Telling Time
Telling Time
French tells time with a feminine 'heure(s)' that quietly agrees in number just like any other noun — small detail, but it trips learners who expect a fixed, invariable time-word the way English's 'o'clock' never changes.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Quelle heure est-il ? / Il est ... heure(s)
Il est une heure. (It's one o'clock.) — Il est trois heures. (It's three o'clock.)
What time is it? — It's one o'clock / It's three o'clock.
Time is always introduced with the impersonal il est ('it is'), and heure(s) — literally 'hour(s)' — pluralizes like a normal noun after 2 and up: une heure but deux heures, trois heures. English's 'o'clock' never changes shape this way (one o'clock, three o'clock — the word itself is frozen), so remember to add the -s to heure once you pass 'one o'clock' in French, something English gives you no reminder to do.
et quart, et demie, moins le quart
trois heures et quart (3:15) — trois heures et demie (3:30) — quatre heures moins le quart (3:45)
quarter past three (3:15) — half past three (3:30) — quarter to four (3:45)
For the first half hour, French adds time with et: et quart ('and a quarter' = :15), et demie ('and a half' = :30) — matching English 'quarter past' and 'half past' closely. Past the half hour, French switches to counting backward from the next hour with moins ('minus'): quatre heures moins le quart means 'a quarter to four' — and here English actually does the exact same backward-counting trick with 'quarter to four', so this pattern should feel comfortably familiar rather than foreign, unlike many of French's other quirks.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| French | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| Quelle heure est-il ? | kel uhr eh-TEEL | What time is it? |
| il est une heure | eel-eh oon uhr | it's one o'clock |
| il est deux heures | eel-eh duh zuhr | it's two o'clock |
| et quart | ay kar | quarter past |
| et demie | ay duh-MEE | half past |
| moins le quart | mwan luh kar | quarter to |
| midi | mee-DEE | noon |
| minuit | mee-NWEE | midnight |
| du matin | du mah-TAN | in the morning (a.m.) |
| de l'après-midi | duh lah-preh mee-DEE | in the afternoon (p.m.) |
| du soir | du swahr | in the evening (p.m.) |