How do you guys say times?

36 comments

1. Both. Wait till you find out what happens on the half hour. ‘Half one’ can mean half past one (13:30) or half an hour to one (12:30).

2. I would generally use the 12 hour clock when speaking and the 24 hour clock when writing, simply because I think it’s a better system than writing am or pm but saying “Let’s meet at half past 15” sounds weird.

   That’s just personal preference though, I think most people in the UK would write am or pm as well like Americans do.

3. In speaking we would use 12h time, but instead of “am/pm” we would specify the time of day: “6 o’clock in (“of”) the evening”, “8 in the morning”, “2 in the day” etc. When it’s obvious, it can be omitted. In writing, especially official things, it will be 24h.

4. I use both 12h and 24h time, but I wouldn’t just say 13. With the numbers above 12 you say Uhr (basically like o’glock). So for example when I wanna say “We meet at 1” I’d say “Wir treffen uns um 1” or “Wir treffen uns um 13 Uhr”. “Wir treffen uns um 1 Uhr” is also fine, but it doesn’t necessarily need the Uhr.

5. The spoken language uses 12 hour format, but even in spoken language when referring to a train for example, you often use the 24 hour format, so for example the train I took yesterday was the one at 15:39. This is because the time table uses 24 hour format.

6. Both are used. If there is any risk of confusion 24 hours will be used.

   For instance: See you at 20 on Wednesday. Also for meetings you would normally say 14 – though no one of course would think you would meet at 2 am.

   But in daily talk people will say ‘it is 14’ or ‘it is 2’ in a random mix.

7. 24hr time in writing, almost always 12hr time while talking. If am or pm isn’t clear, we’ll use 24hr time while talking

8. [deleted]

9. In written text always 24h time but in speech it could be both. Times between 13:00 – 17:00 are usually understood even if they were referred with 12h time or better yet you have to mention night or morning if you really mean times of 24h time. With times between 18:00 – 23:00 you have to be more careful and either use 24h time or mention the time of the day if you use 12h time and what you mean is ambiguous.

   Then there is degree of exactness, if something is happening exactly of certain moment like when the train leaves, then it’s always 24h denotion but if it’s less exact you could use 12h denotion like when remembering the moment something happened in yesterday. You could almost say that using 12h time always means less exactness while 24h time conveys the meaning of the accurate moment of the day.

10. Both are used, 12h more in speaking and 24h more in writing.

11. Both are used, but in my experience 12h format is more used, so in Italy we would mostly say “è l’una”, that is the equivalent of “it’s 1 o’clock”. I use 24h format whenever I want to be accurate: for example when it is 14:37 and someone in a hurry asks me what time is, I would say “14 and 37” instead of “35 past 2” or “20 till 3”.

12. I just say as an example “Tretton noll noll” = “Thirteen Zero zero” = 13:00 or just thirteen because it’s exactly 13:00. People use both way of saying times, “Klockan är ett” literal translation gets wacky but “The Clock is one” for 13:00.

    When I wanna be precise I just say the the entire number of the 24h clock. But I and other people can also use the 12h clock when we’re talking to each other.

13. It depends. Usually when I have to say a precice time, I just use the 24 hour clock because it’s easier: it’s 15:24/klokka er 15:24. But if it’s not precice all (and some other random contexts), I’ll use the 12 hour clock: it’s 10 o’clock/klokken er 10.

14. No – 13:00 is written hours – in my brain I know that’s 1pm. I see 13:00 with my eyes and my brain sees 1pm. I say 1pm outloud. We’re not all running about saying thirteen hundred hours…

15. In eastern catalan we use our 12 hour system when speaking and when writing abput a broad moment of the day, but in official documents we always write down the hour in a 24h digital format.

    Ie:

    Spoken/written: dos quarts i cinc de sis (two quarters and five [minutes] of six).

    Written in appointments and such: 5:35h/17:35h

16. Both are used interchangeable

    Sometimes we say it’s 5 o’clock it’s 5 o’clock in the afternoon it’s 17 o’clock

17. In spoken, it’s always 12h. Usually it’s “minutes past hour” unless it’s hh:30, where it’s either “half past hour” or “hour thirty”.

    Written depends on the person or context. For work stuff, it’s usually 24h time. Otherwise people just go with whatever they prefer. I usually stick with 24h written to avoid confusion. Everyone here understands it and I’ve yet to see someone use 12h on their phone.

18. Phones and all digital clocks are in 24h format but when it’s spoken we only use the 12h format, but we don’t say AM or PM because it sounds weird in romanian, we just say “in the morning” or “at night” or “in the afternoon” (except when it’s obvious, you won’t specify the time of day when you’re asked what time it is right now)

19. Both 12h and 24h formats are normal in speaking. I basically exclusively use the 24h one.
    When writing, you’ll see 24h much more often than 12h, at least in my experience.

