How to Tell Time in Spanish: The Complete Beginner’s Guide

Even though it’s a very useful skill and excellent practice of numbers, learning how to tell time (la hora) in Spanish is sometimes skipped by self-learners and classes.

In this post, we’ll teach you many time-related phrases and vocabulary to communicate effectively when you’re llegando tarde (running late) or de camino (on the way). 

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How to Ask for the Time in Spanish

There are three main ways to ask for the time in Spanish:

¿Qué hora es? (What time is it?)

¿Qué horas son? (What time is it?)

¿Tiene(s) la hora? (Do you have the time?)

Note that ¿Qué hora es? is the most common way you’ll hear or use.

How to Tell Time on the Hour in Spanish

Then to tell someone what the time is, you’ll need to follow this formula:

Es/son + la/las + [hour].

So if the time just happens to be on the hour, you might say:

And if you need to review your numbers, you can do that here. 

Now let’s take a deeper look at the components of this formula:

• Use ser, not estar. Though it may be counterintuitive, we always use ser to tell the time, not estar. Apparently, time is a permanent entity and therefore doesn’t want to be described using estar, which suggests temporariness.
• Singular versus plural. We actually only use es for one o’clock and all times between 1:00 and 1:59: this is because one hour is singular. Use son for two o’clock and beyond.
• Time is feminine. That’s why we say, Son las seis (It’s six o’clock), for example. Because time is feminine, you should always use las and la to describe time, never el or los.

How to Tell the Exact Time in Spanish

To say any time between the hour and half past, this formula is the most common:

Es/son + [the hour] + [number of minutes past the hour]

You can also tell the time with different prepositions in the following formulas, however they are slightly less common:

Es/son + [the hour] + y + [number of minutes past the hour]

Es/son + [the hour] + con + [number of minutes past the hour]

For example:

How to Tell Time Past and to the Hour in Spanish 

To say that it is half past the hour, use this formula:

Es/son + [the hour] + y media/treinta.

Notice that it’s not y medio since hora is feminine.

To say that it’s quarter past the hour, use this:

Es/son + [the hour] + y cuarto/quince.

Note that cuarto does end in o because it means “quarter” and the word is masculine.

Once you get past the 30-minute mark, you need to use menos or para and refer to the hour that is approaching, just like when you use “quarter to” in English:

Es/son + [the hour approaching] + menos cuarto.

Es/son + cuarto + para + [the hour approaching].

Let’s look at some examples:

Spanish Time Expressions and Vocabulary

Besides the numbers zero to 60 and the sentence structures I just went over, there are some more expressions and vocabulary that’ll help you talk about time in Spanish. Here are a few of them:

Time Telling Quiz

Write these times in Spanish:

1. 1:05

2. 3:55

3. 11:15

4. 9:30

5. 9:00

6. 5:45

7. 6:50

Answer Key:

1. Es la una cinco.

2. Son las tres cincuenta y cinco. / Son las cuatro menos cinco. / Son cinco para las cuatro.

3. Son las once y cuarto/quince.

4. Son las nueve y media/treinta.

5. Son las nueve.

6. Son las cinco cuarenta y cinco. / Son las seis menos cuarto. / Son cuarto para las seis.

7. Son las seis cincuenta. / Son las siete menos diez. / Son diez para las siete.

How to Practice Telling Time in Spanish

• Use online games. You can test yourself using this online game—or with this one or this one, which are time-telling games of various levels with reviews to test your newly learned skills.
• 

  Ask your Spanish-speaking friends to test you. To practice beforehand, try listening to Spanish podcasts or watching some Spanish videos. The language learning program FluentU actually has authentic media clips—covering everything from telenovelas (soap operas) to news reports—with interactive subtitles that show you how native speakers naturally communicate time (among other things).

• Integrate time telling into your regular life. Every time you look at your watch, phone or tablet in your normal English-speaking life, you could say the time aloud in Spanish. You could even set up an alert on your phone to remind you to do this, perhaps asking “¿Qué hora es?” until you get into the habit of doing this regularly. A more low-tech version of this would be to put a sticky note next to your alarm clock.
• If someone asks for the time, say it in both languages. Warning: this one maybe is best done with close friends, as strangers on the bus might not appreciate your bilingual time-telling skills!