Quelle heure est-il? “What time is it?”
Simple question, right? Not when you are learning French. The struggle to learn how to write and talk about the time of day is the frustrating experience that seems like it might break us right now, as there is unexpectedly so much nuance to learn about it.
Expressions of time are complex in French. They depend on whether the expression is written or spoken. Look at the clock with the blue arrow pointing to it above and pretend that it indicates the time for dinner. In English, it’s 5:45pm or “a quarter to six.”
If written in French which uses a 24-hour system, it’s 17:45, though it’s actually written as 17h45 or 17H45 (with the “h” being the abbreviation for “hour” or heure). This is the easy part!
If spoken, it’s said using a 12-hour time system. So 5:45pm right? No! It is six heures moins le quart du soir or “six hours minus a quarter of an hour, in the evening.” Anything less than 30 minutes is spoken as the hour plus minutes such as “three hours twenty” [not said: minutes], but anything more than 30 minutes is spoken as the next hour minus the number of minutes until then, such as “four hours less twenty” [minutes].
And seemingly for giggles, if it is 30 minutes exactly, those 30 minutes are described in informal communications as et demie or “and a half,” but if in formal communications, those 30 minutes require the use of the word for “thirty” instead, which is trente. For example, huit heures et demi (informal, written or spoken) or huit heures trente (formal, written or spoken) for 8:30. There is no am/pm designation so you have to add the French equivalent for “in the morning,” “in the evening,” “in the afternoon,” or “at night” unless it’s very obvious.
Last night in our French language class, the teacher gave each of us individually some time details in French and we had to convert them into both a 24-hour time and a 12-hour time and speak it back to her correctly. We are primarily visual learners, not auditory learners so this was HARD. Imagine me hearing seize heures et cinquante minutes. I first had to figure out that she meant 16h50. Then I had to convert that to 4:50pm. Then I had to say it both ways: dix-sept heures moins dix (24-hour time) or “17 hours less ten minutes” AND cinq heures moins dix de l’apres-midi (12-hour time) or “five hours less ten minutes in the afternoon.” I struggled, and Greg did too in his conversion. It’s hard to be this age and feel this dumb in school.
I’m sure at some point this part will get easier. Money conversations have become slightly less difficult, though sometimes I hand over my credit card without knowing exactly what the cost is, rather than painfully decipher the numbers while the vendor waits for me to catch up and count out bills and coins. Never once has a vendor made me feel rushed, it’s just my own embarrassment that holds me back. We can do this!