Telling the Time: British English

What time is it?

Hello

Today we're looking at 'How to tell the time'

First of all, how do we ask what the time is?

It's very simple.

So if someone's asked you "What time is it?"

What are you going to say in response?

If the clock is on the hour then you can very simply say

However, if you want to specify between

morning or afternoon

then you can say it's three pm

PM is for any time between noon and midnight

AM is for anytime between midnight and noon.

If the time shows anything between the hour

and half past the hour

we use the word past

so we have five past

ten past

quarter past

twenty past

twenty five past

and half past

So did you notice, actually

that the only thing that was slightly odd there

was when we got to the quarter

Fifteen minutes past

Sometimes we will say fifteen minutes past

but it's easy enough to say quarter past

It's a quarter of the entire circle

It's quarter past

Now anything between the half past position

and back to the hour

we are going to look at to

So the word we use is 'to'

So we move around

Twenty five to

Twenty to

Quarter to

Now we very rarely say "fifteen minutes to".

Very rarely!

Ten to

Five to

Four o'clock

Now there are many variations

in how you can tell the time

Some people like to use the twenty four hour clock

So instead of "Six thirty pm" you might get

Instead of "Five twenty five am" you might get

Just remember in the beginning half of the hour

we say past

in the last half of the hour we say to

Oh look at the time!

I'm afraid it's time for me to go

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