The clocks are about to change and a new month is just around the corner! The year is going by so quicky!
Being able to accurately talk about the time in French could mean the difference between catching a train or not, whether living in France or on holiday in France. So just to make sure you're not left standing on the platform, let's recap on how to talk about the time in French!
Une époque / à l'époque - An age or era / back in the day or at the time
De nos jours / à notre époque - Nowadays
Au temps de... - At the time of...
D'antan - Of yesteryear
Un siècle / fin du siècle / au tournant du siècle- A century / end of the century / at the turn of the century
Cent ans - One hundred years (accurate)
Une centaine d'années / des centaines d'années - A hundred years (round about) / hundreds of years
Une décennie / des décennies - A decade, decades
Un an - One year
Une année / toute (au long de) l'année - A year / all year (round)*
En deux mille dix-huit... - In 2018...
En mille neuf cent dix-huit... - In 1918...
Il y a (très) longtemps - A (very) long time ago
Les années passent vite! - The years fly by!
Le temps passe lentement - Time passes slowly
Au fil du temps - Over time
Les saisons - The seasons
Le printemps / au printemps - The spring / in spring
L'été / en été - The summer / in summer
L'automne / à l'automne - The autumn or the fall / in autumn
L'hiver / en hiver - The winter / in winter
Un mois / tous les mois / chaque mois - A month / every month / each month
Une semaine / dans une semaine - A week / in a week
Un jour / une journée - One day / a day or daytime*
Bonjour / (passez une) bonne journée - Hello (greeting) / (have a) good day
(departure)*
Quel jour sommes nous? / On est quel jour? - What day is it today?
Un calendrier / un agenda / un planning - A calendar / a diary / a schedule
Les mois - The months
janvier - January
février - February
mars - March
avril - April
mai - May
juin - June
juillet - July
août - August
septembre - September
octobre - October
novembre - November
décembre - December
Les jours - Days of the week
lundi - Monday
mardi - Tuesday
mercredi - Wednesday
jeudi - Thursday
vendredi - Friday
samedi - Saturday
dimanche - Sunday
Important point: when writing in French, resist the temptation to capitalize the first letter of the months and days, unless it is the first word in your sentence. The French only use capitals
for proper nouns (names of people and places or organisations and businesses). So it's la France but le français!
Aujourd'hui - Today
Demain - Tomorrow
La veille - The eve or day before
Le lendemain - The next day
A la fin (de la semaine / du mois) - At the end of (the week / the month)
Le mois prochain - Next month
Mi-semaine - Midweek
Le week-end - The weekend
Aujourd'hui, on est le samedi 28 mars - Today it's Saturday the 28 March
Mercredi prochain on sera le 1er avril - Next Wednesday will be April 1st
(The first day of the month is followed by er, but the other days of the month are indicated by number alone)
A l'aube - At dawn
Au coucher du soleil - At sunset
Le matin / la matinée - The morning / the morning time*
Un or une après-midi - An afternoon (can exceptionally take masculine or feminine form!)
Le soir / la soirée - The evening / the evening time*
Bon soir / (passez une) bonne soirée - Good evening (greeting) / (have a) good evening (departure)*
La nuit - Night time
Bonne nuit - Good night
Une heure / dans une heure - An hour / in an hour
Un quart d'heure - A quarter of an hour
Une demi-heure - Half an hour
Un minute - A minute
Une seconde / en quelques secondes - A second / in a few seconds
A midi - At midday
A minuit - At midnight
Quelle heure est-il? - What time is it?
Il est .... heures - It is ... o'clock
ll est trois heures moins le quart - It's a quarter to three in the morning
Il est une heure et quart - It's a quarter past one in the morning
Il est huit heures vingt (du matin / du soir) - It's twenty past eight (in the morning / evening)
Il est seize heures trente - It's half past four in the afternoon
Il est quatre heures et demie - It's half past four in the morning
Il est midi/minuit moins cinq - It's five to midday / midnight (like on the clock in the centre of the picture!)
A vingt heures dix... - At ten past eight or 8.10pm
Important notes: The French generally talk about the time in 24-hour terms, so 8pm would be vingt heures. You could,
however, say huit heures du soir and this would be fine, whereas huit heures on it's own, whilst ambiguous, would more probably be
understood to mean 8 in the morning.
That means that when you write the time in digits you need to use the 24-hour clock. Where we might write 8.10pm, the French would write 20h10, 7.40am would be 7h40 and so on. Very important for reading the train timetable!
Lastly, one thing the French never do is mix the 24-hour clock and the 12-hour clock. So you can't say seize heures et quart: you have to say either seize heures quinze or quatre heures et quart (de l'après-midi).
Now try to put a time to all the other clocks in the photo!
So now it just remains for us to wish you une très belle journée and we hope to see you successfully catching the train to Gourdon soon!
* The feminine form implies the whole period of time rather than a point in time or unit of time, so un jour, deux jours, trois jours..., as opposed to nous avons passé une journée très agréable. Le matin on mange le petit déjeuner as opposed to on se promène toute la matinée.
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