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Lire l’heure
Knowing how to tell time in French is essential for traveling, meeting up with friends, making appointments, and getting to work or school on time. Once you learn these formulas, you’ll never have an excuse to be late again!
French time
There are three French translations for "time," each with a different meaning.
| l’heure | time as in telling time |
| Quelle heure est-il ? | What time is it? |
| le temps | time as in a period of time |
| J’ai passé du temps ici. | I spent some time here. |
| la fois | time as in instance |
| Je l’ai fait une fois. | I did it one time. |
Only heure is needed for this lesson – when telling time, it’s equivalent to "o’clock."
Heure is required, unlike o’clock. In English, we can say "It’s almost five" or "He’ll be here at eight thirty," but in French, you must say Il est presque cinq heures and Il arrivera à huit heures trente.
Two more important notes about heure:
- It’s a noun, so it’s singular with une (une heure, une heure vingt, etc) and plural with all other numbers (deux heures, quinze heures trente, etc)
- Its abbreviation h is used where a colon is used in English: (1h00, 1h20, 2h00, 15h30)
French numbers
The foundation of telling time is knowing the French numbers 1 through 24. Why not just 12? In French, time is usually based on the 24-hour clock, like military time. Instead of 1 to 11 a.m., followed by 12 to 11 p.m., the clock continues counting up from 12, so that 1 p.m. is 13, 2 p.m. is 14, all the way up to 24.
Midnight itself can be stated as minuit, 24h00, or 0h00, but one minute later, 24 disappears: 0h01, 0h02, etc.
While you definitely need to be able to understand the 24-hour clock, you don’t necessarily need to talk about time with it. Instead, you can use the phrases du matin to mean a.m., and then de l’après-midi from noon until around 6 p.m., followed by du soir until midnight.
Telling time in French
| What time is it?   | Quelle heure est-il ? | |
| It’s one o’clock | Il est une heure | 1h00 |
| It’s two o’clock | Il est deux heures | 2h00 |
| It’s 3:15 | Il est trois heures et quart | 3h15 |
| It’s 4:30 | Il est quatre heures et demie | 4h30 |
| It’s 4:45 | Il est cinq heures moins le quart Il est quatre heures quarante-cinq |
4h45 |
| It’s 5:10 | Il est cinq heures dix | 5h10 |
| It’s 6:50 | Il est sept heures moins dix Il est six heures cinquante |
6h50 |
| It’s 7:20 | Il est sept heures vingt | 7h20 |
| It’s 8:40 | Il est neuf heures moins vingt Il est huit heures quarante |
8h40 |
| It’s 8 a.m. | Il est huit heures du matin | 8h00 |
| It’s 5 p.m. | Il est cinq heures de l’après-midi Il est dix-sept heures |
17h00 |
| It’s 8 p.m. | Il est huit heures du soir Il est vingt heures |
20h00 |
| It’s noon | Il est midi | 12h00 |
| It’s midnight | Il est minuit | 0h00 |
Though I’ve heard many French people speak otherwise, the official grammar rule is that the fractions et quart, et demie and moins le quart are informal and can only be used with 1 to 12. Once you’re into the 24-hour clock, you must use quinze, trente, and quarante-cinq.
Par exemple…
| 1:15 | une heure quinze une heure et quart |
treize heures quinze |
| 3:30 | trois heures trente trois heures et demie |
quinze heures trente |
| 4:45 | quatre heures quarante-cinq cinq heures moins le quart |
seize heures quarante-cinq |
Il est is the only correct phrase for telling time. You cannot say c’est une heure. Also, it doesn’t matter that heure is a feminine noun: il est is impersonal, so you can’t say elle est une heure either.
French Telling Time Quizzes
Think you’ve got it? Test yourself on telling time in French with these fill-in-the-blank exercises:
Note: You must be logged into your Progress with Lawless French account to take these tests. If you don’t have one, sign up – it’s free!
Related features
- Listening practice: Times
- Numbers and counting
- Dates
- Adverbs of time
- Être au rendez-vous
- Impersonal verbs
- Matin vs matinée, soir vs soirée
- Nouns
- PwLF super list of lessons related to time
French lesson plans
- A French newscast (Lesson, 11th-12th grade)
- Un séjour à Paris (Lesson, 10th-12th grade)
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