How to tell time

In this lesson, we will learn:

• A review on saying times of the exact hours (o’clock) and parts of the days (in the morning, afternoon, evening or at night)
• How to say the time by: naming the number of hours and minutes (reading left to right), naming the minutes after the hour, or naming the minutes until the next hour
• The special ways of saying half and quarter hours: quarter past, quarter to, and half past

• There are many ways to say the time.
• The simplest way to tell time is when the clock is on an exact hour (i.e. 12:00, 3:00; minute hand is on 12) you can simply call it as the number o’clock (ex. 12 o’clock, three o’clock)
• We can also say AM and PM as the part of the day instead:
• “in the morning” for 6AM to 11:59AM
• “noon” for 12:00PM
• “in the afternoon” for 12:01PM to 5:00PM
• “in the evening” for 5:01PM to 8:00PM
• “at night” for 8:01PM to 5:59AM
• “midnight” for 12:00AM


• Saying the hour is easy—the focus on the minutes. Three ways to tell time are by writing:
$\qquad \qquad$ 1. # hours # minutes
$\qquad \qquad$ 2. # minutes after/past the hour
$\qquad \qquad$ 3. # minutes until/to the next hour
• Ex. 1:35 can be said as (1) one thirty-five, (2) thirty-five minutes after one, or (3) twenty-five minutes to two


• There are special ways to say half or quarter hours
• When the minutes are :15 we say “quarter after” the hour
• When the minutes are :30 we say “half past” the hour
• When the minutes are :45 we say “quarter to” the next hour
• Ex. (9:15 is quarter past nine), (6:30 is half past 6), (7:45 is quarter to eight)


• Although there are many ways to tell the time, there is usually one way that is said more commonly than the rest.
• The most common way to tell times is summarized in the figure below for the positions of the minute hand on the clock.
• If the minutes are :01 $\,$→$\,$ :30 it’s common to say the minutes after the hour
• If the minutes are :31 $\,$→$\,$ :59 it’s common to say the minutes to the next hour