How To Tell Time in Italian - Come Pronunciare Le Ore

Let’s Talk Italian With Aronne

Ciao ragazzi! Bentornati nel mio podcast! Nella puntata di oggi, vi spiegherò come funziona l’orario in italiano. In questo episodio, vi insegnerò come chiedere l’ora e le varie espressioni che si posso utilizzare. Vi riporterò tutte le espressioni che sentirete nella descrizione di questo episodio, dateci un’occhiata! Renderà la comprensione più facile. Buon ascolto!

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Hi guys! Welcome back to my podcast! In today's episode, I'll explain how the timetable works in Italian. I'll teach you also how to ask for the time and the various expressions that you can use. I'll transcribe all the expressions you'll hear in the description of this episode, take a look! It will help you better understand today's topic. Have a good time listening!

If you need to know the time, you can ask “Che ora è?” or “Che ore sono?” (What time is it?), both forms are correct.

Instead, if you need to answer to these questions, you should use the expression “Sono le …” (It’s…)

For example:

h. 02:00 → Sono le 2 (It’s 2 o’clock)

h. 07:00 → Sono le 7 (It’s 7 o’clock)

The only exceptions where we need to use “È…“ are:

h. 01:00 → È l’una (It’s 1 o’clock)

h. 12:00 se usiamo l’espressione → È mezzogiorno (It’s midday)

h. 24:00 se usiamo l’espressione → È mezzanotte (It’s midnight)

Now, you have to know that in Italy there are two ways to tell the time:

1) 24 hours system

In this system, we use the numbers from 1 to 24 for hours, followed by the numbers from 1 to 60 for minutes.

For example:

h. 08:50 → Sono le 8 e 50 (It’s 8:50 a.m.)

h. 17:35 → Sono le 17 e 35 (It’s 5:35 p.m.)

h. 09: 15 → Sono le 9 e 15 (It’s 9:15 a.m.)

2) 12 hours system

In this system, we use the numbers from 1 to 12 for hours, followed by the numbers from 1 to 60 for minutes and then, if it is necessary to clarify, we add “di mattina”, “di pomeriggio”, “di sera” or “di notte” (in the morning, in the afternoon, in the evening, in the night)

For example:

h. 16:20 → Sono le 4 e 20 di pomeriggio (It’s 4:20 in the afternoon)

h. 20:00 → Sono le 8 di sera (It’s 8 o’clock in the evening)

h. 03:00 → Sono le 3 di notte (It’s 3 o’clock in the night)

Let’s see some special cases:

h. 20:15

What time is it? It’s 8:15 p.m., that’s right! But you can also say that “Sono le 8 e un quarto (di sera)” (It’s a quarter past 8 in the evening)

h. 09:30

What time is it? It’s 9:30 a.m., but you can also say that “Sono le 9 e mezza (di mattina)” (It’s half past 9 in the morning)

Starting from 40 minutes, it is possible to tell the time in this way:

number of the following hour + “meno” (minus) + number of the minutes left to the following hour

For example:

h. 05:40 → Sono le 6 meno 20 (It’s 20 to 6 a.m.)

h. 10:45 → Sono le 11 meno un quarto (It’s a quarter to 11 a.m.)

h. 06:55 → Sono le 7 meno 5 (It’s 5 to 7 a.m.)

BE CAREFUL!

These expressions (“e un quarto”, “e mezza”, “meno”) are generally used only with the 12 hours system!

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