, reading, writing the better language skills you'll develop. Let me add this thought: One way to get better at speaking Spanish is to get your mouth used to pronouncing words in Spanish. And you don't even need to understand what you're saying to benefit from speaking Spanish. Here's a technique I often recommend to my students. Listen to the news, either on the radio or on TV, and repeat back what the announcer is saying. Why the news? Because newscasters tend to speak slowly and clearly; giving students of Spanish the possibility of understanding what's being said, and offering them a better chance to be able to repeat the words. Consider, for example, this that you might hear on the news: Hoy, el presidente de los Estados Unidos se reúne con el presidente de México para hablar del tema de la inmigración. So you probably understood at least some of that. What I said was: Today, the president of the United States meets with the president of Mexico to talk about the topic of immigration. Even if you didn't understand all of that, it's useful to repeat what you hear to get used to producing the sounds of spoken Spanish. If, at first, you limit yourself to only saying things you understand perfectly well, you won't actually be speaking that much Spanish. But if you repeat what native speakers are saying, even though you won't understand everything you're saying, you get used to making the sounds that are made by Spanish speakers. And this can help you both improve your accent, and become more comfortable speaking Spanish. OK, it's time to check how you're doing. Please say all the days of the week in Spanish starting with Monday. Did you remember? Could you say lunes, martes, miércoles, jueves, viernes, sábado, domingo? If so, great, well done. If not, I understand; you're not alone. Because, in fact, it's not at all easy to remember new vocabulary in a new language. Keep in mind that before I asked you to say the days of the week, I had said them twice, I'd asked you to repeat each time, then I pronounced all seven days of the week one more time. And after all that exposure to the days of the week within the past few minutes, maybe you still had some difficulty saying all seven in order. That's OK. Learning a new language takes time and lots of practice. The more you practice, the easier it is to remember and use new words. So I recommend, once again, even when you're not interacting with this course, spend some time saying things like days of the week, months of the year; practice conjugating verbs in the present; listen to the news, repeat what you hear. All of these activities will help you improve your proficiency in Spanish. Now, let's get back to the date. We've covered the twelve months, but let's say them one more time repitan: enero, febrero, marzo, abril, mayo, junio, julio, agosto, septiembre, octubre, noviembre, diciembre. Here's some more vocabulary we'll need to talk about dates and years: La fecha is the date repitan: la fecha. Hoy means today repitan: hoy. El mes is the month repitan: el mes. El año is the year repitan: el año. Now repeat this question: ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? This means, word for word: What is the date of today, or What's today's date? Say it one more time: ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? So you've asked me the date, and I'm going to respond by telling you the date. But before I do, ask yourself: Is there any date you've ever heard of in Spanish? Well, I'm guessing there's one you've heard of, and it's celebrated in the U.S. and Mexico to commemorate the specific day in the 19th century when the Mexican troops beat the French in the Battle of Puebla la Batalla de Puebla, as it is said in Spanish. I'm referring, of course, to cinco de mayo the fifth of May. Cinco de mayo does a good job of showing us how to say the date in Spanish. When talking about dates, we say: Es el número de mes meaning, it's the number of month. To say It's the fifth of May, we say: Es el cinco de mayo. How would you say: It's the 20th of August? Es el veinte de agosto. How would you say: It's the 17th of November? Es el diecisiete de noviembre. How would you say: It's the third of January? Es el tres de enero. Now, in English we use the ordinal numbers and say, for example, it's the 7th of April, it's the 23rd of January. But in Spanish we almost always use the cardinal number, and say simply Es el dos de septiembre, es el once de julio. The one exception to this is when talking about the first day of the month. In this case, Spanish speakers usually do use the ordinal number and say, for example: Es el primero de marzo. But in general, as I've said, we're just using the regular cardinal number, the two, the three, the four of the month, rather than the second, the third, the fourth. Here's something else you need to know. Generally when talking about dates in Spanish we say: Es el número de mes. And we use el for the because numbers are masculine. To say, for example, tomorrow is the 12th of June, I would say: Mañana es el doce de junio. When using the word hoy to talk about the date today, however, you can drop the el. So, for example, to say today is the 15th of October, I could say: Hoy es quince de octubre. With the word hoy, you don't need to