20. In Bulgaria we use the 24 hour system to write time but when speaking ( day to day ) we use the 12 hour but don’t say a.m. or p.m., we kinda know what we are talking about.

21. Official time is 24-hour. In everyday use, people mix it with 12-hour and “morning” “evening” “night” words.”Morning” is usually 4-9, “evening” is 20-23 and “night” is 23-4.

    And in language terms, we say (literally translated) “first hour”, “eighth hour” and so on. “Half past” is actually “half to” followed by the coming hour.

22. There’s three different ways to tell the time in German.

    The easiest one is 24 hour time. In that one, you tell

    * 5:57am as *fünf Uhr siebenundfünfzig*
    * 12:30pm as *zwölf Uhr dreißig*
    * 5:57pm as *siebzehn Uhr siebenundfünfzig*
    * 12:30am as *null Uhr dreißig*

    No am/pm marker in German because it’s 24 hour time.

    ———

    The second is one is 12 hour time with *vor/nach*. In that one, you tell

    * 5:57am as *drei vor sechs (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:10am as *zehn nach acht (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:15am as *viertel nach acht (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:25am as *fünf vor halb neun (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:30am as *halb neun (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:40am as *zehn nach halb neun (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:45am as *viertel vor neun (Uhr morgens)*
    * 8:55am as *fünf vor neun (Uhr morgens)*

    So you have to tell time at half-hour granularity, and on top of that mess it’s not simply am/pm in German but we tell apart *morgens* (5am–9am), *vormittags* (9am–12pm), *mittags* (12pm), *nachmittags* (12pm–6pm), *abends* (6pm-12am), *Mitternacht* (12am), *nachts* (12pm-5am).

    ———

    The third system is 12 hour time without *vor/nach*. In that one, you can only tell quarters of an hour:

    * 8:00am as *acht Uhr (morgens)*
    * 8:15am as *viertel neun (morgens)*
    * 8:30am as *halb neun (morgens)*
    * 8:45am as *dreiviertel neun (morgens)*

    So you have to tell time at hour granularity. Also note the missing *Uhr.*

    ———

    German speakers use all three systems, often mixed. So you have to know them all, otherwise you will miss your appointments. If unsure, ask people to tell in 24 hour time.

23. I once missed a flight in Chicago because I thought my plane was leaving at 8:30 p.m. Turns out that it already left at 8:30 a.m. when I checked in online for the flight. United was kind enough to rebook me with no fee.

24. Something I discovered while travelling. Say it’s 13:30. I would say that’s “half one” referring to half *past* one. I was meeting with a Canadian-Latvian and a Dane and they thought I meant 12:30 half *to* one. Just something I needed to be aware of to avoid confusion.

25. Depends who you are talking to. If you are in a professional setting you’d say 13:00 o’clock, but if you aren’t you’d say 1

26. It’s pretty uncommon to say something like 1 o‘clock among younger generations. We mostly use the 24h time.

    The 12h time is more commonly used among older people, but people aged 20-35 use it too.

27. We use 12 hour when it’s spoken.

    Also, I’ve been told that saying “Half six” to mean 6:30 is strange, but we say that here

28. In written language we use 24h and everybody learns the 24h clock. If you have a schedule for school or you have a meeting planned 13:00 will be written for 1pm.

    But when speaking we use 12h. If someone says should we meet at 1 for lunch nobody thinks it mean 1am.

    Also, am and pm are not a thing and confuses many people when talking to english speakers.

29. I’d say one o’clock. Maybe 13:00 Uhr for official purposes like arranging a business meeting.

    Also, at least in my region we use Viertel zwei (“quarter two”) for 13:15 and Dreiviertel zwei (“three-quarter two”) for 13:45

30. The right way!

    I write 12:30, I say two quarters of one. 😉

31. In Catalan it’s very weird: we use the 12h format, but to say the hours we say the quarters and then the next hour. For example: 16:45 is “three quarters of five” and 9:15 is “one quarter of ten”. To say a more specific time, we say it’s x minutes for/from the closest quarter, so 10:28 is “two minutes for two quarters of eleven”.

32. 24 hour clocks 80% of the time, and I only hear the use of 12 hour, when there can be no ambiguity. So let’s say it’s 17:30, and there’s a football match on at 21, then someone might say 9 instead of 21, but that’s not that common anymore

33. I switch between both without any clear logic behind it. Generally people in Austria tend to use both interchangeably. The 24 variant when people from different regions define a specific time as we have like three or four different ways to define quarter hours and that can lead to quite some mix ups.

34. 1-12 is 1-12 “da mañá” (in the moorning). If it’s before sunrise, you may say “da madrugada”.

    13-24 is 1-12 “da tarde” (in the afternoon). If it’s after dark, you may say “da noite” (in the evening/night)

35. In work we use 24hr, but personally I would use the full “traditional” way -a quarter past 6, twenty to 5, etc.

36. I use 12 hour time cause my autism Wont allow me to learn 24 hour time