Is it that time again? Yes, welcome back to our monthly French conversation blog. Whether you mark it in your calendar, or you count down the minutes to our next edition, this month’s topic should be very useful either way – we’re studying dates and times.
This blog looks at the words and phrases you might use to talk or ask about when something is happening. After reading about the most common ways to express this in conversation, we hope that you’ll keep practising to stay up to date with what you’ve learned!
One of the most important elements of being able to talk about times and dates is of course a solid understanding of numbers. If you need to learn this from scratch (or if you need a refresher), check out our Easy Learning French Grammar page on numbers.
Let’s begin with conversations about time. Although it’s generally quite rare these days that you need to stop someone to ask for the time, this back-and-forth illustrates the key phrases:
Quelle heure est-il ? What time is it? / What’s the time?
Il est six heures. It’s six o’clock.
The word for ‘time’ is heure, which also means ‘hour’. You might also come across midi for ‘midday’, and minuit for ‘midnight’.
You might have noticed that because there are six hours in our example, the word heure becomes the plural heures – but don’t worry, there’s no difference in pronunciation. On our Easy Learning French Grammar pages, read more about turning singular nouns into plurals.
Now let’s ramp things up a bit. In a similar way to UK English, French also uses quarters and halves (plus other figures in between) to tell the time:
quart quarter
demie half
Il est une heure et quart. It’s quarter past one.
Il est huit heures et demie. It’s half past eight.
Il est quatorze heures vingt. It’s twenty past two (in the afternoon).
In the final example, you might have noticed the use of quatorze (fourteen) instead of two. Quite often, French speakers use the 24-hour clock to tell the time, especially when messaging and emailing. Another option is to follow the number with a short set of words:
du matin in the morning
de l’après-midi in the afternoon
du soir in the evening
Il est parti à très heures du matin ! He left at three o’clock in the morning!
Ready to take it to the next level? Again, in a similar way to English, once the big hand passes the halfway mark, we ‘minus’ the hour from the hour ahead:
Il est neuf heures moins le quart. It’s quarter to nine / It’s 8:45 – The literal translation is ‘nine hours minus a quarter’
Il est minuit moins dix. It’s ten to midnight.
Il est seize heures moins cinq. It’s five to four (in the afternoon)
All of this might take a bit of practice, depending on how well you know your numbers. But once you feel comfortable with these structures, you’ll be able to ask all sorts of questions and state responses related to time:
À quelle heure… ? (At) What time… ?
A : « À quelle heure ça finit ? » “What time does it finish?”
B : « Ça finit à dix-neuf heures. » “It finishes at seven o’clock (in the evening).”
A : « On se retrouve à quelle heure ? » “What time shall we meet?”
B : « Je pourrai te rejoindre à midi. » “I’ll be able to join you at midday.”
L’avion décolle à sept heures et quart pile. The plane is taking off at quarter past seven on the dot.
Je voudrais partir vers dix heures. I’d like to leave around ten o’clock.
Est-ce qu’elle va arriver avant dix-huit heures et demie ? Is she going to arrive before half six?
Now it’s time to move on! We’ve covered the clock, so let’s take a look at the calendar. While the numbers are also crucial for talking about dates, you’ll need to know the days of the week and months of the year as well. Head over to our Easy Learning French Grammar pages again to learn about weeks and months.
Let’s delve into the basics of talking about dates:
Quelle est la date ? What’s the date? / What date is it?
C’est le samedi six mars. It’s Saturday the 6th of March.
When you’re responding, the order of components goes like this, but you can delete as required:
day of the week + date of month + name of month + year
Let’s look at some examples where you might use dates in questions and responses:
Quelle est la date de ton anniversaire ? What date is your birthday?
C’est le vingt novembre. It’s November 20th.
On se marie le premier juin 2028. We’re getting married on the first of June 2028.
J’espère qu’on se verra dimanche. I hope that we’ll see each other on Sunday.
Nous allons en vacances en février. We’re going on holiday in February.
A : « Quelle est la date aujourd’hui ? » “What’s today’s date?”
B : « On est le treize janvier. » “It’s the 13th of January.”
A : « On est quel jour ? » “What day of the week is it?”
B : « C’est mardi. » “It’s Tuesday.”
You might have noticed in our examples, but some of the key differences between English and French use of dates are:
- Unlike English, French days and months have no capital letters.
- When you tell someone the date in French, you don’t need to say ordinal numbers like ‘second’, ‘fourteenth’, ‘twenty-fifth’ and so on. You just say the number as normal, except from ‘first’ which is premier.
- When talking about a specific date, it’s preceded by le. When talking about a general time in the month, it’s preceded by en. When talking about something happening on a day of the week, you don’t usually need to put anything before it.
We hope that this blog has set you up with the basics for talking about times and dates in French. Make sure to practise those numbers!
Language In Use
Here is a summary of the most useful structures to remember from this blog.
Asking about time:
À quelle heure… ?
Quell heure est-il ?
Telling the time:
Il est neuf heures.
Il est neuf heures et quart.
Il est neuf heures vingt.
Il est neuf heures et demie.
Il est dix heures moins le quart.
Il est dix heures moins dix.
Asking about dates:
Quelle est la date (de…) ?
On est quel jour ?
Talking about dates:
C’est [day of the week + date of month + name of month + year].
On est [day of the week + date of month + name of month + year].
Written by Holly Tarbet, freelance copywriter and editor.
All opinions expressed on this blog are those of the individual writers, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Collins, or its parent company, HarperCollins.