include el. In most other cases, however, you will use the el meaning the as you say, for example, tomorrow is November 19th, which would be: Mañana es el diecinueve de noviembre. I have a question for you: ¿Cuál es la fecha de la celebración de la Batalla de Puebla en México? Es el cinco de mayo. Note that the word celebración is a cognate with the English word celebration. And the date of the celebration of the Battle of Puebla is May fifth el cinco de mayo. ¿Cuál es la fecha de la Navidad? Feliz Navidad, Feliz Navidad. ¿Entiendes? ¿Cuál es la fecha de la Navidad? Es el veinticinco de diciembre. So I asked you there: What is the date of Christmas? And then I asked ¿Entiendes?, which means, do you understand? And clearly Christmas's date is December 25th La fecha de la Navidad es el veinticinco de diciembre. Here's another question: ¿Cuál es la fecha del Año Nuevo? I'll say it again: ¿Cuál es la fecha del Año Nuevo? Here's the answer: Es el primero de enero. It's the first of January. Let's imagine for a moment that we hadn't yet learned the word nuevo which means new because I want to talk about ways to make sense of Spanish you don't fully understand. So if you don't know nuevo, you probably would understand the question as: What is the date of the something year? And if that's what you understand, that's pretty good. Now you'll have to use context and this happens a lot when learning a language to try to understand what's being asked. Even without knowing the word nuevo, you might have guessed that I was asking the date of the New Year. If so, fabulous. But if we really were having a conversation and you didn't understand, what might you have asked me? My original question again was: ¿Cuál es la fecha del Año Nuevo? One thing you might say is: No entiendo nuevo meaning, I don't understand nuevo. If you can say that to me, that's great because you're using Spanish to communicate with me to try to clarify the meaning of what I'm saying. So the way to say I don't understand is repitan: No entiendo. I'll say it again: No entiendo. And the way to ask informally do you understand is repitan: ¿Entiendes? Let me ask you one more question related to the date, and I'm going to try to help you understand my question even though I'll use a word you probably don't know. Here's my question: ¿Cuál es la fecha de tu cumpleaños? Repitan: ¿Cuál es la fecha de tu cumpleaños? ¿Entiendes cumpleaños? Momento. Cumpleaños feliz, cumpleaños feliz, te deseamos cumpleaños feliz. ¿Ahora entiendes cumpleaños? Responde a mi pregunta: ¿Cuál es la fecha de tu cumpleaños? Mi cumpleaños es el once de diciembre. So what happened there? I asked you a date, but you may not have known the word cumpleaños. So then I sang the birthday song just as earlier I had sung Feliz Navidad to help you understand the word means birthday. Why did I do this? Because I wanted you to understand me. And if you didn't understand, you might have said No entiendo cumpleaños meaning, I don't understand cumpleaños. Or you might even ask the very useful question of ¿Qué quiere decir cumpleaños? Let's talk about that expression because it can help you better understand vocabulary words in Spanish. The expression again is ¿qué quiere decir? Which means what does it want to say, or what does it mean? So if you say: ¿Qué quiere decir cumpleaños?, what you're asking is, what does cumpleaños mean? These kinds of expressions no entiendo, ¿qué quiere decir? can really help you understand what others are saying when they use words you don't know. And here's a quick note about written Spanish related to the time vocabulary we've been learning today. When writing names of countries or names of people, Spanish uses capital letters, just as English does. So if I'm talking about María Sánchez or the country of Arjentina, I'm using a capital m for María, capital s for Sánchez, capital a for Arjentina. But days of the week and months of the year are not capitalized in Spanish. So if I write: Mañana es lunes, el veintitrés de septiembre Tomorrow is Monday, September 23 I don't capitalize the l of lunes, which is Monday, or the s of the month of septiembre. Other words not capitalized in Spanish though they are in English are nationalities, names of languages, and names of religions. Let's end today's lesson talking about the seasons repitan: las estaciones. To say the seasons in Spanish we say: las estaciones. Here's my first question about the seasons and it will use the word hay, which you'll remember means there is or there are: ¿Cuántas estaciones hay? Hay cuatro estaciones there are four seasons. Let's say the seasons, starting with the spring. Repitan: la primavera, el verano, el otoño, el invierno. You'll note that the spring la primavera is feminine, the other three seasons are masculine el verano, el otoño, el invierno. Here's a question for you: ¿Cuáles son los tres meses de la primavera? Los tres meses de la primavera son marzo, abril, y mayo the three months of spring are March, April, and May. Answer this question: ¿Cuáles son los tres meses del verano? Los tres meses del verano son junio, julio, y agosto. ¿Cuáles son los tres meses del otoño? Los tres meses del otoño son septiembre, octubre, y noviembre. Last question: ¿Cuáles son los tres meses del invierno? Los tres