Dutch/Vocabulary/What time is it?

From Wikibooks, open books for an open world
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Hoe laat is het? Saying what time it is quite different from English usage. In the following examples, we use times from 3 to 4 o'clock.

In Dutch time is told by reference to the closest whole or half hour.

__:00 / __:15 / __:30 / __:45[edit | edit source]

These are the four cardinal moments in an hour. Notice halfvier! The Dutch way of indicating half hours is towards the next hour, not past the previous one.

3:00 3:15 3:30 3:45
noicon
drie uur
noicon
kwart over drie
noicon
halfvier
noicon
kwart voor vier

__:00[edit | edit source]

Example:

3:00
noicon
drie uur

In a full sentence time telling is usually initiated with Het is... ("It is ...")

noicon
Hoe laat is het?
noicon
Het is drie uur.

__:01 to __:19[edit | edit source]

In this interval reference is made to the previous whole hour with the preposition over or, less frequently na. The word minuut can be omitted in fast speech. Sometimes an inflected form of the numeral tweeën, drieën, vieren is used, but more often this is cut short to just twee, drie, vier etc. The quarter hour __:15 has its own name kwart.

Examples:

3:01
noicon
een minuut over drie
noicon
een over drie
3:05
noicon
vijf over drie
noicon
vijf minuten over drie
noicon
vijf minuten na drieën
...
3:15
noicon
kwart over drie
...
3:19
noicon
negentien over drie
noicon
elf voor halfvier

A more general way of indicating time is to say:

noicon
Het is even over drieën.
It is just after three.
noicon
Het is een paar minuten over drie.
It is a few minutes after three

__:20[edit | edit source]

tien voor halfvier
twintig over drie

Between 3:15 and 3:20 (depending on the speaker) the reference point starts to shift to the nearest half hour, using the preposition voor.

Example:

3:20
noicon
twintig over drie
(reference past the whole hour; not used everywhere),
or
3:20
noicon
tien voor halfvier
(reference towards the coming half hour)

__:21 to __:29[edit | edit source]

From __:20 on the reference point is the next half hour point.

Examples:

3:21
noicon
negen voor halfvier
3:22
noicon
acht voor halfvier
...
3:29
noicon
een (minuut) voor halfvier

__:30[edit | edit source]

As said before the way the half hour is indicated differs by a whole hour between Dutch and English. All half hours are written as a single word: halfeen, halftwee, etc. through halftwaalf.

Example:

3:30
noicon
halfvier
half past three

__:31 to __:39[edit | edit source]

Beyond __:30 the half hour remains the point of reference, using over or sometimes na.

vijf over halfvier

Examples:

3:31 een over halfvier
...
3:35
noicon
vijf over halfvier
...
3:39 negen over halfvier

__:40[edit | edit source]

From __:40 on the reference point can become the upcoming whole hour

twintig voor vieren

Example:

3:40
noicon
tien over halfvier
or
3:40
noicon
twintig voor vier
noicon
twintig voor vieren

__:41 to __:59[edit | edit source]

kwart voor vier

From the quarter hour on, the reference point is the whole hour.

Examples:

3:41
noicon
negentien voor vier or elf over halfvier
3:42 achttien voor vier or twaalf over halfvier
...
3:45
noicon
kwart voor vier
...
3:55 vijf voor vier
3:59
noicon
een (minuut) voor vier(en)