Telling the time in French

Cheryl N.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

Telling the time in French

Bonjour! If you use the 12 hour clock, instead of 24 hour, to say the time in French, do you always use "demie" for half past the hour, even if the time is after mid-day? For example, in the weekend writing challenge: Level A2: "This weekend, I became an aunty!", I got this line wrong: (below, is copied from the writing challenge page:) You wrote: vers dix heures trente du soir. Correct answers: vers vingt-deux heures trente. or vers dix heures et demie (du soir). I understood from kwiziq lessons, that if the time was after mid-day, then you wrote trente instead of demie, and if you used the 12 hour clock, you needed to state if the time was morning or evening (which I did). Please clarify? Cheryl
Asked 7 years ago
AurélieNative French expert teacher in Kwiziq
Bonjour Cheryl ! Using "trente" for after mid-day hours only applies to the 24-hour clock. For numbers 1 to 12, you will always use "et demie", whether you mean AM or PM. I hope that's helpful! Bonne journée !
Cheryl N.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Thank you Aurélie, You cleared that up! Cheryl

Telling the time in French

Bonjour! If you use the 12 hour clock, instead of 24 hour, to say the time in French, do you always use "demie" for half past the hour, even if the time is after mid-day? For example, in the weekend writing challenge: Level A2: "This weekend, I became an aunty!", I got this line wrong: (below, is copied from the writing challenge page:) You wrote: vers dix heures trente du soir. Correct answers: vers vingt-deux heures trente. or vers dix heures et demie (du soir). I understood from kwiziq lessons, that if the time was after mid-day, then you wrote trente instead of demie, and if you used the 12 hour clock, you needed to state if the time was morning or evening (which I did). Please clarify? Cheryl

Sign in to submit your answer

Don't have an account yet? Join today

Ask a question

Find your French level for FREE

Test your French to the CEFR standard

Find your French level
Clever stuff happening!