meses del invierno son diciembre, enero, y febrero. And now our lesson ends. How do you say that in Spanish? Once again, I'd like you to say: And now our lesson ends. Y ahora nuestra lección termina. We learned in our last lesson that the verb pasar means to happen, and that que pasa means: What's happening. Well, when pasar is used with tiempo, it means to spend time. Gracias por pasar tiempo conmigo. Hasta pronto. Nos vemos en la lección diez. Glosario Lección 9 present el presente time, weather el tiempo second el segundo minute el minuto hour, time la hora today hoy week la semana weekend el fin de semana month el mes year el año before antes de after después de What time is it? ¿Qué hora es? quarter el cuarto half an hour la media hora on the dot, exactly en punto It's three o'clock. Son las tres. At five o'clock. A las cinco. noon el mediodía midnight la medianoche morning la mañana in the morning por la mañana afternoon la tarde in the afternoon por la tarde night la noche at night por la noche date la fecha What is today's date? ¿Cuál es la fecha de hoy? Celebration la celebración Birthday el cumpleaños New Year's Day el Año Nuevo Christmas la Navidad I don't understand. No entiendo. Do you understand? [informal, singular] ¿Entiendes? What does it mean? ¿Qué quiere decir? Monday lunes Tuesday martes Wednesday miércoles Thursday jueves Friday viernes Saturday sábado Sunday domingo January enero February febrero March marzo April abril May mayo June junio July julio August agosto September septiembre October octubre November noviembre December diciembre Season la estación spring la primavera summer el verano autumn el otoño winter el invierno Actividades de conversación Lección 9 Listen to the time of day. Then say it in Spanish. It's five o'clock. Son las cinco. It's ten minutes after seven. Son las siete y diez. It's twenty-five minutes after four. Son las cuatro y veinticinco. It's a quarter after eight. Son las ocho y cuarto. It's half past three. Son las tres y media. It's exactly nine o'clock. Son las nueve en punto. It's ten minutes to five. Son las cinco menos diez. It's noon. Es mediodía. It's a quarter to one. Es la una menos cuarto. It's three o'clock in the afternoon. Son las tres de la tarde. It's nine twenty-five at night. Son las nueve y veinticinco de la noche. It's eight fifteen in the morning. Son las ocho y quince de la mañana It's twelve o'clock at night. Son las doce de la noche. Es medianoche. Listen to the question, and answer no. Then say the time an hour later than the time in the question. For example. ¿Son las siete de la mañana? No, son las ocho de la mañana. ¿Son las cinco de la tarde? No, son las seis de la tarde. ¿Estudias a las ocho de la mañana? No, estudio a las nueve de la mañana. ¿Las clases terminan a las once y media? No, las clases terminan a las doce y media. ¿Llegan los estudiantes a las doce? No, los estudiantes llegan a la una. ¿Escuchas la música ahora? No, escucho la música en una hora. ¿Es medianoche? No, es la una de la mañana. ¿Son las tres y cuarto de la tarde? No, son las cuatro y cuarto de la tarde. Listen to the date. Then say it in Spanish. It's the tenth of April. Es el diez de abril. It's the twenty-first of September. Es el veintiuno de septiembre. It's the thirty-first of August. Es el treinta y uno de agosto. It's the fifteenth of February. Es el quince de febrero. It's the second of July. Es el dos de Julio. It's the eleventh of November. Es el once de noviembre. Tomorrow is the sixth of February. Manaña es el seis de febrero. Answer the following questions in Spanish. ¿Cuál es la fecha de la Navidad? Es el veinticinco de diciembre. ¿Cuál es la fecha del Año Nuevo? Es el primero de enero. ¿Cuál es la fecha del día de San Valentín? Es el catorce de febrero. ¿Cuál es la fecha del día de San Patricio? Es el diecisiete de marzo. ¿Cuál es la fecha del día de la independecia de los Estados Unidos? Es el cuatro de julio. ¿En qué mes es el día de Acción de Gracias? Es en noviembre. These last two questions were not simple. But you may have understood the cognate independencia which might have led you to understand that el día de independencia de los Estados Unidos is Independence Day- el cuatro de julio. The last question asked for the month of El día de Acción de Gracias which we have not looked at. But you know gracias means thank you, so you might have guessed that el día de Acción de Gracias meant Thanksgiving. And we know es en noviembre. Give the season for the following months. For example: abril Es la primavera. Es el invierno. junio Es el verano. octubre Es el otoño. diciembre Es el invierno. mayo Es la primavera. Say the following sentences in Spanish. It's exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. Son las cuatro en punto de la tarde. My birthday is March 24th. Mi cumpleaños es el veinticuatro de marzo. What is tomorrow's date? ¿Cuál es la fecha de mañana? There are sixty minutes in an hour. Hay sesenta minutos en una hora. My class is at eleven o'clock in the morning. Mi clase es a las once de la mañana. I don't understand. No entiendo. We read in the morning. Leemos por la mañana. There are twelve months in a year. Hay doce meses en un año. The celebration is at noon in our house. La celebración es al mediodía en nuestra casa.